Film, A Dying Art, Really

[PKM-25]

A dying product, yes, it is.

No. It is not dying, it is just no longer mainstream and is niche, having joined the ranks of alternative process. If you or anyone else is hell bent on finding all signs that point to death, then that is what you personally will find. But if you are like me and talk to the larger galleries, the staff at the New York Times and Chris Anderson of Magnum like I did this weekend, you will find that it is niche and alive and well as such.

 

[spijker]

Photography hasn't replaced paintings & drawings completely. CD's haven't replaced vinyl records completely. So digital photography will not replace film photography completely. There's enough interest in it. Both film and digital photography can lead to excellent results. Neither medium is superior despite another thread on this forum but both have their pro and cons. Just like everything else in life.

As someone put it in another forum: People still walk or ride a bike from A to B while it goes much faster in a car. Why? Because people like to walk and bike. The same goes for film photography and darkroom printing. People like doing it. And models are in awe when you press the shutter on a medium format SLR; "wow, that's wild".

I shoot both BW film & digital (colour) and see no reason to give up on one or the other.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

People still cook while there are TV dinners also.

 

[lancekingphoto]

Sometimes with digital, the failure is in the medium, not in the handling by the photographer. I do multiple backups of all my digital images but what happens when the tragedy occurs before you can back them up - or even accidentally delete them?

Last weekend I shot a wedding for a good friend of mine with my Nikon D7000. After using the same memory card for ~500 shots all day long, I was about to shoot the bride tossing her bouquet. My camera wouldn't fire. At first I thought the problem was the AF in the dim light, but when I looked down the LCD was flashing "Err." I quickly swapped cards and kept going. On the ride back to our hotel, I tried to view the contents of the original card, only to see an error on the rear display that the card was damaged and to insert another! I felt literally sick at the prospect of losing all the wedding, formal and much of the reception shots.

When I got back to the room, I immediately tried the card in my laptop. The files were visible, but importing them directly into Lightroom prompted a BSOD. I restarted and was able to copy them manually to the hard drive then import them into LR afterward. Thankfully, I didn't lose any photos despite an evidently flaky/ failing card (Kingston 32GB). I've never had an SD card fail like that, and I'm always careful to reformat them in camera after each use. The night could easily have ended in disaster if my efforts to recover the files had failed.

While I could have potentially added some safety steps (using multiple, smaller SD cards and/or using two cards at once instead of leaving card 2 as spillover), the incident was a reminder of just how fragile those 1s and 0s are. Sure, you can mess up a roll of film. But at most you've lost 36 exposures, not 500. And even then, chances are you could recover some image in many situations. But bits and bytes do not a photo make, and until you've got multiple backups - and preferably real prints - they're just digital files.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

Sometimes with digital, the failure is in the medium, not in the handling by the photographer. I do multiple backups of all my digital images but what happens when the tragedy occurs before you can back them up - or even accidentally delete them?

Even with film lots of bad things can happen between the time you take a picture and the time you have prints in your hand.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Even with film lots of bad things can happen between the time you take a picture and the time you have prints in your hand.

To avoid things like this from happening I usually bring two cameras to events. I shoot half with one camera and the other half with the backup. I actually mix and match. Just because it's not likely that two cameras, rolls of film, processing, etc gets cocked up for both. Redundancy.

Maybe that's a bit paranoid, but it is a sort of insurance.

 

[mauro35]

This is a sensitive topic for me and I thought I will share what I think even if many people have already said something very similar and I agree completely with them. I cannot have a strong opinion whether film will eventually dye as a product or not, I can only definitely hope not. But when I started photography I used a digital camera for a long time and become involved into it. In some point I decided to try film. I have never used my digital camera again since I saw the results of my first roll, which was even badly underexposed and the look of film was such an unbelievable discovery for me. The analog response to light is so human and natural I am now heartly passionate about photography. The only question I keep asking myself is how in the world people liked and bought digital cameras when they were invented if the only thing they knew was film? But market and economy, convenience, immediate achievement always pop up as reasonable reasons. It may be true, but they are not reasonable for me. In the end I see it as a matter of value. For me the quality and feel of an image is of great value and it just doesn' t make sense to compromise on it.

 

[David Brown]

Don't forget the price of ink and good quality inkjet paper! Huge cost. Either way, photography is expensive when done right. Period. ...

My old signature line:

Photography is not for the faint of wallet.

 

[Ming of Mongo]

I switched to film, more or less, because I wanted to slow down and think more about the shots. But all told, I don't really think film is all that slower. People totally underestimate the time they spend in front of a computer. Obviously you can't beat digital for a quick snapshot, and some people are just going to do great work no matter what format.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yeah ... and they said painting would go extinct once someone figured out how to take photographs in color. That was over a hundred years ago, and there are probably more art stores around selling canvas and pigment than ever. The only reason I sit on my butt fooling with a computer at all is that I'm paid to do it... but it's not something I actually enjoy...

 

[mesantacruz]

the only thing that will die any time soon, is you and me!

 

[Jesper]

Not quite dying, I would say. Earlier this year me and a few friends formalized our photographic activities by forming Silverfotografiska sällskapet (The Silver Photographic Society in English) and our output has increased along with the money we spend on film and paper (money well spent). Last Saturday we met with two digital photographers who wanted to join and get back to analogue photography.
Photographywise things are looking good.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

That's excellent. Maybe some day, if I retire to Sweden, I can join you. Keep the art alive!

Not quite dying, I would say. Earlier this year me and a few friends formalized our photographic activities by forming Silverfotografiska sällskapet (The Silver Photographic Society in English) and our output has increased along with the money we spend on film and paper (money well spent). Last Saturday we met with two digital photographers who wanted to join and get back to analogue photography.
Photographywise things are looking good.

 

[lancekingphoto]

Even with film lots of bad things can happen between the time you take a picture and the time you have prints in your hand.

True. But what are the odds you'd instantly lose 500 (or more) images in one failure event? That's quite a few rolls of film to misplace or mis-process.

 

[Jesper]

You're welcome any day Thomas

 

[Aldo M.]

I'm not a professional photographer , and i haven't a lot of money to spend in the new wonderful digital monster. With some money i bought a used 4x5 with only an old 150 sironar in good condition. A box of fp4 , some rodinal and other chemical stuff and i can do all i want.
I love the "slow shooting" like "slow food" in Italy, even in the extreme cold in the Alps winter (no batteries can resist to -30C°). In the future ? NO FILM? i don't believe this ....and i love contemplating nature and architecture! in a ground glass...

 

[batwister]

I'm not a professional photographer , and i haven't a lot of money to spend in the new wonderful digital monster. With some money i bought a used 4x5 with only an old 150 sironar in good condition. A box of fp4 , some rodinal and other chemical stuff and i can do all i want.
I love the "slow shooting" like "slow food" in Italy, even in the extreme cold in the Alps winter (no batteries can resist to -30C°). In the future ? NO FILM? i don't believe this ....and i love contemplating nature and architecture! in a ground glass...

LF is overkill for the modest ambition of most hobbyists, yet so many take the plunge, with the excuse that - "for this much I could get this instead, which is better than this" - which is investment talk. It doesn't say anything for your reasoning to actually make pictures with the thing. There's entitlement and ego at play too - we believe we deserve the absolute best we can get, even though our talent as image makers might not warrant large format presentation.

The reality is, digital cameras offer more than enough punch for the photographic ability of everyone on this forum. Very few here are artists, so I never buy the colour rendition/tonality argument. I shoot film because I'm stubborn and partly believe that it inherently makes my pictures better. That might make people uncomfortable, but probably because it's just as true for themselves.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Why is it overkill? View camera aren't only about more square inches of film per shot, but about a whole different way of looking at things.
They slow you down, make you think, improve consciousness of the borders and composition, esp when it's upside-down. The equipment itself
makes you feel like a photographer, whether you have the native instinct for imaging or not, not like just another cellphone machine-gunner.
One starts understanding that results are often unrelated to mere technological convenience. And the rig might not cost any more than some
stupid Smartphone that won't be considered cool a year from the time of purchase. People buy old cars or classic motorcycles and spend tens of thousand of dollars fixing them up. You don't have to be professional race car driver to do that! People will spend thousand of dollars
on an antique piece of furniture just because they want to. What's the difference? .... Of course, when someone asks why I still use an
"antique" big camera like my 8x10, I politely inform that that antiques aren't make out of epoxy composites and have titanium, aircraft aluminum, and delrin fittings. It merely looks antique.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

LF is overkill for the modest ambition of most hobbyists, yet so many take the plunge, with the excuse that - "for this much I could get this instead, which is better than this" - which is investment talk. It doesn't say anything for your reasoning to actually make pictures with the thing. There's entitlement and ego at play too - we believe we deserve the absolute best we can get, even though our talent as image makers might not warrant large format presentation.

The reality is, digital cameras offer more than enough punch for the photographic ability of everyone on this forum. Very few here are artists, so I never buy the colour rendition/tonality argument. I shoot film because I'm stubborn and partly believe that it inherently makes my pictures better. That might make people uncomfortable, but probably because it's just as true for themselves.

That's a pretty elitist point-of-view. You're over-thinking things again, I fear...

Ken

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I agree with you, Drew. It's also about choice, and being satisfied with our efforts. If we don't use the tools that we love, then what's the point of using them at all?

To me it's all about expression, to communicate something to others, about what I felt and saw. My chosen tools are not large format, (I tried that for a few years and didn't like it), but I take personal pride in the prints that I make, and because I spend so much time and effort trying to make that one thing perfect, it feels good to keep them, to show them, and sometimes sell or give them away.

I don't think large format is overkill, as long as you love working with it. That satisfaction trumps everything else, in my mind.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

...big camera like my 8x10, I politely inform that that antiques aren't make out of epoxy composites and have titanium, aircraft aluminum, and delrin fittings...

Which part(s) are titanium? I wasn't aware that Dick had used any.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I know this has been posted before, but Kodak think there's money to be made in film.

http://petapixel.com/2013/09/26/kodak-alaris-will-keep-kodak-legacy-alive-plans-stop-selling-film/

 

[PKM-25]

LF is overkill for the modest ambition of most hobbyists, yet so many take the plunge, with the excuse that - "for this much I could get this instead, which is better than this" - which is investment talk. It doesn't say anything for your reasoning to actually make pictures with the thing. There's entitlement and ego at play too - we believe we deserve the absolute best we can get, even though our talent as image makers might not warrant large format presentation.

The reality is, digital cameras offer more than enough punch for the photographic ability of everyone on this forum. Very few here are artists, so I never buy the colour rendition/tonality argument. I shoot film because I'm stubborn and partly believe that it inherently makes my pictures better. That might make people uncomfortable, but probably because it's just as true for themselves.

The person you quoted gave a positive and personal citation of why he uses what he does, it's an expression of a part of who this person is as is any process that any of us chooses to engage in for what ever reason.

Personally, I use film because of the results I get and I get the results I do because of the journey I make with this craft in it's entirety. There are days I enjoy using digital quite a bit and then there are other days...not so much. But there is never a day I do not fully enjoy the challenge of shooting a great image in black and white with the final print in mind, it is a process that makes me think, feel and see so utterly differently that this inner self enlightenment spills off into other areas of my life. It's not uncommon for my wife to say, "I can tell you shot some film today" because of how I look, what I say and how I make her feel.

If you love what you do, then you are rich beyond any Wall Street ticker chart, anyone's assessment of your net worth. If you love what journey you are traveling on in which to arrive at what you did, then it will show as better than your alternatives and no one can say you could do better.

It's personal, it has nothing to do with what your opinions are as to if digital offers enough punch for anyone's ability as a photographer. I think it is safe to say that in 2013 with the information revolution being still very much in a formative state, the reason anyone chooses film over digital, large format over medium is most likely personal rather than technical....

 

[removed account4]

I don't think large format is overkill, as long as you love working with it. That satisfaction trumps everything else, in my mind.

thanks thomas
i couldn't agree more ...

i had an art history teacher in college, his name was ivan galantic: he was truly a genius.
once he said in a lecture the difference between humans and animals is that animals seek comfort
and humans seek discomfort. sometimes it is the way we got there, not where we ended up.

john

 

[DREW WILEY]

Sorry, Sal ... It's my Ebony 4x5 that has the titanium hardware, and people confuse that camera with being "old fashioned" too. But I did change quite a bit of the minor hardware on my Phillips - a distinct improvement, after a few things broke from stress. I showed the modifications to Dick and he liked them, but had already begun his his model II design anyway. I had one of his very first 8x10's, and still use it all the time. Guess I was suffering from a moment of machinist's "after image". I posted just after measuring for some key stock to modify a
piece of machinery here at work, and was thinking about too many alloys in my head at the same time, I guess. Hard to say. I have odds n'
ends of titanium on all kinds of things. There's almost nothing I don't modify except lenses per se.