Sorry, but I don't quite understand why it is illogical or unrealistic. I have a camera in my hand (or on a tripod), I shoot what I shoot regardless. Are you saying I am lying?
Shooting digital as if it were film is simply illogical and I don’t believe anyone who says otherwise, Kenna or a nurse next door. Is it possible ? Anything is, just beyond unrealistic.
Back to Michael Kenna. As of 2023, he had shot 175 000 negatives in his 50-year career.
Contrast that to Gary Winogrand who left 90,000 undeveloped negatives behind at the time of his death.
Here are the numbers, from the Gary Winogrand Archives at the Center for Creative Photography:
"At the time of his death, 2,500 rolls of exposed film remained undeveloped. An additional 6,500 rolls had been developed but not printed. Contact sheets were made from 3,000 additional rolls, but few have any editing marks. He probably made a third of a million photographs that he never looked at."
All in all, there are 141 boxes of negatives in the GWA.
Gary Winogrand Archives
Shooting digital as if it were film is simply illogical and I don’t believe anyone who says otherwise, Kenna or a nurse next door. Is it possible ? Anything is, just beyond unrealistic.
Yes, 2500 x 36 = 90000.
Many switched from one to the other without changing much of neither process nor style.
Salgado is one. His main reason of switching is the degradation from airport X-ray machines. Interesting to hear him talk about how his team managed to re-create his beloved Tri-X grain. He talks about it in this 2015 interview, starting at the 15:22 mark.
I don’t know for a fact, but I suspect Koudelka hasn’t changed they way he works that much by shooting digital. He did say something about not having the expense of film making his projects more possible.
You have a camera that allows you to take essentially limitless frames. Taking one or a couple of same subject instead is not logical, it's a form of masochism. Hopefully this is not offensive.Sorry, but I don't quite understand why it is illogical or unrealistic. I have a camera in my hand (or on a tripod), I shoot what I shoot regardless. Are you saying I am lying?
Taking one or a couple of same subject instead is not logical, it's a form of masochism.
Surely the answer has a lot to do with format and camera? With hand-held 35mm, moving a millimetre or two will change the framing and/or introduce camera shake. It makes sense to take several shots for insurance, if the subject allows it. (Personally, I get bored after about 3. The first is often the best but technically flawed, so all told I typically have nothing.)
But if you have a big ground glass screen and your camera mounted on a tripod, and your subject doesn’t run away, you are much more likely to get it right on the first exposure.
But if you have a big ground glass screen and your camera mounted on a tripod, and your subject doesn’t run away, you are much more likely to get it right on the first exposure.
I was reading an interesting interview with Michael Kenna and he brought up something I hadn't given much thought to. That is, if you are used to working conventionally with film there can be a tendency to make multiple exposures of tricky or unfamiliar situations because you don't know if what you have with any given shot is what you may be trying for, hoping for, or intending. On the other hand, he posits that the instant feedback from digital can lead you to stop shooting once you have seen what you want on the camera's screen. Basically, film becomes a medium with more opportunities for surprise, serendipitous shots than digital. All this contrary to the notion that digital naturally leads one to shoot more because you can and it costs nothing to do so.
On the other hand an important difference is approach. A neophyte might just make one or two exposures of a scene on film (aware of the number of frames and the expense of film), while shooting hundreds of nearly identical shots digitally. A more seasoned photographer might take advantage of the nearly unlimited number of exposures available digitally, trying to make every one count, having leeway for a lot of experimentation with a given scene.
I'm not sure what conclusion to come to, if any. I know that when I shoot digital, I rarely look at the images on the camera screen until later when I take a break or get back home/to the hotel/to the car. So if I don't like what I see, it could mean a reshoot just like film.
bracketing is for the inexperienced and the timid
Just developed and scanned 120 Ektachrome from a trip that will eventually be published. One shot: why didn't I move a foot to the right? Or why didn't I take another shot? Because I had only 10 rolls @ 12 shots/roll, and because it's now so bloody expensive.
Try 8X10 color film plus its processing at today's prices. At around $45 per SHOT, that should cure you. There are still a few people for whom that extra expense is negligible. But more shots doesn't equate to better compositions. More the other way around. It's the sniper and not the machine-gunner who hits the bullseye most often.
Oh Brian, you'd be amazed at how much 4x5 chrome film certain well-known calendar and stock photographers of former decades could burn on a single day. So yes, there were large format machine-gunners, and still are a few of them. But that was mostly back when a stock agency shot could fetch hundreds or even thousands of dollars for one-time publishing rights on a particular magazine cover etc. Now you'd be lucky to get 50 cents for a published digital stock shot (versus a budgeted ad).
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