All language subtitles for 10. The Technical Side of Photography

I'm interested in hearing about

your process and

switching over from shooting film

to digital, and how that changed over
time, because right now I'm only shooting

film

and hoping to get into digital

eventually.

Yeah,

again, I think, because I embraced the
idea that I'm interested in content and

not so much interested in

the technical side of photography

when digital came along.

I mean, I didn't jump into it like
that, but I just said,

it was too obvious that this is what
was going to be,

and I just didn't want to waste time
not getting started.

And I just got started with it.

do I mourn the loss of

my mea camera that six or seven?

I do?

I mean, it was wonderful.

I had a great lens on it.

I had the 140.

It was beautiful.

I took polaroids,

I loved it.

But it was just, it was time to move
on.

I remember, I tell this story a lot,
but in the 70s,

they stopped producing codochrome.

And I know photographers ran to the
stores boxes of photograph stuck.

I'm in their freezers, shut in their
freezers, hoping to keep it.

I just thought it was time to move on,
and tried to figure out how to use

digital as best I could and be secure,
or feel

just remind myself that it was about
what was inside

the image,

and

you'll get there.

I do feel like my experience of
learning in the dark room,

learning black and white film in the
camera,

it had a kind of limitation to it that
helped teach you.

I think being limited

is powerful to begin with.

To have less choice of

what can happen is a good learning tool.

If you do this for a long time,
everything changes.

I'm not embracing it, but I'm learning
about it like everyone else is learning

about it.

I'm like this surprise it's not really
sharp, and

it kind of has this potent sharp.

The thing that bugs me the most is when
I go take a picture,

and I bring the work back to my studio
to

basically render it, or

I can't get what I saw when I shot it
on the back of the camera, it's just

irritating.

And what's worse

is it looks incredible on the screen
and I can't get the output.

And then what?

When you're out there may not
necessarily be what you want when you

get back to

the computer to render it.

You may want it flatter.

You may want to print, sheet it,
flattery may want to open up,

have more latitudes.

So when you go back, you can actually
bring it back down and go dark.

You're back in the dark room, in front
of that computer,

for sure.

I was a little bit curious about your
distinction between.

So you said, for a while you consider
yourself a journalist, but then you're

like, no, that's not really the case.

And reading in one of the books that
you gave us, you mentioned that you

consider yourself no more like a
conceptual artist who uses photography

right now I feel that way very
strongly.

I would like, maybe to know, what do
you think that shift is between

photographer and conceptual artist?

How do you see that?

So, I think the digital,

quite honestly.

I do think the digital, that there's
more play in the photograph itself,

I'm not afraid.

I wanted to look

like it's not played with.

there's definitely work done

to the point where I have to say,

it's

coming to another place,

it's another place.

And

I actually really like it.

I like having that

ability to

maybe change perspective in the
background,

move someone over to the left.

It's a little bizarre.

It's definitely a whole new world.

Yeah,

it's not how you

like, I noticed in some pictures that

the one that you did of Connie and Kim,
and it's from a mere, like, you can see

that, the mirror, but you weren't
there.

Like, did you just Photoshop yourself
out?

I did.

But you know what,

we are really

smart.

We know

something's been worked on or played
with.

It's like, we're not pulling wool over
anyone's eyes.

So, that's a thing about the whole
digital

work now that's coming out, is, I mean,
I can't say when it's blatant,

but it's, like, it is a whole other
kind of genre coming out with the

digital work now that, you know, because

it's like, people, aren't that sharp?

You mean, we're starting to see, like,
well, my god, you see all, you know,

what was the gladiator film, the 300 or
something,

and you will see it.

It was very gory, but it's kind of
incredible, graphically interesting,

you know, how sharp and everything

weird it was.

So things are meant to be

turned upside down and figured out.

I do base my work on traditional

photography and traditional

photographs, but I like taking it
somewhere else.

There was an image that you did of rene
Fleming there appeared to be

like a bit of a blur in it, like, maybe
she was moving that start for that sharp,

not just kid it's not.

I found that to be very encouraging,
because it's such a beautiful image.

I just think it's interesting to hear
that, you know, find, because I took

these books, it wasn't supposed.

She didn't want it to be sharp, but
just,

it wasn't sharp,

you know, 35 millimeter printed on
paper, wasn't sharp.

So, Julia mark Cameron, and I was
trying to explain this, she worked with

this camera that had the long lens, I
wonder.

And a lot of the pictures were soft
with,

you know, her pictures were sort of

soft focused because they were just at
f eight.

And

she just had to find that spot, you
know,

where it was.

Ok,

the great story about that is,

so she died, and she left her equipment
to her son, who became a photographer,

and he became a portrait photographer,
and his pictures were really sharp, or

sharper and cleaner, and they were
boring as hell.

They really weren't very good.

And he never really made it a very good
living.

But she created these little tableaus
that she did with her neighbors.

This is very big.

This is against the wall.

And the back area

you know, very Victorian.

Actually,

I've been looking at these because I've
been thinking about how to photograph

Alice Waters.

Interestingly enough,

who's working in digital.

Here.

Are you finding that you have to be

so critically

shark sharp, and you have to be right on

to

print it?

Because it seems to me, it goes out of
focus

really, really fast and easy.

So

you think, it's digital, everything is
sharp.

It's not, as everything gets

I have an Austrian

assistant, and he says, I know, you're
so sharp

all the way through the shoot he's
telling me he's so sharp, it's like

we're out of folks.

And finally, I just say, don't talk to
me anymore,

because he's like, everything is not
sharp to him.

And I just, you know, one thing I do do
is I go and sit down afterwards, and

they have this sharpening tool, which
is, you know, you're not supposed to

use that, but I do.

I just sharpen it up, i'll go, you know,

it's harder to have things appear,
sharper with the digital, as anyone

else, finding like, you have to be so
critical

with it.

And you would think it's not true, but
it's digital is supposed to be

instantly instantly sharp.

Yeah, especially when you manually
focus using the

otherwise, if you all, like, it's going
to be another thing I feel.

I mean, there are so many features on
cameras now that are kind of amazing.

The autofocus abilities now are
amazing.

But a lot of those smaller little
cameras, those auto focuses

don't really ought to focus,

they're auto focusing on something you
don't particularly want them to auto

focus on.

And I still haven't gotten the hang of
how to move that little

throttle switch around or something.

But there are pictures that are not.

There is either camera movement,

not me.

I wouldn't.

There's no way I would shake you when I
take a picture, and I know how I'm just getting

camera movement.

I move the camera, or the subject is
moved.

I was in monument valley for three
days, and I went all over it.

I rented a helicopter.

I made several side

swipes by the fingers and took
pictures.

And of course, it couldn't help but be
somewhat blurred.

It's bigger than just

being out of focus.

It was really

emotional landscape.

I come from

shooting 35 millimeter,

black and white,

small camera,

I really learned black and white, 400

Asa.

And I knew exactly,

I was never, I can't believe it.

I looked back at that stuff now, and
all of it's out of focus, like it was

at 15th

f, too wide open.

Or

what I found out is,

if the content is important,

you just have to let it go.

And some of it is not going to be,

to be sharp.

I'm a very flat photographer,

mostly putting people at the wall
because I'm afraid to dep the field.

I don't really know, like that, dip the

field thing you have on your cameras.

Has it ever worked for you?

I've never understood.

You have between this and this, are you
learning that

I have to go back to school.

I find one thing to focus on.

And then they pray.

One of the

assignments, or exercises I had in at
art school was

photographing with a blindfold.

And just,

we took a

piece of cloth and wrapped it, wrapped
around our eyes and photographed without

seeing.

And it was an interesting exercise,
because you had the opportunity to see

what it's like to see photographs

not exactly in focus, and just trying to

find that sense

that

is

underneath everything.

And

I recommend doing it in a small room.

Actually, it could be your bedroom.

Just

blindfold yourself and photograph

in a small room and see what it's like
to

see what those photographs look like.

You'll, I think it'll be an interesting
study

in

photographs, being in focus and being
out of focus.

It would be interesting to see

what you think