Image is all

  사진에 관한 내 입장과 가장 가깝다고 여겨지는 새로운 사진 잡지 <PHOTOICON>에 실린 편집장의 글을 소개한다. 조롱인지 진심인지 모를 글 역시 내가 즐기는 것 중에 하나이다. 과연 Image is all...

  The invention of photography - and how it affected the art of painting - has been much discussed over the intervening decades. The fact that it did not mean the end of painting - as predicted by many - is self apparent, but it did have a major impact in one singular way. The ability of photography to capture an exact likeness, of both a human face and a landscape, relieved the painter of a duty he (and with rare exception she) had performed for over 500 years.

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  Although, it peaked in the 18th century, for obvious reasons, the necessity of accurately portraying the features and property of a wealthy individual became increasingly important in matter of inheritance, estate and decent. With the advent of photography, painters were psychologically released to pursue other lines of enquiry and it can be no coincidence that the great movements in experimental painting -such ad impressionism, pointillism and abstraction - occurred within fifty years of photography being established as a reportage medium.

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  Today, photography has had its own seismic shift with the development of the digital camera process. Th SLR film camera, with the many possibilities open to the photographer as regards paper stock and processing techniques, seems to have become redundant almost overnight. Not surprisingly, just as it is impossible to find a stockist of letraset instant type (at on time no graphic studio on earth was without a cabinet full of the stuff) it is getting increasingly difficult to source photographic paper icon. And it takes a courageous photographer, pro or semi-pro, who can ignore the digital revolution completely. But the digital process has, in its turn, released the photographer from the darkroom to pursue their own -other- lines of enquiry. The first result being the buzz of the moment - the manipulate image.

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  Although the DSLR makers have introduced a mind-boggling array of custom override options to their product, it is still a simple matter to open the box, set the camera on 'automatic' and get a result. And once that result, good or bad, is transferred to the computer, then an equally mind-boggling range of options are available to 're-shoot' the image to create virtually any result desired. This has introduced a whole debate in procession - not least from the great names of photography who were - of course - schooled in the pre-digital age. Whereas great men of the lens like Bailey, Snowdon and Elliott Erwitt often refer to their works as 'snap' it is clearly with a more than a little irony, for they are skilled in the matters if shutter speed, F-stops and lenses. Skills that have to be learned to such a degree that they become second nature. In the cameras of the 21st century, these skills are available at the push of the button marked 'beginner' (or was it 'idiot'?) and the results can be impressive, there is no denying it.

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  The supporters of the integrity of film are fighting and admirable rear-guard action. But just as the art of portrait painting is now a sideshow to the main event, the cutting edge of photography is in the hands of a new, much expanded, breed of artists not afraid to experiment with the medium from a totally contemporary perspective. A position where image is (definitely) all...

Joel, M., 2008. Editor's Letter. PHOTOICON, 4(2), P.13.