...the oh-so-last-century idea of film

billbretz · Jul 26, 2010

From the NYTimes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25fob-consumed-t.html?scp=1&sq=%E2%80%9Cthe%20oh-so-last-century%20idea%20of%20film%E2%80%9D&st=cse

"Progress toward perfection has genuine skeptics, who insist on sticking with marginalized tools. The newer thing may seem less flawed or simply easier, such traditionalists insist, but it sacrifices warmth, soul, depth, personality, chance and the human touch. They must have a point, because practically every antiquated creative process ends up inspiring some kind of digital filter, effect or add-on designed explicitly to mimic its singular properties. The upshot is a form of progress toward perfecting flaws."

lns · Jul 26, 2010

I just read the piece. He sure comes off as condescending.

It's in a column called "Consumed," which, though I skip it every week, seems to be about buying stuff. Nuff said.

-Laura

David Brown · Jul 26, 2010

"Users of actual cameras (actual digital cameras, I mean) can also unperfect their images ... "

Yep. Every single picture I've ever taken with a digital cameras was perfect! :rolleyes:

Ektagraphic · Jul 26, 2010

Stuff like that pisses me off. Why should I take electronic photos and make them look like Polaroid film when I can just shoot REAL instant film?! I can't stand it.

Colin Corneau · Jul 26, 2010

Ektagraphic said:
Stuff like that pisses me off. Why should I take electronic photos and make them look like Polaroid film when I can just shoot REAL instant film?! I can't stand it.

Laziness? Attention Deficit Disorder? An inability to understand depth and dedication?

:rolleyes:

spoolman · Jul 26, 2010

the-oh-so-last-century idea of film

Obviously this guy loves to critique anything and everything. People like that aren't worth getting upset about. What Laura said this guy must be on the payroll of software makers and digital camera companies.He wouldn't recognize his own image in a stack of pancakes at Denny's unless he could critique it.

I just ignore such people and go on with doing what I've been doing as it concerns photography.I've been involved with analogue photography for 35 years as a darkroom tech(now semi-retired) and I'm not going to let some egotistical weeny tell me how to do things.

Just my 2 cents (Canadian) worth.

Doug

billbretz · Jul 26, 2010

There is a little bit of shoot-the-messenger reaction to article here. I don't have much against how the article was written... I think it contains a concise description of the analog v digital crowd, even if that is not the thrust of the article (which is that there are all sorts of ways - and demand for it - to try to make digital look/sound/feel analog).

Mainecoonmaniac · Jul 26, 2010

In search of the perfect flaw

What I could figure out is that some are tired to perfection. But some on the other hand still make a living at retouching portraits and pictures of celebs with Photoshop until they look plastic. Some men has can't stand the site of cellulite on women from this false standard of beauty created through Photoshop. My questions to APUGers is that has the sterile world of digital photography has made people hungry for something more organic or not?

Any hoo, here's the link:
http://www.newday.com/films/WetDreams.html

Let intellectual banter begin!

cfclark · Jul 26, 2010

Ektagraphic said:
Stuff like that pisses me off. Why should I take electronic photos and make them look like Polaroid film when I can just shoot REAL instant film?! I can't stand it.

I guess I'm not alone in finding it really odd that so much time is devoted to adding to digital images the very sloppiness I work at not introducing into my film images. Yes, my snapshots of Grandma's birthday that I took in 1983 have a certain "look", it's the "look" of a crappy 110 fixed-focus camera--not anything "warm" or "organic". :confused:

This comes across to me as a condescending pat-on-the-head to film shooters, and especially to deliberately low-tech film shooters like the pinhole contingent--"see, you can make your photos look 'quaint' and 'old-timey' like that, without all the fuss!" (I really have to blame the users of things like Hipstamatic here, more than this particular columnist.)

Mainecoonmaniac · Jul 26, 2010

May be not...

Colin Corneau said:
Laziness? Attention Deficit Disorder? An inability to understand depth and dedication?

:rolleyes:

I think imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. All these effects done digitally is part of our visual vernacular. The intention is probably someone wanting to recreate another era for the fun of it. Some college kids these days are throwing Disco parties and raiding their parents closets for costumes. It's all to look back with rose tinted glasses.

CGW · Jul 26, 2010

There's a huge dollop of irony/sarcasm in this NYT column(isn't the name a hint?) and this installment is no exception. That my favorite lab here in Toronto may soon ditch its film services made the article all the more poignant.

bblhed · Jul 26, 2010

If digital cameras and post production photo software are so great at yielding the type of image that the photographer wants why do they sell filters intended for use with digital cameras? Why wouldn't a digital user just drop on a polarizer in the software rather than buying one.

Oh that's right, it takes longer to fix a photo with software than to take it right in the first place.

Maybe it's me, but I would rather have a camera in my hand than a mouse.

Film, the thing that gives you the ability to produce the image you are looking for with the camera when you take it rather than with software later.

I do have to admit that digital is a great way to make a just in case backup, and share with friends so I guess it has it's place too.

snallan · Jul 26, 2010

I think we should invite the author of this article to visit APUG, where we rejoice not so much in being 'last century', but 'century before last'! What with cyanotypes, colloidion, and brewing our own emulsions! Who would want to be fashionable and 'this century'!

eddym · Jul 26, 2010

Ah, the last century, I remember it well!! It wasn't until this one came along that my body started to wear out...

Exeter2010 · Jul 26, 2010

The more predominant digital becomes, the more I look at the traditional B&W work I do as really being art. I mean, differentiated, true craft, authentic, art. Maybe not by some of the standards that have been set for art, but sure more so than anything (most anything) done digitally anyway. IMHO.

I'm sure that the OPs referenced article does reflect the thinking of the vast (albeit uninformed) majority, that film is almost completely gone and 'clung' to only by those few luddite(ists?) who just can't seem to be able to bend to the inevitable 20th century and it's digital everything advancements with a little grace. That's crap! (For any of you out there listening.) I just ignore that stuff with the knowledge that most of us who are [still] shooting film are doing it because that's what we consciously choose to do, not because we "just can't accept reality", or any such naive reason as that. We do it - okay I do it, because I choose to stay true to something that I see as authentic and, whatever the OPPOSITE of ETHEREAL is. I choose to do it because, lately, it has become a differentiator that denotes quality and to me, integrity to the medium. I could go on and on. Hell, I have a digital camera and use it to document technical stuff at work because it's quick-n-easy.

I could, in fact go on and on, but really I'm just venting (and ranting) because I know if I were to actually write the author of the OPs article, it would 1. not be read at all, or 2. Be simply and summarily dismissed as some racket from one of those "oh-so-last-century" nutcakes. Ces't la vie. And give my regards to Ilford!

Sirius Glass · Jul 26, 2010

billbretz said:
From the NYTimes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/m...=“the oh-so-last-century idea of film”&st=cse

"Progress toward perfection has genuine skeptics, who insist on sticking with marginalized tools. The newer thing may seem less flawed or simply easier, such traditionalists insist, but it sacrifices warmth, soul, depth, personality, chance and the human touch. They must have a point, because practically every antiquated creative process ends up inspiring some kind of digital filter, effect or add-on designed explicitly to mimic its singular properties. The upshot is a form of progress toward perfecting flaws."

Newspapers, even the New York Times, must be on hard times. The newspaper sales are so bad that newspapers cannot afford writers to write about real news or think. So the writers they hire are journalist majors, you know the people who could write but never had an original idea so they could not make it as English, Literature or History majors. Journalism was the only major subject they could earn a degree. What do you expect from the scrapings of the bottom of the barrel?

Steve

thisismyname09 · Jul 26, 2010

cfclark said:
I guess I'm not alone in finding it really odd that so much time is devoted to adding to digital images the very sloppiness I work at not introducing into my film images. Yes, my snapshots of Grandma's birthday that I took in 1983 have a certain "look", it's the "look" of a crappy 110 fixed-focus camera--not anything "warm" or "organic". :confused:

This comes across to me as a condescending pat-on-the-head to film shooters, and especially to deliberately low-tech film shooters like the pinhole contingent--"see, you can make your photos look 'quaint' and 'old-timey' like that, without all the fuss!" (I really have to blame the users of things like Hipstamatic here, more than this particular columnist.)

I've got to agree with this more than anything. It's stupid that film is assumed to look grainy, discolored, and of low resolution when decades of work have been put into making film just the opposite (with generally fantastic success, at that). I blame the hipsters.

...the oh-so-last-century idea of film

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