David Hockney: Photoshop is boring

In this video David Hockney meditates on the concept of seeing. Of depicting spring, of Picasso's owl that thrills us, of Photoshop and of comparing seat belts and bondage.

David Hockney was invited to the launch of Photoshop in Silicon Valley because of his interest in photography. Photoshop has made a lot of magazines look similar and more and more boring, he says. There is more owlness in Picasso's owl than in a stuffed owl because it is an account of a human being looking on an owl.

Interviewed by Christian Lund, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2011.

Filmed by Martin Kogi

Produced by Martin Kogi and Christian Lund, 2012.

Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

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Supported by Nordea-fonden.

(Louisiana channel - David Hocney: Photoshop
is boring)

[David Hockney] The invention of photography

was the invention of chemicals

and in a way, chemical photography is now
ended.

It lasted - what? - 160 years.

Now, nobody thought chemical photography would
end.

Nobody predicts that, do they?

It ended - it certainly has ended now.

Kodak stopped making fixative about eight
years ago, I think.

And the fixative was the invention.

Daguerre did it his way

and in England Fox Talbot, who was playing
with cameras,

and meaning, seeing these images -

and remember, they sold them in color: you
always see them in color;

they were surprised that the photograph was
black and white

when they first came out -

but, he said to Sir John Herschel:

"How can I -- how can we fix this image?"

They could get it on paper, using silver

but it didn't last long.

And in fact, sir John Herschel said:

"Oh well, if you want to fix it, you need
this, this and this"

and wrote out the formula for fixative

that was still being manufactured till eight
years ago.

So now, we've now moved out of that period.

I will point out, I - in 1989, I was invited
by Adobe, in Silicon Valley,

to the launch of Photoshop.

And they invited a few people for various
reasons.

I tink I was invited because they'd seen the
photo collage I'd done

of - of Pearblossom Highway.

And so they invited me and I went up with
my assistant, Richard.

And I took my dogs as well.

They said - I saw it -

the two things they don't like in Silicon
Valley:

smokers and dogs.

I said "Well, you got to lump it,

I'm here and you'll have to do it."

But they were showing as well - we tried things
[check]

And when we were driving back to LA, I said

"Wow, that was all about drawing

and it's the end of chemical photography."

Because you can't do this with chemical photography.

It has to be digital for the Photoshop.

And I was a bit early, but nevertheless,

I could see that's what was coming.

The one-hour Photomat place was going to disappear

- that's what I had been using, things like
that.

And it has implications that I began to see.

They've got bigger,

they're still there now, they're getting bigger.

In a way, I mean to say, useful thing, Photoshop

but I think it has made a lot of magazines
look very similar,

rather boring.

It polishes photography, they put the highlights
in,

take them blemishes away, I mean that sort
of thing,

love it in Hollywood,

they all touch up things.

But I mean, it's also causing a kind of stale
look

- to me, anyway, to me.

But that's why, if you need, you know,

even fashion magazines, thirty years ago,

would have quite a lot of drawings in them

so you got a different thing as you looked
through pages.

But not many people draw now, so it's all
photography

and I think, getting more and more boring
because of it, I think.

I mean, I was - we were just in the Picasso
show here, you know.

I was looking at that owl, that marvelous
owl

and to Dave, I pointed out,

some people just stuff a real owl and put
it in a case.

Not that interesting.

And I was explaining to my young friend

why Picasso's is so marvelous.

It isn't an owl, it's a human being looking
at an owl.

It's an account of a human being looking at
an owl.

So that's what thrills us.

There is more owlness there than in the stuffed
owl.

If you find a way to solve something -

I was talking about the Spring, you know,

I'm working on that now in England -

and how would you depict the arrival of Spring?

The arrival of Spring is too slow for a movie
to catch it.

It moves too - it moves, but it moves too
slowly

for the movie camera.

And it's also not that easy to photograph

because the very first signs of it is so subtle

the camera doesn't see them that well.

But if the human eye sees it, you can exaggerate
a little

the first little green shoots coming up,

you emphasize the green.

The cameras can't - they're not that good
on color, really,

I mean, they don't see the subtle colors at
all, actually.

It's OK, you know, on a beach, color photography

but with greens, it's not that good, really,

even today it's not.

Even, I mean, when we use nine cameras,

and therefore we could use different exposures
on each one,

we didn't get a bigger range of greens.

I know that, I mean I know about,

I know about technical things, about film
and things.

But it's a -

peop-- you know,

not much is written often about these technical
problems

they're technical problems.

You can overcome them but

if you're not taught about them much,

some people forget that there are problems

and that they have to be sorted out.

I've been dealing with the Winter in East
Yorkshire.

It's a climate, just like this really, just
over the water.

It's a very similar climate,

very similar horticulture and agriculture

I mean, the Spring is just beginning here,
isn't it?

It's just beginning there.

And - but of course, you don't get Spring
in Southern California,

not big anyway -

and I found there was more color in the Winter,

that the road, this little road, is darkest
of all

at the height of Summer

because all the leaves of - come over it,
it's like a tunnel

and it's darker in it.

But I mean, you get in light coming in.

But that's its darkest.

It's at its lightest in the winter if it snows,

because you get reflection from the ground.

And we filmed it with nine cameras,

I'm drawing it all the time as well.

My local doctor we're friendly with, you know,

because she is a pai-- an amateur painter,

and she comes to the studio

and I'm showing her the pictures.

And then we showed her the films.

And she said:

"God, I've never looked at this little street!"

And she said, next time she came, she said:

"You inspired us, David.

We drove down and took a long walk,

a darned long walk [check]

after watching your films and those things."

And I said:

"Well, it's a lovely, it's a

- I'll tell you what's very nice about there:

it's a very, rather isolated bit of England.

It's very isolated partly because there's
a wide river,

the Humber, to the South

and there are not many people there,

not many people live there,

it's agricultural, great one agricultural
land [check]

so they don't build on it much.

Not many people.

And we can - we painted in it, filmed in it,

nobody's - nobody there to stop you.

In L.A.! Oh, if you got out a camera in a
car,

you'd have had to get permits,

you'd have to get police riding to protect
you,

install lines [check]

Hollywood cops and things.

But in East Yorkshire, we come, nobody bothers
us,

We're hanging on jeeps, you know.

I mean, actually, once JP and I,

we were going out painting with our canvasses

and you never see anybody out there,

and suddenly, aboard a Toyota truck [check]

four policemen jump out and we got a ticket:

we hadn't put our seat belts on.

And OK, we were just not going far [check],

we were going to get out our canvas. [check]

And so we got the tickets.

One of the policemen is looking out of the
window to me

and saying "You got to have the seatbelt,

death is lurking everywhere."

Well, I'm looking out of the window and I
mean,

I mean at leaves coming on the trees,

the spring is coming out, and I say:

"Well, you know, life is lurking everywhere
as well!" [laughs]

Anyway, we got the tickets,

we might put them in the exhibition, actually.

But we were going to paint, you know,

set up six canvasses.

Well, if they saw us with these cameras,

we'd have been taken out to jail, probably,
I mean

because we were hanging on.

But we're not going very f--

I mean, we were going, you know, 10 miles
an hour.

They'd leave it alone, probably,

but it was amusing that we got the ticket
for the seatbelts.

I did tell them that I was not particularly
into bondage, me:

I'm not, actually.

I f-- I don't like the seatbelts. [laughs]

A lot of people are into bondage .... [check]

and it's OK: good fun, sometimes.

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