We are asked with some frequency why LensWork Extended is not available in DVD format for playing on a television like a DVD movie. The technology is relatively easy to create and it's not a matter of difficult authoring that prevents us from doing so. Rather, it's a matter of timing in the sense of the viewer's experience of time.
In the world of technology, there is what I think of as "the great divide" — those media that are viewer-timed and those that are author-timed. Movies are author-timed; PDF slide shows are author-timed; live lectures are author-timed; music is author-timed. In my way of thinking, photography is best when it is not author-timed, but when the viewer sets the pace of viewing. It's enough for me as a photographer to control what is seen, and perhaps in what sequence it is seen. But, I don't feel a compunction to control how long a viewer sees any given image. In fact, it's perhaps as a viewer of photographs that my prejudice was formed — I want total control of that characteristic for myself when viewing photographs, primarily because I find I prefer to spend far more time with an image that most people do.
Why? I've always thought that viewing photographs is more of a dialog that an entertainment. As a viewer, my responsibility is to look, ask questions, think, place the work in context of my life experiences, ask more questions, even ask that most leading of all questions, What if?This kind of dialog only happens when there is enough time to do so. Sometimes, I feel a photograph is worth a minute to two. Sometimes an hour to two. Almost never do I think a photograph (I'm talking about serious artwork here) is worth a fraction of a second or two as is so often the case now in our age of the quick cut.
Author-timed media has accelerated in my lifetime to rates that would astound and confuse our grandparents. I'm not sure this is a virtue. There is a lot of power in the pregnant pause that is all but absent from today's author-timed media. This is where the book, the PDF, the still photograph can still be of value — providing the time to think and react that is missing from author-timed media.
Of course, there is a risk for us photographers when we let go of control of time. Viewers can be fickle. Work we intend for leisurely viewing replete with meaning and counterpoint may be consumed in a glance, discounting all the subtlety we worked so diligently to include. It's a risk I think is worth taking for this simple reason: the best strategy as a producer is to create for that subset of viewers with whom we connect at the deepest level. I know of no other philosophy of art making that promotes the core of art's dual purposes — experiencing and sharing with the pursuit of excellence.
Besides, I'm pretty convinced that the author-timed media creators have the same problem. One can watch a movie while cooking, doing homework, talking, or otherwise distracted from full immersion in the artwork. Media does not determine connection; connection determines connection. You may quote me on that.
So, I prefer to have faith; faith that some viewers, albeit a few, will want to take time to connect with what I produce; faith that allowing them control of the time they spend with my art work will foster connections that are appropriate for them, long or short; faith that what I produce will, indeed, connect with someone, somewhere, in spite of this philosophy being in such opposition to the zeitgeist of our times.