A Dying Eye Film Photography

[David M]

Nobody’s “better” than Bach. (…although…) At that kind of level, ranking becomes a bit meaningless. He didn’t have a saxophone either. Not even a valved trumpet.
I agree that each generation stands on the shoulders of its predecessor such, a few of whom were giants.
It may be just me, but haven’t we all had a moment when we see how good a print can be and been inspired to follow - to climb on these shoulders, as it were.
We must extend our thanks to Mr Sanderson for stimulating this debate. I’m still hoping he might read all this and reply.

 

[Ian Grant]

I watched the film again and noticed something important that's not specifically mentioned but is implicit, and particularly relevant in this Forum.

That's the way using LF changes how you think, you approach the image making with a vision of the final output. In the film Andrew contrasts this to shooting with a Digital camera, but I think it goes back way further to the approach of many 35mm photographers where film was once cheap.

I know from experience that once I began shooting LF for my personal work that quickly had a profound effect on how I shot with a 35mm camera, and to some extent MF as well. I would add that can also trans;ate to how you shoot with a Digital camera.

Going back to Andrew's comments he's really talking about what Ansel Adams and Minor White term pre-visualisation, I think we know at the time of shooting when we've made a great image. Over the years I can't remember being disappointed, it's not something that happens frequently.

Ian

 

[thronobulax]

Then I switched the music back to soothing Bach and reflected again.

The train of thought in the video suggests that Bach was somehow better than Beethoven because Bach did not have a piano. We would have lost a great deal without Bach's Harpsichord works and maybe Beethoven needed to 'stand on Bach's shoulders' to write his piano pieces.

Wendy

<Veering briefly off topic ...>

I have had the great privilege of having the opportunity to perform Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Handel, et al in a touring choir in my collegiate days. They are all of them different and contribute wondrous things to the human experience. That said, IMHO, J.S. Bach stands alone as first among equals. Not only is his writing incredibly delicate and articulate, there is always more going on than what is written. The parts when sung (or played) provide one sense of motion and direction. But as they play against each other, they create something that isn't expressed in the notes directly and realized only during the performance. Surely, there is a Heaven and the celestial choir performs under Bach's baton ...

 

[David M]

We have Bach down here already. This world is as good as it’s going to get. Our job is to stop it getting any worse. An uphill task at the moment.

I discovered one more thing to extract from Mr Sanderson’s brief essay.
He notes that people send him digital prints without including return postage and he interprets this to mean that the senders consider their work to be valueless.
An alternative view is that the the image itself is much more valuable than the piece of paper that carries it. A clear distinction between content and container is obvious here. We might draw yet another comparison with music. The score is one thing, but it can be reprinted at will, as often as needed. The music is the thing.
If we’ve had too many musical metaphors, we might consider literature, where the same thing applies. It’s the story, the poem, the play, that are valuable.
All this is not to discount the antique value of original manuscripts. There is certainly a market in these. But would we rather look at the manuscript of The Magic Flute or Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, or would we like to hear the music?