Richard Ehrlich

PHOTOGRAPHY IS DEAD, LONG LIVE PHOTOGRAPHY

The political aphorism “The king is dead, long live the king” was first used following the accession of the French King Charles VII in 1422 as a means to ensure that monarchical succession would pass unimpeded from one generation to another, thus assuring continuity.

Metaphorically analogous to that statement, the proclamation “photography is dead, long live photography” underscores the inexorable migration of photography into the digital era – as one technology dies, another technology survives in a new form. With the advent of the digital camera in the 1980s, photography was “reborn” into a singular new art form.

Historically speaking, the oldest surviving photograph made with a camera dates from 1826: “View From the Window at Le Gras,” a heliogram by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, installed in the University of Texas at Austin. The image is almost 196 years old.

The optical science underlying photography was hypothesized in Renaissance Europe and during the Islamic Golden Age. Though speculative but unproven, the “Shroud of Turin” is conceivably the first proto-photograph ever made. It dates from the 13th or 14th century, many hundreds of years before Niépce, and is attributed to none other than Leonardo da Vinci. Research into the pre-history of photography includes Aristotle’s depiction of the camera obscura in the 4th century BC as well as other conjectures. If accurate, belief in the possibility of “photography” had already been present for millennia. 1

With that as background, photography has had an extraordinarily profound impact and influence on civilization and modern society. It was the first truly revolutionary means of reproduction. Literature about photography and its history is voluminous and inexhaustible, with streams of metaphors describing it as “photography as truth,” “photography as fiction,” “photography as trace,” “photography as evidence,” “photography as analogy,” etc.

Analog photography has had multiple fascinating movements over time – pictorialism, post-modernism, abstract expressionism, post-conceptualism, neo-expressionism, pictures generation, etc. The introduction of color was a significant game-changer as well.

What is essential to appreciate is that photography is not and has never been a purely mimetic medium or depiction of reality (documentary and journalistic photography excluded). In 1840 in the nascent years of photography, Hippolyte Bayard created his “Self Portrait as a Drowned Man,” demonstrating that photography was not simply about reproducing reality. Although rarely recognized as such, photographic abstraction was born in that era as the embodiment of the push/pull between the literal and the abstract. It is noteworthy that abstract photography preceded abstract painting by almost half a century.

In the ensuing 181 years, abstract photography has become recognized as a beacon of artistic endeavor exemplified by the recent exhibit “Shape of Light: 100 Years of Photography and Abstract Art” at the Tate Modern in London.

In my presentation at The Annenberg Space for Photography in 2012 entitled “Ansel Adams Would Have Loved Photoshop,” the thesis was that photography was never mimetic but subject to interpretation, alteration and imagination. Examples abound in many iconic images: Roger Fenton moving cannonballs in position on the road in 1855, Robert Capa’s “Falling Soldier” unearthed as apocryphal, Yves Klein’s “Leap Into the Void” as staged, among countless other notorious examples. Strauss stated that “photographs are and have always been more fiction than fact.” 1

Understanding of photography’s role in reproduction must acknowledge that photography is more than a snapshot in time, influenced by a multitude of factors, including but not limited to: the type of camera and lens used, film type, f-stop, distance, position, lighting, exposure, contrast and tonal alterations in the darkroom. Richard Avedon captured this concept with the brilliant observation that “All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.” The New York Times further expounded that “Photography is always about manipulation from the moment you point the camera in one direction and not another.” Franz Kafka went as far as declaring that “Nothing can be so deceiving as a photograph.”

Following the explosion of the digital age, the doctrine of “creative destruction” by Joseph Schumpeter was realized with the bankruptcy of Kodak and Polaroid. Who would have imagined that these two giant pioneers would suffer such an ignominious demise due to the rise of the digital format. 2

As an updated validation of this maxim, and with the ubiquity of the high-resolution cell phone camera worldwide, the DSLR market has collapsed in favor of the mirrorless camera.

However, overall camera sales have cratered, forcing Nikon to stop camera production in Japan after 70 years and moving production to Thailand due to their dire financial situation. The future of the dedicated camera is fraught, providing another poignant example of the relentless technological disruption of the contemporary photographic landscape.

I dwell on this as a preamble to explain why the beginning of the digital era ushered in a new “artform.” Purists of analog imaging often refer to the digital image as “manipulation” in a pejorative sense, not acknowledging, as explained above, that photography was always about manipulation from start to finish. As another example: witness Ansel Adams’ dark room technique changing with time in the famous 1941 image “Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico,” with the sky darkening as he aged, the artist’s vision changing over time.

These observations are not intended to denigrate analog imaging but simply to depict it in realistic terms, as some formalists continue to trivialize the digital image as “fauxtography.” In fact, the analog print continues to enjoy a highly respected position in the photographic realm, but more as a niche endeavor, practiced by a committed cadre of devotees who continue to do interesting work with older technologies. Vintage photography is still a highly prized medium – witness the recent Sotheby’s sale of 200 images by William Henry Fox Talbot for $1.95 million, arguably the most important lot of 19th century photographs to ever come to market.

The first digital image made on a computer was in 1957, the first digital camera was introduced in 1975, and the first sold commercially in 1987 – thus the momentous “rebirth” or “Big Bang” of the new photography. By contrast, the industrial revolution took over 100 years. This watershed moment of digital imaging is clearly a tectonic explosion in a highly compressed time frame. Its dramatic impact continues unabated and tests the limits of our imagination.

Statistics are warranted, elaborating on the veritable explosion of imaging and a world obsessed with photographs – replacing chemistry with code and paper with pixels. What constitutes a photograph has been redefined, as a tangible, hand-held image is no longer the gold standard.

In 1970 it was estimated that mankind as a whole took 10 billion photographs. Updated, someone quipped on Twitter: “Neil Armstrong lands on the moon – five pictures. Girl goes to Starbucks – 46 pictures!” In 2021, humanity will take 1,440,000,000,000,000 images – that’s over 1,440 trillion (yes, 12 zeros!). It is projected that in 2022 there will be an 8.3% increase to 1,559 trillion.

Stated another way, more photographs are now taken every day than in the first 100 years of photography’s existence. People nowadays see more images before lunch than people in the nineteenth century saw during their entire lifetime. It’s analogous to trying to grasp and process the existence of over 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe – defying comprehension. One can only fantasize as to what the following years will bring as technology continues to progress.

Of momentous impact has been the introduction of Photoshop in 1987. The ability to enhance, optimize and transform imaging has been revolutionary. The platform in 16-bit offers a mind-boggling 32,000 shades of gray and 16.8 million color possibilities, lending unsurpassed control of hue, saturation and luminosity – a capability infinitely superior to what can be achieved in the darkroom. The program facilitates and maximizes the artistic vision and imagination of the photographer.

With the ubiquity of the cell phone camera worldwide, Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Google, Snapchat and more platforms to come, how does one envision photography going forward? Instagram has over 1 billion active users, each spending an average of 28 minutes a day on the platform with more than 50 billion photographs uploaded so far. This is compounded by the fact that the market is flooded with a host of other image capturing devices like drones, tablets, GoPros, nanny cams and web cams. Artificial intelligence (AI) is now capable of making photo selections, editing, keywording and tagging images.

With the introduction of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) utilizing blockchain technology, digital fantasy has reached new heights – its importance, relevance and sustainability remaining an open question.

Every square inch of earth seems to have been photographed. And witness the wondrous images captured by NASA’s Ingenuity from a helicopter on Mars in April 2021!

Amazingly, the Event Horizon Telescope synthesized the first-ever image of a black hole in 2019 – part photograph, part algorithm, part statistics – a new form of ineffable scientific imagery.

One might question what is happening to all those digital images. The projected number of photographs stored in 2021 is 8.2956 trillion with a 12% projected increase in 2021 to over 9 trillion. Note the word “stored,” not seen, managed, printed, protected, or migrated forward to be compatible with updated devices. Try to play a Betamax tape today as an example!

Unsurprisingly, not everyone is enamored with the ubiquity of imaging and a backlash has ensued. A chorus of naysayers refer to it as a “deluge of psychic numbing,” “a terrorization,” “an inundation” and a “literal drowning in imaging.” Mishka Henner, a Belgian born artist stated: “There’s an absurdity of living in an age when everything is photographed.” 3

It’s almost as if our brain has been biologically rewired from this onslaught.

Of further concern, studies have been done, mainly with the cell phone, indicating that the photographer is acting like a casual observer rather than a full participant and has little recollection of the experience thereafter. They recall few details from artworks they had photographed in museums from those they had simply observed and remembered. The “selfie” has become all-consuming. Om Malik suggested that “in the future we will photograph everything and look at nothing.” 4

These observations underscore the premise that neither technology is superior nor inferior, but rather inherently different, and that digital imaging is, pari passu, simply a new transformative art form. Each has its own singular wonders and drawbacks.

It is time to lay to rest the question as to whether photography qualifies as “ART.” It clearly has been elevated to equal status with the other arts. Photography is art and document and everything in between, and every area of human activity is touched by it.

In the long arc of history, photography is the most influential and transcendent art form extant, clearly equivalent but arguably surpassing the Gutenberg press of 1440 in its societal impact and in shaping the visual language of modernity.

This extensive overview is the predicate for understanding the genesis of Homage to Rothko project, where imagination reigns.

1 Photography and Belief – David Levi Strauss, David Zwirner. Books 2020.

2 Schumpeter, Joseph: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London: Routledge, pages 82-32, 2011.

3 NYTimes, 8/30/2015, page 15.

4 New Yorker, 4/10/2016.