WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Louisiana channel - David Hocney: Photoshop is boring) 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 [David Hockney] The invention of photography was the invention of chemicals 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and in a way, chemical photography is now ended. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It lasted - what? - 160 years. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now, nobody thought chemical photography would end. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Nobody predicts that, do they? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It ended - it certainly has ended now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Kodak stopped making fixative about eight years ago, I think. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the fixative was the invention. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Daguerre did it his way 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and in England Fox Talbot, who was playing with cameras, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and meaning, seeing these images - 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and remember, they sold them in color: you always see them in color; 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they were surprised that the photograph was black and white 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 when they first came out - 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but, he said to Sir John Herschel: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "How can I -- how can we fix this image?" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They could get it on paper, using silver 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but it didn't last long. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And in fact, sir John Herschel said: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Oh well, if you want to fix it, you need this, this and this" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and wrote out the formula for fixative 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that was still being manufactured till eight years ago. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So now, we've now moved out of that period. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I will point out, I - in 1989, I was invited by Adobe, in Silicon Valley, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to the launch of Photoshop. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And they invited a few people for various reasons. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I tink I was invited because they'd seen the photo collage I'd done 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of - of Pearblossom Highway. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so they invited me and I went up with my assistant, Richard. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I took my dogs as well. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They said - I saw it - 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the two things they don't like in Silicon Valley: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 smokers and dogs. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I said "Well, you got to lump it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm here and you'll have to do it." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But they were showing as well - we tried things [check] 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And when we were driving back to LA, I said 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Wow, that was all about drawing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it's the end of chemical photography." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because you can't do this with chemical photography. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It has to be digital for the Photoshop. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I was a bit early, but nevertheless, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I could see that's what was coming. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The one-hour Photomat place was going to disappear 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - that's what I had been using, things like that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it has implications that I began to see. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They've got bigger, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they're still there now, they're getting bigger. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In a way, I mean to say, useful thing, Photoshop 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I think it has made a lot of magazines look very similar, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 rather boring. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It polishes photography, they put the highlights in, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 take them blemishes away, I mean that sort of thing, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 love it in Hollywood, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they all touch up things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I mean, it's also causing a kind of stale look 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - to me, anyway, to me. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But that's why, if you need, you know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 even fashion magazines, thirty years ago, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 would have quite a lot of drawings in them 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so you got a different thing as you looked through pages. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But not many people draw now, so it's all photography 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I think, getting more and more boring because of it, I think. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, I was - we were just in the Picasso show here, you know. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was looking at that owl, that marvelous owl 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and to Dave, I pointed out, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 some people just stuff a real owl and put it in a case. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Not that interesting. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I was explaining to my young friend 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 why Picasso's is so marvelous. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It isn't an owl, it's a human being looking at an owl. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's an account of a human being looking at an owl. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So that's what thrills us. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There is more owlness there than in the stuffed owl. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If you find a way to solve something - 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was talking about the Spring, you know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm working on that now in England - 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and how would you depict the arrival of Spring? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The arrival of Spring is too slow for a movie to catch it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It moves too - it moves, but it moves too slowly 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for the movie camera. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it's also not that easy to photograph 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because the very first signs of it is so subtle 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the camera doesn't see them that well. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But if the human eye sees it, you can exaggerate a little 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the first little green shoots coming up, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you emphasize the green. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The cameras can't - they're not that good on color, really, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, they don't see the subtle colors at all, actually. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's OK, you know, on a beach, color photography 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but with greens, it's not that good, really, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 even today it's not. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Even, I mean, when we use nine cameras, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and therefore we could use different exposures on each one, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we didn't get a bigger range of greens. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I know that, I mean I know about, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I know about technical things, about film and things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But it's a - 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 peop-- you know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 not much is written often about these technical problems 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they're technical problems. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You can overcome them but 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if you're not taught about them much, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 some people forget that there are problems 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that they have to be sorted out. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I've been dealing with the Winter in East Yorkshire. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a climate, just like this really, just over the water. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a very similar climate, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 very similar horticulture and agriculture 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, the Spring is just beginning here, isn't it? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's just beginning there. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And - but of course, you don't get Spring in Southern California, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 not big anyway - 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I found there was more color in the Winter, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that the road, this little road, is darkest of all 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at the height of Summer 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because all the leaves of - come over it, it's like a tunnel 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it's darker in it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I mean, you get in light coming in, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but that's it's dark is [check] (7:51)