Hipstamatically Tintypical

One of the easy (guilty?) pleasures of an iPhone is the use of apps like Hipstamatic and TinType to produce something instant and eye-pleasing from an otherwise unremarkable photograph. They're fun to play with, and I do have both on my phone. However, I rarely use them except in moments of boredom, for the same reasons that I rarely if ever use the canned effects and simulations that are built into most digital cameras and image-editing software. But, it's fair to ask, what are those reasons?

Well, let's start with the obvious. Call me a deluded snob (actually, don't) but I like to think my photography is a cut above the average, aspires to the condition of "art", and is primarily an exercise in pure seeing. In other words, I think what makes at least some of my photographs special is my own inbuilt perceptual apparatus – what programmers are pleased to call "wetware" – and the learning process I have subjected it to over decades, and definitely not any effects drizzled over the resulting images, like tasty sauce on an indifferent meal. I'm not talking about my digital collage work, here – which you might legitimately say is effects all the way down – but the "straight" photography that has sustained my creative impulse, and earned me several exhibitions and whatever little reputation I may have as a picture-maker.

Now, there is an argument that, unlike film photography, digital photography can never really be "straight", given the many transformations an image has to undergo before ending up as a print on paper (assuming it ever gets that far). Some like to take this argument further, and claim that therefore anything goes to a far greater extent than with film, up to and including outright fakery, such as dropping in a more picturesque sky, or enhancing the eye-appeal of a portrait's sitter from a six to a nine. I wouldn't go that far, but – documentary and photojournalist photography aside, where strict rules against "manipulation" still apply – this is simply the name of the digital game; it is not a crime to "improve" a picture, although most would-be improvers do seem to lack the taste to avoid a descent into tackiness when doing so.

Even if you are only making monochrome images from colour originals using a plug-in filter like Silver Efex then you, too, are faking it, strictly speaking. One of this blog's favourite ugly words is "skeuomorphic" [1], and there can surely be little argument that a photograph which has been filtered to resemble, say, the grain and characteristic tonality of a classic film-stock like Tri-X is a skeuomorph. If you've ever worked in the darkroom, you'll appreciate the difference between the experience of adjusting a few sliders on a screen – job done! – and driving yourself slowly crazy with repeated rounds of test prints made in trays of noxious chemical baths. The latter is by no means a superior experience – far from it, in my view – but it is the authentic experience behind the Tri-X look.

By and large, though, I think we're mainly inclined to accept straightforward B&W digital photos without much complaint, as the elevation of tone over colour is such a traditional aspect of photographic practice. Similarly, by using a different filter or with a few shoves on various sliders you can just as easily push a naturalistic colour photo into the garish fantasy world of crunchy "high dynamic range" (HDR) imagery and super-saturated colours, and still get few objections; it's just as fake as, say, a "watercolour painting" filter, and not at all to my taste, but ubiquitous and very popular. Mostly, we judge all such "looks", however achieved, on their merits; do they work, or are they just the liberal application of photographic MSG to appeal to jaded palates?

However, the biggest step along the skeuomorphic path is to fake the look of so-called alt-processes –  wet-plate collodion, platinotype, tintype, and the like – with an app or filter. Now, these venerable photographic techniques are elaborate, expensive, and sometimes hazardous to health, and require a set of hard-won skills, the use of a cumbersome view camera yielding large negatives, and a well-equipped darkroom. In other words, those coveted alt-process "looks" are achieved by application, determination, and a considerable outlay in time, money, and experiment. To produce an instant simulacrum of them, simply by passing a photo through an app on your phone, is rather like taking a taxi from the start of a marathon to a few blocks short of the end, and collecting a finisher's medal. Fine, if you're just amusing yourself; not so fine, if you're passing off your "achievement" as something it is not.

To be honest, I'm ambivalent about alt-processes, anyway: the line that divides authentic expression from gimmickry is one that is very easily crossed. It's fair to ask, what is gained by showing contemporary reality using the representational modes of the 19th century? Difficult and complex procedures may be rewarding in themselves to those so inclined but, as many people have said: nobody else cares how hard you worked. Which is not entirely true: buyers of prints care very much that what they are buying is what it appears to be, and that a certain amount of an artist's blood, sweat, and tears have become infused into the paper, figuratively, if not literally. I have argued elsewhere that this is one of the reasons for the widespread prejudice in the art world against digital work.

As always, everything depends on whether the final characteristic look of the result reinforces the aesthetic intentions of the photographer. Sally Mann is an obvious example of an artist who has made wet-plate photography integral to her work, and in small doses Joni Sternbach's tintypes of surfers work for me, though I'm never sure why; something about sun, sea, and surfer dudes just seems to suit that approach. But (let's not name names) anyone who dresses up models in antique clothing with antique props simply in order to make an old-fashioned-looking photo look even more old-fashioned is wasting everybody's time, aren't they? As the book of Ecclesiastes (almost) says: of the making of many pointless photographs there is no end.

So, if it's really just a look you're after, I suppose you might as well take a shortcut to your pointless photograph. After all, there's an app for that. And what is more fun, photographically, than fooling around with fakery, forgery, and fabrication?

1. Which I would define as "ornamental design features on an object, imitating or copied from an older or more prestigious form of the same or similar object, whose distinctive features are the result of the use of different materials and different techniques". For example, imitation leather grain and stitching on a plastic phone case.