Fred Ritchin in "Into The Digital" from After Photography, Jorge Ribalta in "Molecular Documents" from The Meaning of Photography, and Corey Dzenko in "Analog to Digital" from Afterimage all pose different view points on the shift from analog photography in to the realm of digital photography.
Fred Ritchin, I feel, gave the most straightforward breakdown of the analog to digital transition. He ultimately does not quite take a personal stance on which he feels is "better" or more relatable to photography's original indexicality (realism), but rather he lists what has changed in the movement from film to digital. What he focuses on is the fact that photography, and the way in which we view photography, has changed dramatically. As you can see in the above diagram, Ritchin broke down the distinguishable characteristics between analog and digital photography. Here is what he came up with:
Analog: Digital:
- Substance - Code and bytes
- Organic - Geometric
- Rottable - Infinite
- Original - Non-original
- Nature-based (real) - Representation of the real (nature)
- Linear (time) - Non-linear
- Tone imprint - Changeable pixels
As you can see, some of these are pros, some are cons, but some points are just fact, and seem to present no argument for or against either analog or digital practices of photography. The way in which Ritchin addresses the digital real is almost a mix between how Dzenko sees the digital real (representational) and how Ribalta sees the digital real (different from analogous real, but still a level of reality). Ritchin states that we have compressed the real world into a 2D rendering of reality in a confined box (camera screen, photograph, computer screen, etc.) This "rendering of reality" is created because we still can see trees and people and objects in the digital photographs, but the linearity is removed (this may be a digital composite of objects that never existed in the same frame at the same time) and the light that was reflected off of these objects through the camera lens was not burned away on silver, but rather imprinted and changed into code and bytes to be read as an electronic rendering of "this is a tree" and "this is a human" and "this is a car". Though we still see the photograph as reality, it is quite a different reality than when we view an analog print. With the digital, we are looking at a compilation of thousands upon thousands of small, colored squares, whereas with the analog, we are looking at pieces of organic, randomly shaped grain that create the "tone imprint" Richtin previously mentioned. Ultimately, Richtin leaves it up to the reader whether they want to view this changed photography as a step up from analog, a step down, or just a change.
Jorge Ribalta is a little more opinionated in his discussion of the analog and digital, but he bases his ideas of this changed medium on the same points that Richtin makes when talking about photography's transition. Ribalta seems to be more biased toward the solidity of the analog, but won't deny the fact that photography is no longer analog and needs to then be rendered accordingly because we cannot keep looking at the digital in the same way in which we viewed the analog. One of his main arguments for the analog is that there is a direct relationship between the object and the photo and the viewer, that a viewer looks at this analogous photograph and sees that this tree exists in this spot at the exact point in time the shutter opened and closed, and now here it is, shown before them on paper in a realistic duplication of that instance in nature. However with these digital ideas, they become disposable: the photographer can take a picture of the tree, delete it, take another, delete it, take another, merge it with another photo, and present it as a realistic moment in time. In doing so, the relationship with the photo has been distanced and the linearity has been broken. This is the reality of the digital. Okay, says Ribalta, since "Documentary realism is the status power of photography" then we need to come up with a separate realism to pair with digital photography. With photoshop and the ability to edit photographs from their original form, the analogous reality disappears, and photography dies. This is where the photographic (the immortal aura of photography in its cultural and social effects of on people; photography's ghost, still floating among society) is born, in that we need realism, and we will always view photography as realistic (well, maybe we won't always view it as realistic, but as of now, we still heavily do), then we must reinvent this realism. Ribalta's idea is for a molecular realism. This molecular realism is based off of Felix Guattari's view of the changes in political revolution, going from a unified, homogeneous group, to a "molecular revolution" where these political view points scatter and each take up a separate stance. Ribalta states "A molecular realism involves overcoming the opposition between documentary and fiction and reinventing documentary methods based on the negotiation of the relationship between author [photographer] and spectator." As an example of this molecular realism in practice, Ribalta uses Jo Spence, who made the statement "If we truly want to democratize how meanings are produced in images, we need to realize that all those practices available to the professional, from the high street photographer, through to advertising photography, to avant-garde image/text art photography can all be appropriated right into the living room." Basically, Spence is saying that photographs can be created with a meaning that embodies the way the average person may see the image. In doing so, this molecular realism is put into play and the way people view the realism in photographs can be controlled in the way the photographs are taken. Again, Ribalta sees this analog-to-digital in relation to reality as a call for changing the way in which we view these photographs and their reality.
Also touching on photography's indexical role, is Corey Dzenko. His main argument is that yes, although photography has gone from a film base to a digital base, and although the tools for its creation have changed, the act of viewing the photographs has not. He says that digital photographs are still read as reality; that people don't look at a digital photograph and immediately question its legitimacy based solely on the fact that it was captured or rendered digitally. Dzenko does admit that whereas the analog is straight documentary, and it is physical and carries with it the weight of substance, that digital is merely representational, symbolic, and iconic. However, he goes on to discuss the ways in which we have moved from the analog to the digital, and that it has not been a jump, but a slow, somewhat smooth integration of the two processes into each other. He gives the example of the newspapers (ones that have no print versions now but are solely online), where people read the same stories and see the same photographs set up in the same style and the same places on their screen as they would see on the physical paper. The title is still at the top, with the date below it, and below that, columns of text with photographic integration. The process of reading the article is the exact same, albeit the fact that one is now looking at a lit screen instead of physical newsprint. Dzenko says that because we have smoothly integrated ourselves into this digital realm, we still view analog and digital photographs the same, and take each of their realities as, well, reality. His views do differ greatly from those of Ritchin and Ribalta in saying that there really is not much of a change, but he does also admit that sometimes people do not take digital as reality and that there is the potential for people to not believe digital in the future, although at this point, this has not yet widely happened (and he references the fact that even analog photography has not always been completely truthful in its representation of "reality).
I have had somewhat similar views to all three writers here, differing at some points but agreeing in others. As for the index of photography being that it is perceived as real, I have always had a problem with this. Even in the late 19th century, photographs were being staged (people were dressed in indian costumes and told to pose with a gun behind a rock wall, or dressed as a "poor Egyptian" and posed amongst massive Egyptian sculptures, etc) and these photographs were told off as reality, that this is what the world is like because how can it not be? We have photos!! So even if the photograph shows exactly what was in front of the camera when the shutter opened and closed, I don't believe that this should be taken for a different type of reality. I am not yet sure what type of reality that would be, but I believe that there is a photographic reality (this unaltered image of what was burned into the film) and an actual reality (what is real outside of the frame; the reality that comes with the linearity of time). Because there is not just one umbrella of reality, nothing can then be taken as a perfect reproduction of an event in time (this also includes the fact that somebody is taking the photograph, and therefore chooses what to frame, what to crop out, the angle the photograph is taken at, the focal point, and later, whether it should be color or black and white). Not only can photography not be taken as a perfection of a representation of reality, but even things seen with our own eyes, without the barrier of a lens or ground glass, can be a warped sense of reality (magicians have been playing with this concept since, well, whenever perception of the eye was discovered. Maybe this is how Jesus performed "miracles"?) Anyway, in the discussion of analog versus digital not dealing with reality, I have mixed feelings. The pros and cons have been long talked about, with convenience, cost, tonality, crispness, quality, etc, but with these points, at least at the point we are at in the digital realm, it is all subjective and opinions. I do believe, however, that film will never be completely obsolete, albeit harder and harder and more expensive to find/use.
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