Using Photography to Understand Transition from Analog to Digital

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Guys - I'm currently in Los Angeles for an event at Capitol Studios (that I'll write about soon), but want to let you know about a really interesting event taking place out here in Santa Monica at The Audio Salon on Thursday evening (Oct. 05, 2017). Photographer Vincent Dixon will be talking about photography and music. Here's a little text from Vincent, touching on what he will discuss at the event:

 

"I think it was Cecil Beaton who said that most photographers were frustrated musicians. 

 

A glance at most audio magazines reveals that it is sometimes easier to explain audio concepts using visual metaphors. I’d like to use that to talk about the audio recording process in photographic terms where the  lens is a microphone, the light is the room, film an analog source and digital is digital. Digital photography has come a long way in the last 15 years and perhaps gives us insight as to where digital audio is going.

 

To make it fun we’ll do a portrait shoot to demonstrate these concepts."

 

If anyone can make it, I recommend going. I'll probably be on a plane to Denver for RMAF when this event starts, but I'm already feeling the need to stay and fly to Denver early Friday am. 

 

Info:

The Audio Salon

Vincent Dixon

 

P.S. Here are some images Vincent shot for dCS a few years ago.

 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

An interesting topic, having interests in both music and photography, I also see the parallels between the two.

 

It has been said that photographers paint with light. In this parallel I would see light as the audio/music signal and perhaps the canvass as the room.

 

Both talk in terms of tone colors, dynamic range, contrast. Both have objective measurements in the various parameters but are ultimately judged by the perceptual experience.

 

Both are a form of art based on science IMO.

 

The guy behind the camera is more important than the camera just as the musician is to the instrument yet either useless without the other.

[foodfiend]

I do remember the infancy of digital photography, when colours did not render well, and images were blotchy. Those were the days when film still reigned supreme. The richness of tone, the dynamic range, the subtlety of the shadow detail were some of the criticisms levelled at digital photos then.

 

I guess the same can be said about digital audio. Many earlier CD-players were accused of being harsh, flat, and lifeless.

 

It all comes back down to the ability to extract greater detail and resolution in the data, and the algorithms to help convert between analogue and digital, and back.

[lucretius]

27 minutes ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

The guy behind the camera is more important than the camera just as the musician is to the instrument yet either useless without the other.

 

The counterpart to the photographer is the recording engineer, not the musician.  There is both fine art photography and representational photography, the latter being the one presenting objective reality rather than the subjective intent of the photographer. I would hope that mastering a recording is more like representational photography than fine art photography. 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

12 minutes ago, lucretius said:

 

The counterpart to the photographer is the recording engineer, not the musician.  There is both fine art photography and representational photography, the latter being the one presenting objective reality rather than the subjective intent of the photographer. I would hope that mastering a recording is more like representational photography than fine art photography. 

 

The way I see it is:

Instrument > Musician > Audio Engineer

Camera > Photographer > Photographic editor/ Photoshop

 

In any case I don't see the style of recording confined to musician/photographer vs audio engineer/photo editor but rather a collaboration. Sometimes the intent is literal sometimes abstract.

[lucretius]

1 hour ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 

The way I see it is:

Instrument > Musician > Audio Engineer

Camera > Photographer > Photographic editor/ Photoshop

 

In any case I don't see the style of recording confined to musician/photographer vs audio engineer/photo editor but rather a collaboration. Sometimes the intent is literal sometimes abstract.

 

The musician creates objective reality (sound).  The photographer (like the recording engineer) records objective reality, with or without "subjective interpretation".

[lucretius]

Can you hear a photo?  See a sound?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

11 hours ago, lucretius said:

Can you hear a photo? 

 

Yes, when it falls off the wall crashing to the ground

 

11 hours ago, lucretius said:

See a sound?

 

Yes, when the big bass wave knocks the photo off the wall.

 

Oh, and there is The Moody Blues, Search for the lost Chord - Departure

  Be it sight, sound, the smell, the touch.
There's something,
Inside that we need so much,
The sight of a touch, or the scent of a sound 

--------

Lucretius, you have lost me a little on this one. Musician, photographer, and engineer can all create as well as record *events*. Indeed most photographers would be insulted by being reduced to mere "recorders of objective reality". True, they don't physically create the external objects being photographed. I get that.

 

However, the image they *create* can be more or less of a literal representation or alternatively something unrecognizable as what the eye would see as "objective reality".

 

The camera sees the world differently to the human eye and provides a medium for creativity by manipulating how it sees the world. I suppose I could also argue that the musician doesn't actually *create the physical sound* either, the *instrument* does... and the musician manipulates that process in a creative way.

 

I see both processes equally creative in their own right.

[lucretius]

audio recording process in photographic terms

1 hour ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Lucretius, you have lost me a little on this one. Musician, photographer, and engineer can all create as well as record *events*. Indeed most photographers would be insulted by being reduced to mere "recorders of objective reality". True, they don't physically create the external objects being photographed. I get that.

 

However, the image they *create* can be more or less of a literal representation or alternatively something unrecognizable as what the eye would see as "objective reality".

 

The camera sees the world differently to the human eye and provides a medium for creativity by manipulating how it sees the world. I suppose I could also argue that the musician doesn't actually *create the physical sound* either, the *instrument* does... and the musician manipulates that process in a creative way.

 

I see both processes equally creative in their own right.

 

Photojournalists take pictures that tell stories, but they capture a good representation of the objective reality, albeit in an interesting way.  Wedding photographers also capture a good representation of objective reality, although in a way that flatters (I could go on). It's only the fine art photographers that would create something unrecognizable as what the eye would see as "objective reality".  Yes, creativity is involved in all the foregoing cases.  Further, I would also argue that there is creativity involved in the job of the recording engineer through the creative use of technologies (manipulating the recording using equalization, electronic effects, mixing, and reinforcement of sound, etc.).

 

The way I see it, photographers (except for fine art photographers) are much more like recording engineers than musicians -- they both want to produce the best masters they can.  OTH, one could argue that fine art photographers are more akin to musicians, creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts, expressing the author's imagination and intended to be appreciated for its beauty or emotional power. Nonetheless, from the perspective of discussing the "audio recording process in photographic terms" (per the OP), I think it is the comparison of the photographer to the recording engineer that is more salient here.

[Ralf11]

I guess we all need to ask ourselves if we are still listening to wet plates

[lucretius]

13 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I guess we all need to ask ourselves if we are still listening to wet plates

 

Maybe in the 19th century.

 

 

 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

16 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I guess we all need to ask ourselves if we are still listening to wet plates

 Only if they fall to the floor, they make a thumping noise. The real question is if there is nobody there to hear it was it really a thump at all ?

[mav52]

12 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

 Only if they fall to the floor, they make a thumping noise. The real question is if there is nobody there to hear it was it really a thump at all ?

Does a tree falling on your house count, Irma dropped a limb on my home, I didn't see it, but I heard it, the crackling of limbs and a big thud and then the sound of silence.  I went outside and there it was.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

6 hours ago, mav52 said:

Does a tree falling on your house count, Irma dropped a limb on my home, I didn't see it, but I heard it, the crackling of limbs and a big thud and then the sound of silence.  I went outside and there it was.

 

Sorry to hear (no pun intended) about your misfortune - the answer would be yes, I have now heard (about) it from the other side of the planet. Hope the repairs went well and trust no one was injured. Cheers

[jabbr]

21 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

I guess we all need to ask ourselves if we are still listening to wet plates

 

Sign, I have a collection of Deardorff's. Still "working". Wonderful photos. Who's got time for this with kids?

[The Computer Audiophile]

The event is kicking off now. 

[rando]

Curious what, if any connections, he makes to white balance.  

 

 

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

6 hours ago, rando said:

Curious what, if any connections, he makes to white balance.  

 

 

 

good question.

 

How many people calibrate their audio systems and how would you do it?

[marce]

In my case not with ears, as my top end hearing as diminished with age... So I would do it like I set up my monitors for colour (colormunki), with some kit.

I would say that today digital photography allows me more freedom to catch the image I want and more importantly digitally develop what I have taken in lightroom to create the final image. The end result is indistinguishable from a film image, especially if I add some grain to the end result and de-sharpen a little:)

[mansr]

3 hours ago, marce said:

The end result is indistinguishable from a film image, especially if I add some grain to the end result and de-sharpen a little:)

That's like adding hiss and ticks to an audio recording to simulate vinyl.

[rando]

Studio suites have long outpaced PS in the ability to make something 60 years old transform into a poreless model of perfection or a complete hacks work shine like jewels.  Or if one is really determined, the full hipstersham vignetting and digital filter gag.   

 

Where the digital equivalent of artistically showing the untouched photographic negative starts to be possible in music, or photography for that matter, remains a valid question.  Using photography to understand the transition from analog to digital has to address RAW files do not currently offer any means of true reproduction.  Every program from the official free/premium manufacturer's through scammy shareware and professional suites above Adobe PS decode the image uniquely.  Straight from camera, no way around it.  The smart cookies are thinking about tethered live views and previews on the camera's screen.  Close but no cigar, an approximation or preview.  Close to what a good program will spit out when it's done manipulating the image.  A bit large of a subject to spring on Chris or even tackle at such an event.  If not the keystone, certainly a load bearing structural concern.

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, rando said:

Where the digital equivalent of artistically showing the untouched photographic negative starts to be possible in music, or photography for that matter, remains a valid question.  Using photography to understand the transition from analog to digital has to address RAW files do not currently offer any means of true reproduction.  Every program from the official free/premium manufacturer's through scammy shareware and professional suites above Adobe PS decode the image uniquely.  Straight from camera, no way around it.

The raw file is better likened to undeveloped film. The processing into a usable negative already involves choices.

[jabbr]

7 hours ago, marce said:

The end result is indistinguishable from a film image, especially if I add some grain to the end result and de-sharpen a little:)

 

I think the crossover point of 35mm is roughly 10 megapixels — clearly the latest digital sensors have higher resolution and the newest lenses are super sharp. Medium format the same with 100 megapixels. Now large format is different but that really gets into art in terms of preference, provenance etc — sort of like arguing over oils vs acrylic. 

[wgscott]

7 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

How many people calibrate their audio systems and how would you do it?

 

https://www.dirac.com/room-calibration/

[rando]

9 minutes ago, mansr said:

The raw file is better likened to undeveloped film. The processing into a usable negative already involves choices.

 

Ah, can your digital camera use multiple types of RAW files for documentation?  The film camera process starts with the ever crucial  film selection.  

 

It was intended more as a thought exercise.  RAW files are not a negative or a positive or anything that matches a direct physical relationship.  Expressing the digital process in film camera terms is the first mental hurdle that needs to cleared.  The camera industry is still fighting the fact most of their customers have a film mindset heavily ingrained.  Fighting to keep it that way.  Parallels to audio get imaginative quickly as the only relative film cameras used batteries.  Fun for a quick talk with engaging little points and free drinks though.