Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Web publishing and press quality

Digital evolution puts everything in numbers. Many relevant materials are quantitative, from pitch of a screen, resolution of printing, resolution human eye can perceive, resolving power of an optical system, megapixels of a censor can register, how fast bits can be generated, calculated, and transfer.........
It is hard to say if we are finally at the pinnacle of digital image, or are we nearing it. It seemed the difference between tools is fast becomes meaningless, at least for the mass market. Today, there are professional producing jaw dropping quality images took by the state of the art instrument cost tens of thousands dollars that were minimized in a common web gallery, yes, with higher quality of original image it is more flexible for different purpose. At the same time, digital artists found a new venue to explore their ceativity, using the simpliest tool that cost a small fraction of investment of those professional, also capable of exhibiting seemingly high quality on the mass media, the WWW.
But does this means the quality is no longer a pursuit? Hardly not. Quality is a state of self-commitment, and something one needs to build the next break through.
Image for example, this one taken with Phase One P45 on Contax 645, mounted with Carl Zeiss Sonnar 210/4, capturing great detail of the model and those hairy waterdrops in the background, someting you need a large image to display such detail, on common web screen, it easily pass as another otherwise common image.
And the detail here.

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