0:00:00.134,0:00:00.953
(Louisiana channel - David Hocney: Photoshop is boring)

0:00:00.953,0:00:02.139
[David Hockney] The invention of photography

0:00:02.139,0:00:03.820
was an invention of chemicals

0:00:04.820,0:00:07.810
and in a way, chemical photography is now ended.

0:00:08.349,0:00:12.808
It lasted - what? - 160 years.

0:00:13.346,0:00:17.630
Now, nobody thought chemical photography would end.

0:00:17.630,0:00:19.900
Nobody predicts that, do they?

0:00:21.950,0:00:25.790
It ended - it certainly has ended now.

0:00:25.790,0:00:35.690
Kodak stopped making fixative about eight years ago, I think.

0:00:36.660,0:00:39.699
And the fixative was the invention.

0:00:42.079,0:00:44.300
Daguerre did it his way

0:00:44.300,0:00:49.360
and in England Fox Talbot, who was playing with cameras,

0:00:50.020,0:00:53.100
and meaning, seeing these images -

0:00:53.100,0:00:58.720
and remember, they saw them in color: you always see them in color;

0:00:58.720,0:01:02.690
they were surprised that the photograph was black and white

0:01:02.690,0:01:04.709
when they first came out -

0:01:04.709,0:01:08.719
but, he said to Sir John Herschel:

0:01:08.719,0:01:13.875
"How can I -- how can we fix this image?"

0:01:14.183,0:01:17.189
They could get it on paper, using silver

0:01:17.912,0:01:20.053
but it didn't last long.

0:01:20.623,0:01:24.799
And in fact, sir John Herschel said:

0:01:24.799,0:01:27.770
"Oh well, if you want to fix it, you need this, this and this"

0:01:27.770,0:01:30.749
and wrote out the formula for fixative

0:01:30.749,0:01:34.270
that was still being manufactured till eight years ago.

0:01:34.977,0:01:40.067
So now, we've now moved out of that period.

0:01:40.560,0:01:51.943
I will point out, I - in 1989, I was invited by Adobe, in Silicon Valley,

0:01:52.969,0:01:55.666
to the launch of Photoshop.

0:01:56.482,0:02:00.662
And they invited a few people for various reasons.

0:02:00.662,0:02:06.189
I tink I was invited because they'd seen the photo collage I'd done

0:02:06.189,0:02:11.006
of - of Pearblossom Highway.

0:02:11.406,0:02:17.268
And so they invited me and I went up with my assistant, Richard.

0:02:18.581,0:02:22.653
And I took my dogs as well.

0:02:23.069,0:02:25.159
They said - I saw it -

0:02:25.159,0:02:27.620
there are two things they don't like in Silicon Valley:

0:02:27.620,0:02:28.790
smokers and dogs.

0:02:28.790,0:02:31.041
I said "Well, you got to lump it,

0:02:31.041,0:02:33.022
I'm here and you'll have to do it."

0:02:33.022,0:02:36.810
But they were showing as well - we tried things [check]

0:02:36.810,0:02:40.719
And when we were driving back to LA, I said

0:02:40.719,0:02:44.180
"Wow, that was all about drawing

0:02:44.780,0:02:47.738
and it's the end of chemical photography."

0:02:47.738,0:02:50.129
Because you can't do this with chemical photography.

0:02:50.129,0:02:53.657
It has to be digital for the Photoshop.

0:02:54.257,0:02:58.099
And I was a bit early, but nevertheless,

0:02:58.099,0:03:01.276
I could see that's what was coming.

0:03:02.123,0:03:05.609
The one-hour Photomat place was going to disappear

0:03:05.609,0:03:08.232
- that's what I had been using, things like that.

0:03:08.585,0:03:14.966
And it has implications that I began to see.

0:03:15.459,0:03:16.824
They've got bigger,

0:03:16.824,0:03:19.145
they're still there now, they're getting bigger.

0:03:19.852,0:03:23.709
In a way, I mean to say, useful thing, Photoshop

0:03:24.570,0:03:29.330
but I think it has made a lot of magazines look very similar,

0:03:29.915,0:03:31.573
rather boring.

0:03:31.927,0:03:37.856
It polishes photography, they put the highlights in,

0:03:37.856,0:03:41.533
take them blemishes away, I mean that sort of thing,

0:03:41.533,0:03:42.735
love it in Hollywood,

0:03:43.365,0:03:45.760
they all touch up things.

0:03:45.760,0:03:51.060
But I mean, it's also causing a kind of stale look

0:03:51.060,0:03:52.991
- to me, anyway, to me.

0:03:52.991,0:03:59.920
But that's why, if you need, you know,

0:03:59.920,0:04:03.778
even fashion magazines, thirty years ago,

0:04:04.455,0:04:06.533
would have quite a lot of drawings in them

0:04:06.533,0:04:10.741
so you got a different thing as you looked through pages.

0:04:11.387,0:04:15.303
But not many people draw now, so it's all photography

0:04:15.979,0:04:20.442
and I think, getting more and more boring because of it, I think.

0:04:22.688,0:04:28.780
I mean, I was - we were just in the Picasso show here, you know.

0:04:28.780,0:04:32.180
I was looking at that owl, that marvelous owl

0:04:32.872,0:04:36.540
and today, I pointed out, well,

0:04:36.540,0:04:41.155
some people just stuff a real owl and put it in a case.

0:04:43.001,0:04:44.635
It's not that interesting.

0:04:44.912,0:04:47.230
And I was explaining to my young friend

0:04:47.999,0:04:50.153
why Picasso's is so marvelous is

0:04:50.153,0:04:55.172
It isn't an owl, it's a human being looking at an owl.

0:04:55.187,0:04:59.025
It's an account of a human being looking at an owl.

0:04:59.471,0:05:01.330
So that's what thrills us.

0:05:01.330,0:05:06.554
There is more owlness there than in the stuffed owl.

0:05:07.431,0:05:09.884
If you find a way to solve something -

0:05:11.099,0:05:16.100
I was talking about the Spring, you know,

0:05:16.100,0:05:19.630
I'm working on that now in England -

0:05:19.630,0:05:24.741
and how would you depict the arrival of Spring?

0:05:25.618,0:05:31.035
The arrival of Spring is too slow for a movie to catch it.

0:05:31.450,0:05:35.430
It moves too - it moves, but it moves too slowly

0:05:35.430,0:05:36.921
for the movie camera.

0:05:37.429,0:05:44.490
And it's also not that easy to photograph

0:05:44.952,0:05:48.238
because the very first signs of it is so subtle

0:05:49.468,0:05:52.890
the camera doesn't see them that well.

0:05:53.951,0:05:59.890
But if the human eye sees it, you can exaggerate a little

0:06:00.100,0:06:02.713
the first little green shoots coming up,

0:06:02.713,0:06:04.854
you emphasize the green.

0:06:05.300,0:06:08.506
The cameras can't - they're not that good on color, really,

0:06:08.506,0:06:12.224
I mean, they don't see the subtle colors at all, actually.

0:06:12.224,0:06:16.550
It's OK, you know, on a beach, color photography

0:06:16.550,0:06:20.035
but with greens, it's not that good, really,

0:06:20.035,0:06:21.711
even today it's not.

0:06:22.065,0:06:26.106
Even, I mean, when we use nine cameras,

0:06:27.368,0:06:30.980
and therefore we could use different exposures on each one,

0:06:31.256,0:06:33.310
we didn't get a bigger range of greens.

0:06:33.310,0:06:35.440
I know that, I mean I know about,

0:06:35.440,0:06:38.876
I know about technical things, about film and things.

0:06:38.876,0:06:43.550
But it's a -

0:06:44.365,0:06:46.060
peop-- you know,

0:06:46.060,0:06:48.530
not much is written often about these technical problems

0:06:48.530,0:06:50.143
they're technical problems.

0:06:50.143,0:06:52.263
You can overcome them but

0:06:53.678,0:06:55.850
if you're not taught about them much,

0:06:55.850,0:06:58.640
some people forget that they are problems

0:06:58.640,0:07:01.800
and how they have to be sorted out.

0:07:01.800,0:07:05.510
I've been dealing with the Winter in East Yorkshire.

0:07:05.510,0:07:09.790
It's a climate, just like this really, just over the water.

0:07:09.790,0:07:11.100
It's a very similar climate,

0:07:11.100,0:07:14.955
very similar horticulture and agriculture

0:07:14.955,0:07:19.060
I mean, the Spring is just beginning here, isn't it?

0:07:19.060,0:07:20.728
It's just beginning there.

0:07:20.728,0:07:27.387
And - but of course, you don't get Spring in Southern California,

0:07:27.387,0:07:28.796
not big anyway -

0:07:30.487,0:07:34.863
and I found there was more color in the Winter,

0:07:34.863,0:07:39.210
that the road, this little road, is darkest of all

0:07:39.210,0:07:41.281
at the height of Summer

0:07:41.603,0:07:46.489
because all the leaves of - come over it, it's like a tunnel

0:07:46.489,0:07:48.316
and it's darker in it.

0:07:48.316,0:07:50.340
But I mean, you get in light coming in.

0:07:50.340,0:07:51.890
But that's its darkest.

0:07:51.890,0:07:56.610
It's at its lightest in the Winter if it snows,

0:07:56.610,0:07:58.860
because you get reflection from the ground.

0:07:58.860,0:08:01.490
And we filmed it with nine cameras,

0:08:01.490,0:08:03.638
I'm drawing it all the time as well.

0:08:04.069,0:08:07.420
My local doctor we're friendly with, you know,

0:08:07.420,0:08:10.329
because she is a pai-- an amateur painter,

0:08:10.329,0:08:13.330
and she comes to the studio

0:08:13.330,0:08:14.910
and I'm showing her the pictures.

0:08:14.910,0:08:18.341
And then we showed her the films.

0:08:18.925,0:08:19.940
And she said:

0:08:19.940,0:08:22.954
"God, I've never looked at this little street!"

0:08:22.954,0:08:25.690
And she said, next time she came, she said:

0:08:25.690,0:08:27.116
"You inspired us, David.

0:08:27.116,0:08:30.020
We drove down and took a long walk,

0:08:30.020,0:08:31.070
a darned long walk [check]

0:08:31.030,0:08:33.631
after watching your films and those things."

0:08:33.631,0:08:34.842
And I said:

0:08:34.842,0:08:37.610
"Well, it's a lovely, it's a

0:08:37.610,0:08:41.429
- I'll tell you what's very nice about there:

0:08:42.322,0:08:46.435
it's a very, rather isolated bit of England.

0:08:46.929,0:08:51.396
It's very isolated partly because there's a wide river,

0:08:51.396,0:08:55.017
the Humber, to the South

0:08:55.017,0:08:58.470
and there are not many people there,

0:08:58.470,0:09:00.090
not many people live there,

0:09:00.090,0:09:04.180
it's agricultural, great one agricultural land [check]

0:09:04.180,0:09:06.279
so they don't build on it much.

0:09:07.217,0:09:08.846
Not many people.

0:09:08.846,0:09:13.155
And we can - we painted in it, filmed in it,

0:09:13.155,0:09:15.277
nobody's - nobody there to stop you.

0:09:15.831,0:09:19.240
In L.A.! Oh, if you got out a camera in a car,

0:09:19.240,0:09:20.420
you'd have had to get permits,

0:09:21.003,0:09:24.710
you'd have to get police riding to protect you,

0:09:24.710,0:09:25.810
install lines [check]

0:09:25.810,0:09:27.542
Hollywood cops and things.

0:09:29.664,0:09:34.079
But in East Yorkshire, we come, we do it, nobody bothers us,

0:09:34.710,0:09:36.946
We're hanging on jeeps, you know.

0:09:36.946,0:09:40.103
I mean, actually, once JP and I,

0:09:40.103,0:09:43.801
we were going out painting with our canvasses

0:09:44.140,0:09:46.099
and you never see anybody out there,

0:09:46.099,0:09:49.468
and suddenly, aboard a Toyota truck [check]

0:09:49.468,0:09:53.650
four policemen jump out and we got a ticket:

0:09:53.650,0:09:55.366
we hadn't put our seat belts on.

0:09:55.366,0:09:57.926
And OK, we were just not going far [check],

0:09:57.926,0:09:59.383
we were going to get out the canvas. [check]

0:09:59.399,0:10:01.280
And so we got the tickets.

0:10:01.772,0:10:04.529
One of the policemen is looking out of the window to me

0:10:04.529,0:10:06.875
and saying "You got to have the seatbelt,

0:10:06.875,0:10:09.130
death is lurking everywhere."

0:10:09.130,0:10:11.680
Well, I'm looking out of the window and I mean,

0:10:11.680,0:10:13.750
I mean at leaves coming on the trees,

0:10:13.750,0:10:15.043
the spring is coming out, and I say:

0:10:15.043,0:10:20.120
"Well, you know, life is lurking everywhere as well!" [laughs]

0:10:20.120,0:10:21.840
Anyway, we got the tickets,

0:10:21.840,0:10:24.696
we might put them in the exhibition, actually.

0:10:24.711,0:10:28.830
But we were going to paint, you know,

0:10:28.830,0:10:30.730
set up six canvasses.

0:10:30.730,0:10:33.711
Well, if they saw us with these cameras,

0:10:33.711,0:10:36.104
we'd have been taken out to jail, probably, I mean

0:10:36.104,0:10:37.483
because we were hanging on.

0:10:37.483,0:10:38.770
But we're not going very f--

0:10:38.770,0:10:41.325
I mean, we were going, you know, 10 miles an hour.

0:10:42.310,0:10:43.894
They'd leave it alone, probably,

0:10:43.894,0:10:50.317
but it was amusing that we got the ticket for the seatbelts.

0:10:50.317,0:10:54.340
I did tell them that I was not particularly into bondage, me:

0:10:54.340,0:10:55.534
I'm not, actually.

0:10:55.534,0:10:59.110
I don't like the seatbelts. [laughs]

0:10:59.110,0:11:01.790
A lot of people are into bondage -- I don't like --

0:11:01.790,0:11:04.011
and it's OK: good fun, sometimes.

0:11:04.826,0:11:08.355
(Louisiana channel)

0:11:08.355,0:11:12.467
(Supported by Nordea Funden)

0:11:14.020,0:11:16.128
(louisiana.dk/channel)

0:11:16.314,0:11:19.144
(Š LOUISIANA)