Yesterday I had the fortune to visit the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. While I am far from an art buff, I remember learning about some of her paintings in Junior High art class, and feeling an affinity for her work. Of course, I have seen her paintings reproduced in books, magazines, and online. They do not compare to seeing the actual work. Kahlo was able to create a sense of physical depth in places that made the figures seem like they were sticking out of the frame. At one painting in particular, I put my head next to the wall to make sure what I was looking at was in fact only 2-dimensional. I have experienced this effect at other art exhibits. This is something that I have never seen with a photograph, or any reprint of a painting.
This got me thinking....
When I think of most art these days, my thoughts immediately go to the digital. Even if it is something created by hand, my first idea would be digitize it, put it online. It almost didn't seem real to me if it is not published online. I think that attitude of mine may have changed yesterday.
I already mentioned above that all the qualities of the original paintings can not be captured or reproduced, but there is more.....
A section of museum was dedicated to photographs from Kahlo's personal photo albums. While I feel these probably could be reproduced rather faithfully, I found myself absorbed by the these photographs in a way that I probably wouldn't be if they were digital displays. Some of the photos were torn. Some of the photos had handwritten notes or doodles added to them. Not only were the frozen images enabling me to peer through time, but knowing that these actual prints had travelled through time as well made the experience that much more powerful. The physical size of the prints also had an impact: straining to see the small ones, seeing the details and texture of the paper on the larger ones.
I wonder what will live longer: the pictures I upload to flickr and my blog, or the pictures I print I store in albums. If I were to suddenly be gone, what happens to my digital pictures?
With the exception of a few experiments with film, I don't think I have printed a picture since 2001. Really, all of this is to say that in addition to uploading every picture I take to flickr, I am going to make an effort to print the select ones. This really dovetails nicely with my latest adventures with photography. Most of my photography experience comes from the days before the DSLR. In addition to high school english, my dad taught photography classes. I never wanted for a SLR, various lenses, dark room equipment. I spent a lot of time with these in high school and college, but then slowly fell out of practice, probably because I became enamored with the immediacy, the informality, the sharability, the unpretentiousness of point-and-shoot digital. I recently pulled out the film camera, lenses, flash. I am going to see if I keep up with it for a while. If I do, I will consider investing the money in the digital equipment. Unfortunately, I don't think any of my lenses will work with modern cameras.
Digital has tons of advantages. I still plan to share my pictures digitally. I also plan to make some prints. The photo printing services that tie into flickr or the book print on demand service like lulu.com show a strengthening marriage between physical and digital media.
Another topic of interest: The social aspect of everyone gathering in meatspace to experience Kahlo's works.
