Koudelka & WPP2011

Today I

Today I went to see the Joseph Koudelka "Invasion Prague 68" and the World Press Photo 2011 currently on exhibit at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

One of the things I noticed I missed these days was the grain and beautiful tones of a black and white print that can only come from film. You just don't get that in digital.

It's funny how I miss the grain now when I was trying so hard to minimize grain using films like Panatommic X and developers like Accufine 30 years ago.

Now with the help of digital scanning, the 35mm image of the man waiving a flag on the tank can be enlarged to a mural size print on the wall. So, I guess the Koudelka exhibit consisted of the best of both worlds, film and digital. Needless to say the work he done 43 years ago stands as a milestone in photojournalism. The World Press Photo exhibit consisted of many great images however, it was so digital in contrast to the Koudelka exhibit. Nothing wrong shooting digital, but it all looks easy and too perfect. I didn't care for the photos which were so obviously tainted with photoshop. In documentary photos, I like to see the real grit even if it means that the details are lost in the dark areas. With today's digital cameras and photoshop, you see too much.

I walked home thinking how much I missed the quality you can only get from film and silver gelatin prints.

tanada (rice paddy on hill slopes)

The scenic photograph you see here is of a rice paddy up on the hills in Niigata prefecture. The other picture of a crushed house was taken in the same area. This area was hit with a magnitude 6.8 earthquake in 2004 which caused considerable damage. Beauty has its thorns.