Digital vs. Traditional Art.

This question came up last week, in Yahoo Answers. I will paraphrase it to avoid copyright infringement issues, but, it is another one of those recurring themes in YA.

Is it important to address thought provoking concepts as well as produce amazing imagery in digital art?

Would the Mona Lisa have the same cultural impact if da Vinci created it in in Photoshop?

Addressing the main question: It CAN be important, but, there are no RULES governing whether or not digital art is required to "provoke" any kind of thought. Sometimes all an image needs to hang on a wall, is to look pretty.

Here's the issue I have with the question: The esthetics of digital art are are NO DIFFERENT than those of "traditional" art. The software and equipment of the digital artist are no more than tools. Really no different, in essence, than other tools used by artists for centuries. What makes the results of using these or any other media, art, is the in the skill of the user, the artist weilding them. I have pointed out, for years, that in order to be a good digital artist, one has to be a good artist first. Just because Photoshop, for example, has all kinds of filters to create fancy effects, it doesn't mean an untrained hand can just open up the program and the application will create good art for the user. Filters and graphic tablets and vector drawing tools don't make the artist. But a good artist will be able to use these tools to create. Think of it this way: Just because someone figured out how to wrap graphite in a wooden case, it did not that make the creative process any different from the times when all an artist had was the burnt end of a stick. When people discovered that they could create more colors than "blood" red and "charcoal" black, did it mean that color paint made creating good art any easier? Did the invention of acrylic based paints usher in a "new" esthetic in art?

The advent of digital tools merely introduces another medium. No more. And, I'm confident that the future will introduce newer ones yet. I look forward to "painting" with colored bubbles that hang suspended and still in the air. I can't wait to be able to draw with a "flashlight" up in the night sky. Did you know that there is a digital 3D "printer" that can create a full, 3D object based on a digital model?

Finally, the question about the "cultural impact" of a theoretical digital Mona Lisa created by a contemporary da Vinci: Who could say? Did that painting have the impact at the time of it's creation as it has now, hundreds of years later? Will Disney's "Toy Story," or "Beauty and the Beast" have a great impact 500 years from now? When one considers the iconic influence Disney's "Steamboat Willy" has on today's animators, less than a hundred years later, looking at todays digital art through the lens of 500 years, these attempts may either be viewd as "quaint," or "pioneering," or, be viewed and judged by the SAME esthetic sense humans have used for as long as humans recognized art for art's sake.

Look, most "thought provoking" art may create headlines for a while, but, those "pretty pictures" are what hang on people's walls, decorate calendars, and endure, as icons, for a lot longer time. Picasso's "Guernica" may be referenced from time to time, but virtually NO ONE has a copy hanging on the living room wall. Heck, by these standards, black velvet bullfighter and Elvis paintings are more popular than Picasso's works. And I'll share a secret with you: I do NOT believe that "good" art should be claimed by the elite "esthetes" of the upper class.

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Today's sample images are more of my photographic work.

"Serendipity" is a great word. It sounds so much better, to a photographer, than admitting one was, merely "lucky."

I was coming home from a photoshoot in California's "Gold County, out side of Yosemite last Summer. I observed some smoke on the horizon, vaguely West as I approached Pacheco Pass between Los Banos and Gilroy. I'm not an "ambulace chaser," by nature and I'm a firm believer in staying out of the way of the professionals who's jobs it is to save lives and property. I had no intention of hunting down the source of that smoke.

But, there I was, on the main highway when, more and more, it looked like it was taking me closer and closer to the fire. Sure enough, as I approached the summit of the pass, I could see flames licking at the ridge top and then, on the other side, much of the mountain side engulfed in smoke and fire. Not more than two or three hundred yards to the highway's North side, trees and grass were going up. I could see fire equipment, some firefighters and helicopters dumping retardant.

Traffic on the road hadn't been stopped, but, it was slowing to a crawl. I guess wind direction kept the smoke and fire away from us. I knew better that to stop adjacent the fire site. However, as I passed the main section, I drove by what I assumed to be the original source: A car, parked on the shoulder, completely burnt, down to the metal shell and the black, charred grass, leading from it, up the slope to the main body of the fire. Within a half mile of that shell, was a turn off, leading to a frontage road that lead, on the other side of the highway, about half way back toward the buring mountain.

I took it to the end, parked my car and unloaded my camera. I installed my newly purchased zoom lens and proceded to snap away at images of the smoke, fire, and distant helicopters as they buzzed about, dropping bucket loads of retardant. Even with the big lens, the best I could capture was small, distant images of the helicopters, but what I thought were great shots of the hillside engulfed in smoke. I noted one of the choppers peel off after dumping it's load, presumably to refill it's bucket. But, to my surprise, it kept coming right at me. Closer and closer yet. It finally came down, not more than 50 to 75 yards from me. (about double in size in the frame from the one shown, here. It landed a few feet from what I thought was a Forest Service water tanker. It turned out that the chopper was getting FUEL from this truck, not water. I got some shots of that process, but, for this sample, I thought that the suspended bucket made for a much more dramatic shot.

Just lucky ... I mean ... serendipitous, I guess.

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More serendipity? Just caught a nearly full moon, rising from behind a local mausoleum, me and my long lens lined up just right?

Naw! Blatantly Photoshopped. Both the moon's and the building's photos are mine, but the moon was shot, hand held, but sharp thanks to my Canon Xsi's Image Stabilization feature and the mausoleum was shot in full daylight. The building was cropped away from the daytime sky, brightness dimmed and contrast bumped WAY the heck up. The background was replaced with the moon and night sky.

Who, among you all can catch the obvious "tell" that this is NOT a natural photo?

Note the direction of the highlight on the dome and copolla. The moon should have been placed on the OTHER side of the dome. Mea Culpa. I was in too much of a hurry to make the effect. REAL rookie mistake.

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Bye, for now.

Luv,

vince