A beautiful portrait. Timeless portrait. Every once in a while, I print out one of my pop's old negatives, and there they are, like they were shot yesterday.
I read this interview with an engineer from Rand, who said "the half-life of a digital file is eternity. . . or five years. Whichever comes first." I think there is going to be a blank space in the American photo album, starting about 2002. It will be on a burned-out hard drive, buried in a landfill somewhere.
Sorry about the pontification. I love that portrait.
A beautiful portrait. Timeless portrait. Every once in a while, I print out one of my pop's old negatives, and there they are, like they were shot yesterday.
I read this interview with an engineer from Rand, who said "the half-life of a digital file is eternity. . . or five years. Whichever comes first." I think there is going to be a blank space in the American photo album, starting about 2002. It will be on a burned-out hard drive, buried in a landfill somewhere.
Sorry about the pontification. I love that portrait.
I used to work for Big Blue years ago, and the security end of the business made me realize that eventually some malicious soul would probably write a virus that targeted .jpg, .tif, etc. files. If that happens, exactly what you suggest may well come to pass.
I will continue to use digital for many reasons, but I made the decision to come back to film because of the longevity and the feel you get with working with your hands and mind to solve visual problems.
I must confess, I 'overlit' the scene with hot lights (I was using vintage Hollywood style lighting), and overexposed a bit as well. The forehead had such a horrible hot spot, that it took me days in the darkroom, and box of 11x14 Ilford Multigrade FB to figure it out. Anyway, it worked out well eventually and has a certain luminosity that I quite like. Can't get that with my strobe setup at all, but I had a silver reflector 1' outside the image that worked really well, and that saved this image.