It
is amazing what a few years and some simple advancements in technology can make
on the ability to capture an image, from camera obscura to advanced megapixel
sensors, technology never stands still. Not long ago I was fortunate enough to
handle a very nice Kawai Kanjiro chawan for study and took quite a few photos
and detail shots; the form and foot are classic and the glaze and decoration is
rich and crisp showing off the best of what Kawai created in a small and simple
space. While flipping through and older issue of the magazine THE MINGEI, I
spotted a very similar bowl which was photographed in black and white for the
publication and combined the two images to get a sense of the photographic
renderings, past and present. At first glance it is easy to say the modern,
digital photo is a much better representation of the bowl but I still think
there are things that B&W photo has that are of value, it presents a much
more focused façade of the bowl as well as shadow lines and certain details
that don't immediately jump out in the color photo. All in all, I'll go with
the modern photo and thanks to digital photography it is easy to take literally
hundreds of photos which capture all of the nuances and details that make the
chawan a total object. I can only imagine how archaic these modern images will
look when we start taking 3-D and holographic renderings of objects in the not
so distant future.
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