one red leaf ~ in the Adirondack PARK (embiggenable) • µ4/3
in the grocery bag ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone
In his entry on TOP today, Mike Johnston stated / inquired:
...it's not the ultimate in detail (ed. referring to a sample picture), by today's standard, but doesn't it give you pretty much all the detail—all the information—your actual human eyes could, at a distance where you'd be seeing that woman, the subject, in about the same way? Doesn't it get the idea across about as well as anybody needs?
... So we started this endless roundel of trying, comparing, shooting "test shots," making the most fanatically minute comparisons, and of course upgrading, always interested in the latest and the next. "Neomania," I called it back then. We became maniacs for the newest thing.
But at some point, I just assumed, things would settle down and we'd go back to just...well, making, and looking at, pictures. You know, without caring how the pictures were made. Are we there yet?
No, most "serious" picture makers are not there yet and, most likely, never will be. However, on the other hand, most non-serious picture makers (snapshotists[?]) or non-picture-making viewers of pictures, are primarily, if not exclusively, interested what is pictured and could care little or not at all about the whys, the hows or the wherefores.
Re: Johnston's question - ...it's not the ultimate in detail by today's standard, but doesn't it give you pretty much all the detail—all the information—your actual human eyes could, at a distance where you'd be seeing that woman ... in about the same way? Doesn't it get the idea across about as well as anybody needs?
iMo, of course it does. That is the reason I have always wished that, at exhibitions of my pictures, I could employ those red velvet rope things to prevent viewers from moving in too close - the distance determined by the size of the pictures - to view the pictures in their entirety. Why?
iMo (in the case of my pictures or for that matter any good picture), a good picture is always about* the relatiosnship and interplay of the visual elements - light/shadow, shapes, lines, colors, et al - as placed on the 2D plane of a print and within the frame, as imposed by the picture maker, of the picture. The thing pictured, the referent, may or may not be of any particular importance.
So, if a picture, as a print, is viewed from a distance which allows the viewer to see it as a singular entity, then I see (literally and figuratively) no value at all in detail / resolution which is beyond the capabilities of human vision.
*in the Art World