Painting and Film Photography for Illustration Are Both Dead. What's Next?
I think we all knew the writing on the wall was there for traditional photography
when eight megapixels packaged with an SLR camera body with interchangeable
lenses became available at reasonable prices. And I don't think for a moment
that the changes we're going to see in digital photography are even slowing
down. It won't be long now until everything, even the buttons in our clothing
have high-quality cameras in them.
But, illustration by hand - whatever medium, pastels, oils, pencil - is now
also dead. How do we know? We know because National Geographic went digital
in its latest issue about sea monsters. That's right, the gold standard in print
publishing is now digital for illustration. If you've seen the latest National
Geo issue, you know what I mean.
My origins in publishing were in print publishing. And from the beginning of
the parts of my career that are in that area, I always considered National Geographic
to be the quality act. One of my early goals, actually it's still a goal but
seems to be one that is receding rather than being reached, was to publish in
print something, anything, that used that superb varnish effect that National
Geographic uses to make its images appear deeper and three-dimensional. Sigh.
I guess it shows you how much information is coming at us each day when I admit
that I didn't notice any explanation about the new images when I read the article
in my print version. I did notice that the illustrations were excellent, and
the one aerial view of several large creatures swimming in a pod together still
sticks in my mind as quite realistic.
I found out on line, in this USA
Today article. In that article, the magazine's art director, Chris Sloan,
says that "Our goal had to be to create artwork made to look as if nature
photographers had been sent back to the age of dinosaurs." And, boy, did
they. This particular article originated in 1999, and the magazine invested
a lot in retraining its artists to use this medium. Without even knowing they'd
gone fully digital, I do recall thinking to myself when I read the print version,
how much the illustrations looked as though someone had gone back and taken
high-resolution images in person.
Also from the USA Today article, "'The artwork is fantastic,'" says
paleontologist Mike Everhart, author of Oceans of Kansas: A Natural History
of the Western Interior Sea. "Marine reptiles were large and dangerous,
so that is how they looked. It reminds you that, sometimes, extinction is a
good thing. I'm not real sure we would want to share the oceans with these guys
today."
I am quitesure that I would not want to. The many times I was underwater during
my Navy stint were quite exciting enough with sharks, barracuda, and moray eels
in abundance. I'm quite content that fellows like the one you'll see here
are no longer around. The coolest thing about the image of Dakosaurus that you
see at that link is that it really d'es look like an image captured by a camera,
not something produced by hand or digitally. The water currents, bubbles, bits
of flesh and connective tissue, all combine to create what truly looks as though
someone traveled back in time with a really good camera.
Except for purists and as a niche art form, film photography is gone. (My 17-year-old
daughter is taking a black and white photography class and she's angry with
me for writing these words, but they're true.) Now, so is hand illustration.
What's next?
Acting and actors are next. The use of avatars in online simulations, their
availability as acting-out images for websites, and now the wonderful work done
with and by the actor Andy Serkis who was Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy
and now is Kong in the new King Kong movie, surely is pointing the way to the
demise of 'real' actors. We're probably not far from the time when teams of
technicians and artists replace actors who are actually seen on the screen.
After all, the nation's film critic Roger
Ebert says that the new King Kong:
[I]s a magnificent entertainment. It is like the flowering
of all the possibilities in the original classic film. Computers are used not
merely to create special effects, but also to create style and beauty, to find
a look for the film that fits its story. And the characters are not cardboard
her'es or villains seen in stark outline, but quirky individuals with personalities.
That probably d'esn't mean that no one will make 'films' with real people,
after all there are lots of 'real' people in King Kong. But in the near future,
movies with actual people in them may not be where the money is. And you know
what's important in Western Culture: money. So, yes, film photography is becoming
a niche art; and movies with real people in them may become that, too, but not
disappear. After all, opera is still around.
Some people feel that art or entertainment loses something when it uses new
technologies. Some people always feel that way everything changes. Part of that,
I think, is an inability (by some, I surely am able to see it) to see that even
when a team of people create an image together, the human touch is still there.
To them I say, as Mike Everhart is quoted as saying, above, "sometimes,
extinction is good."
