The digital draft: preserving process in a computerized world

They say the devil is in the details and as a student in the Humanities I know all too well how difficult it can be to get those details right when writing a first draft. Where before a stack of hand- or typewritten notes signaled a hard day’s work, in today’s digital age the ease with which we can delete our mistakes makes it significantly harder to let anyone (including ourselves) inside our thought process. As technology continues to make our lives increasingly high-speed, interconnected, and paperless, how do we negotiate between leaving no trace and recording the method to our madness?

This question is particularly important when we consider the Smithsonian’s role as disseminator of knowledge. As the museum strives to find the balance between the original artifacts in its collections and virtual representations of them, photography serves as a fascinating case study in what happens when the digital literally becomes the physical.

 

 

I recently had the opportunity to sit in as my supervisor, Shannon Perich, Associate Curator in the Photographic History Collection, presented a valuable lesson about the importance of process to a group of summer camp students who paid us a visit. At first glance, the alternately light and dark blue rectangles she showed the group appeared to be nothing more than simple geometric shapes. Yet, as we soon learned, these images were actually preliminary sketches by American digital photographer John Paul Caponigro that reveal the photographer’s visual thinking behind his breathtaking ocean view Sonata I. By first drafting various options with regard to spatial proportions and color saturation in structured ways, Caponigro demonstrates his attention to the details of balance and composition. And by juxtaposing these original figures with Caponigro’s richly detailed final product, we come to see these rectangles in a new way; the process of creating digital photographs is brought to life and to light.

 

 

Just as importantly, by exposing the time and planning the photographer took to create his final print, these sketches highlight the fact that today’s works of art, though digital, nevertheless do not simply fall from the sky. In a world that is increasingly instant, this documentation of a digital art photographer’s process reminds us of the importance of slowing down and going through experimental drafts before committing to a final decision, a timely reminder for artists and patrons of the arts alike.

 

Despite the time-saving advantages technology affords us, or perhaps because of them, it’s safe to say we’ll always want to know where things come from and how they are made. An idea’s journey from conception to realization will always be something we want to know, and as Caponigro’s attention to process shows us, even the digital world strives to leave its trace.

What kinds of digital drafts do you produce?

Carolyn Ureña is an intern in the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History.

Comments

[Ben Miller]

I think the digital world can actually make it easier to leave a creative trace. I recently finished an English course at BYU where we talked a lot about publishing process. (class wiki: http://sites.google.com/site/writingliteraryinquiry/ ) We used blogs to share our brainstorming and drafts throughout the writing process, allowing us to receive feedback, share sources, and have an easily accessible receptacle for past ideas. I wrote about Raymond Carver's story "Cathedral," linking it to various new media themes. My blog: http://ben-research2point0.blogspot.com/

[John Paul Caponigro]

This image and many others from the same series can be found in my recently released book Correspondence.

At the end of the book you'll find side-by-side comparisons of night and day versions of the same images ... and text describing my thought processes while developing the work.

You can preview the entire book online here.

http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/store/books-correspondence.php

[Robin Westbrook]

Would it be fair to say that art is rarely adversarial? Controversial yes, but serving as a means of pitting one person's interests against another? I ask because your insights on the richness of drafts call to mind the lawyer's need to "scrub" all electronic documents lest the process of crafting a position be revealed to an opponent.