Documentary Images and Digital Imaging, Essay Example

As discussed by Judith Bell, the physical attributes of the work by Hispanic documentary photographer Pedro Meyer whose canon of photographic images “melds the ‘state of the world’ with the unhampered vistas of digital technology,” are solely based upon a combination of modified or altered colors, contrasts, and textures, and “fragments from different photographs” (much like a collage) “with whimsy and imagination” that tend to defy the “traditional limitations of the medium” (Bell, 1998, p. 10). One of the most important results of this type of artistic combination are startling documentary images that “provide insights into human nature as well as the nature of perception” (Bell, 1998, p. 10).

Some of the qualities or components that Meyer attempts to bring to his documentary images includes human memory which goes against traditional photographic representations of reality. As Meyer points out, working with digital technology via a computer which allows the artist to alter and re-arrange images as contrasted with what the camera lens picks up, allows him to “add his own memory directly to his images” via a process of restoring or inserting mental images related to what he recalls actually happened, such as documenting an historical event or something as simple as recalling the image of three men sitting in front of a trailer in the desert as found in “Desert Shower, Yuma, Arizona, 1985/1993.” Other aspects like angle, lighting, perspective, and content, are also taken from memory (Bell, 1998, p. 15).

Of these aspects, Meyer notes that lighting plays a significant role in how his images are created and designed via the assistance of a computer equipped with digital manipulation software. By having “unlimited control” related to manipulating various shades and textures of light and dark, Meyer relates that a traditional camera can only capture whatever light source is currently available, but with a computer, light and shadow can be completely controlled. This stands in contrast to working inside of a darkroom for long hours amid chemicals and often failing to achieve a desired balance between light and shadow in a particular photographic image (Bell, 1998, pp. 15-16).

In addition, Meyer also utilizes the computer to blend content and geometry in his photographic images. One excellent example is “Emotional Crisis, Texas Highway, 1990/1993” which contains juxtapositions of various images that did not exist together in reality before photographing them. In this way, Meyer achieved a “decisive moment” by infusing solitude and emptiness into the final computer manipulated image (Bell, 1998, p. 16).

On all accounts, Pedro Meyer has managed to infuse traditional documentary images into the world of digital imaging via the use of a computer and through his own artistic imagination that transcends the boundaries of customary camera work, especially when photographing outside in the natural world with limited and uncontrollable lighting. Although Meyer’s documentary techniques stand in stark contrast to traditional photographic methods that existed prior to the advent of the age of technology, he has achieved what others have been unable to do via the combination of “the familiar and the unusual” (Bell, 1998, p. 16), all made possible through the assistance of computers which have definitely helped to bring Meyer’s artistic style of documentary imaging into the era of high-tech, computer enhanced digital imaging.

References

Bell, J. (September 1998). Profile: Pedro Meyer. Photographer’s Forum. 10-17.