{"id":26995,"date":"2016-01-30T02:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-01-30T10:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=26995"},"modified":"2016-01-29T13:53:34","modified_gmt":"2016-01-29T21:53:34","slug":"make-more-atoms-fewer-bits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/30\/make-more-atoms-fewer-bits\/","title":{"rendered":"Make More Atoms, Fewer Bits"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Berkeley,
Berkeley, 2016 #cindyproject #ricohgr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dear friend,<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been thinking a lot of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153physicality\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in photography\u00e2\u20ac\u201d how physical objects bring us a lot more happiness and joy than the invisible, intangible, and digital.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We don’t value the non-physical<\/h2>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been studying a lot of physics (for fun)\u00e2\u20ac\u201d partly because I am an Elon Musk fanboy, but I also love how I can combine different fields of knowledge to create new ideas.<\/p>\n

Seneca first touched upon this in his book, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On the Shortness of Life<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d he says how men don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t value time, and think it is insignificant, simply because it is intangible.<\/p>\n

The same is with photography\u00e2\u20ac\u201d we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t value anything that is intangible. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t value photos on social media or Instagram, because they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153exist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the real world. They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have dimensionality, they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have weight, they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have thickness, nor do they have texture.<\/p>\n

The joy of\u00c2\u00a0physical things<\/h2>\n

I just got a bunch of photos printed on a textured paper. It is beautiful. You can look at the prints at different angles of light, and see how the ink shimmers off the paper. Not only that, but there is a great pleasure in holding the print, feeling the texture of the prints, and having the ability to frame it on your wall.<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think you can get the same joy from seeing a photo from a 4 inch screen on Instagram.<\/p>\n

There is a huge resurgence of physical objects in our world, drowning in digital bits.<\/p>\n

For example, apparently sales of e-books on Kindle are slowing down\u00e2\u20ac\u201d because people are starting to realize that they appreciate physical books over incorporeal (not composed of matter; having no material existence) books. People have the pleasure of holding a book, feeling the weight, the texture of the paper, turning physical pages, and not having to deal with the pain in the ass of having to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sync\u00e2\u20ac\u009d their progress pages read, the pleasure of writing physically in the book (and revisiting those notes later), rather than recording \u00e2\u20ac\u0153digital thoughts\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153digital highlights.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been engrossed in reading physical books again, and the joy of the smell of the paper, and also secondary uses of the books\u00e2\u20ac\u201d like holding up my monitor at a higher angle. I also like the idea how when I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m done with a book, I can physically close it (with a great sense of accomplishment), and put it back on the bookshelf. Or even better\u00e2\u20ac\u201d to have a physical library that I can walk into, and browse and peruse the books. I can also enjoy the different dimensions of the books, the different print quality, the texture of the covers, everything else that I can feel in a physical sense.<\/p>\n

The downsides of digital bits<\/h2>\n

The sad thing with digital photography is that there is a lot fewer sensory pleasures. No longer do we hold film, load film into the camera, feel the haptic response of advancing the film, the joy of finishing a roll of film, getting back 4×6 prints from the lab, and putting these physical prints into photo albums.<\/p>\n

With digital, it is too detached physically. We hold a physical digital camera, but every photo we take is converted into bits, downloaded into our computers, and then uploaded to the cloud or on social media pages. After that, they puff away into digital oblivion and dust.<\/p>\n

Make prints<\/h2>\n

I am personally focusing on shooting digital (Ricoh GR II<\/a>), and have been having a ton of fun making new Lightroom presets<\/a> to simulate the look of film.<\/p>\n

I find the problem even when I shoot film is this\u00e2\u20ac\u201d I get the film processed, scanned, and then I have the digital JPEG files on my computer. But then they die on my computer. They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get printed.<\/p>\n

So the solution is this\u00e2\u20ac\u201d it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter whether your photos or shot on digital or film, what matters is whether you print them or not<\/strong>. They can be printed into a book, printed as prints\u00e2\u20ac\u201d they just need to exist as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153atoms\u00e2\u20ac\u009d not \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bits.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Share the joy<\/h2>\n

Honestly really it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even matter whether you print your photos or not. I think what matters is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153social\u00e2\u20ac\u009d aspect of photography\u00e2\u20ac\u201d being able to share the joy of the photos with others.<\/p>\n

So perhaps the joy can be sending the photos you take of your loved ones via some sort of messenger app\u00e2\u20ac\u201d directly to them.<\/p>\n

People still get a lot of joy of photos on Facebook, Instagram, and any other social media.<\/p>\n

However I just encourage you to make more atoms out of your photos. Trust me, they will be a lot more durable and your future generations of children can enjoy your photos.<\/p>\n

I was in Korea last year and visited my Grandma, and we looked through old photo albums of when she<\/em> was a child. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine sitting down with my future grandchildren and showing them photos of my childhood on a smartphone or some digital device.<\/p>\n

Take control<\/h2>\n

Print, and be happy.<\/p>\n

If you want to learn more about self-publishing, check out the new book: “Self Publish, Be Happy: A DIY Photobook Manual and Manifesto<\/strong><\/a>” by\u00c2\u00a0Bruno Ceschel.<\/p>\n

Jan 29, 2016 @ 1:45pm at Philz coffee, Berkeley<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear friend, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been thinking a lot of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153physicality\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in photography\u00e2\u20ac\u201d how physical objects bring us a lot more happiness and joy than the invisible, intangible, and digital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26996,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_ek_photo_artist_note":"","_ek_photo_thesis":"","_ek_photo_camera":"","_ek_photo_place":"","_ek_photo_human_moment":"","_ek_photo_sequence":"","_ek_photo_question":"","_ek_photo_canonical_claim":"","_ek_photo_ai_summary":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/R0002533.jpg?fit=4928%2C3264&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}