About the only time I hear that I can neither buy film nor have it developed, it has been from someone, like the judge who should know better, not from a teenager or college age person. I'll bet that there is hardly a member of our local photo-society who has not bought in to these falsehoods and that includes several who once made beautiful b&w film enlargements but have not kept up with modern analog photography. I don't think there is intent to "put-down" analog photography, rather they are speaking from ignorance.......Regards!
How to deal with photography deniers?
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The one time I was told I couldn't get film anymore was at a photo club in "da 'burgh" and by the same guy who said that he didn't used to think women were any good at photography and that TMax didn't have any silver.
I've been asked about getting film when I've been out shooting and my answer is that I buy it online from Freestyle Photo. I get more questions when I'm shooting smaller formats than when I have the 4x5 out. With that, people just watch.
I've been asked about getting film when I've been out shooting and my answer is that I buy it online from Freestyle Photo. I get more questions when I'm shooting smaller formats than when I have the 4x5 out. With that, people just watch.
Truly, we live in exalted times.
As a shooter who travels in Asian countries with a Rolleicord on one shoulder and a Nikon D700 on the other (obviously I have big shoulders), I must be on more Asian blogs than any other Westerner, almost.
If those shooters are more polite than annoying (they most often are), I respond with "yes" to everything they ask. If they seem to mean well and occasionally `even want to know the answer to their questions, I reply very briefly. Then I leave.
If they are especially annoying, I stalk them with the D700 and fire off a burst of images (I can delete them later) which usually drives them away. Most blog bunnies hate being photographed, excepting Indonesians where everyone in the photo group of 20-50 at Borobudur or in the Bromo Valley will want to pose with me individually and then panoramic a group shot and they all want to shoot both. Here the grin and bear it technique applies. Good international relations and all that. (I'm Canadian.)
The super annoying ones mostly say "that's an old camera!" or a variation of this. To which I say, "it's not as old as you are" and walk away. Being male and burly is useful here.The more timid can just say "yes" and depart pronto.
The trick is to know when to go, and do it quickly.
Treat the entire thing as an amusing necessity in life, karma or whatever, and go on shooting great film images.
As a shooter who travels in Asian countries with a Rolleicord on one shoulder and a Nikon D700 on the other (obviously I have big shoulders), I must be on more Asian blogs than any other Westerner, almost.
If those shooters are more polite than annoying (they most often are), I respond with "yes" to everything they ask. If they seem to mean well and occasionally `even want to know the answer to their questions, I reply very briefly. Then I leave.
If they are especially annoying, I stalk them with the D700 and fire off a burst of images (I can delete them later) which usually drives them away. Most blog bunnies hate being photographed, excepting Indonesians where everyone in the photo group of 20-50 at Borobudur or in the Bromo Valley will want to pose with me individually and then panoramic a group shot and they all want to shoot both. Here the grin and bear it technique applies. Good international relations and all that. (I'm Canadian.)
The super annoying ones mostly say "that's an old camera!" or a variation of this. To which I say, "it's not as old as you are" and walk away. Being male and burly is useful here.The more timid can just say "yes" and depart pronto.
The trick is to know when to go, and do it quickly.
Treat the entire thing as an amusing necessity in life, karma or whatever, and go on shooting great film images.
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A consensus of 93% of film photographers agree that film is still available and there are outlets available to process film. That is all you need to say. Really. What? You don't believe me?
MattKing
Moderator
Early this year I was out for a cool weather walk in Deas Island Regional Park. I had my OM-4T over my shoulder.
A somewhat younger couple walked past me, walking the other direction on the path. They were both carrying digital cameras - one DSLR, one smaller.
The gentleman said to me with a smile as he approached: "Nice camera".
I smiled back and said "I agree".
We then continued our separate ways.
While I do encounter ignorance about the current status of film, and I do encounter people who consider digital to be an improvement, I don't really encounter people who consider my preference for film to be a mistake.
A somewhat younger couple walked past me, walking the other direction on the path. They were both carrying digital cameras - one DSLR, one smaller.
The gentleman said to me with a smile as he approached: "Nice camera".
I smiled back and said "I agree".
We then continued our separate ways.
While I do encounter ignorance about the current status of film, and I do encounter people who consider digital to be an improvement, I don't really encounter people who consider my preference for film to be a mistake.
It has been at least five years since anyone has said anything negative about my using film cameras. Occasionally I get asked if it is hard to get film and how I get film processed. People who recognize the cameras I am using offer encouragement. Some others that show interest ask good questions and I will take the time to talk to them.
My response would likely have been, "ha, ha, that's what you think!"
With still cameras I only experienced indifference. With Super-8 often "thumbs up". Once a boy not only wanted to take an photo of me but an autograph too...
Trouble starts when trying to teach analog photography: rejection.
The weird thing though is the reaction of fellow film photographers I come across and approach. Typically they either do not communicate at all or react unfriendly. To an extend that I meanwhile tend to ignore them from the start.
Trouble starts when trying to teach analog photography: rejection.
The weird thing though is the reaction of fellow film photographers I come across and approach. Typically they either do not communicate at all or react unfriendly. To an extend that I meanwhile tend to ignore them from the start.
Not me...people always want to engage me with large format and I always have to be rude and ask them to talk to me after I take the photograph
I've encountered so many of these irritant persons over the years, I never understood why they feel the need to deny others.
It's always the same tune, whatever they do is the only way to do it, whatever they purchase is the best and, of course, they absolutely have to assert how wrong you are for doing things differently. Next time, try replying using a fake foreign language.
I love photographing with my field camera, developing the film in darkness, and then contact printing. Whenever someone comes over to ask questions, I always engage in conversation, explaining what and why I doing what I'm doing. Like Vaughan above, I ask if they'd like to look under the dark cloth. I also carry a print or two in my bag so that they can see what the output looks like.
Don't get me wrong, I've had experts telling me I'm wasting my time / don't know what I'm doing / not photographing in the best light / not the best subject matter/ the best vantage point etc., as they know and understand more than I, which I gracefully accept, and let them know so too.
I don't think it's a film / digital thing, I think it's the 'experts in their own mind' thing....
Don't get me wrong, I've had experts telling me I'm wasting my time / don't know what I'm doing / not photographing in the best light / not the best subject matter/ the best vantage point etc., as they know and understand more than I, which I gracefully accept, and let them know so too.
I don't think it's a film / digital thing, I think it's the 'experts in their own mind' thing....
I went to two different camera clubs here in the city. Both times, everyone started out super friendly and happy to see someone who wasn't over the age of 60 attending. Then they asked what I shoot, because apparently they both like to have these silly little Nikon vs. Canon debates (as if Sony, Pentax, Hasselblad, Leica, Fuji, etc. didn't exist). When I told them I shoot large format, it seemed to make people angry. Like they couldn't understand why'd I'd shoot film when digital was obviously superior in every way. They tried their hardest to convince me that I was wasting my time with film. I found that so odd that these guys, who clearly spent the majority of their lives in a film only world, would be so hostile towards the medium. Anyway, rather than argue, I just didn't go back. I was hoping to learn some stuff from them, but they were mostly just bad amateurs and retired Sears family portrait photographers who had more money than sense (as evident by all of the trips to Africa and Asia to photograph wildlife that they took).
Sometimes when I take my large format cameras out, I'll get random people who come up to me and ask me if I'm a professional photographer. I tell them no, and they generally seem disappointed. Then they ask me about my camera and why I still shoot film. They're usually a lot nicer and more interested in learning how the process works than most of the digi photographers I meet. They really love to look through the ground glass and see the upside down images after I've shot! I generally don't mind talking to them, unless I'm in a hurry. Then again, I really like learning from others and teaching people what I know.
Sometimes when I take my large format cameras out, I'll get random people who come up to me and ask me if I'm a professional photographer. I tell them no, and they generally seem disappointed. Then they ask me about my camera and why I still shoot film. They're usually a lot nicer and more interested in learning how the process works than most of the digi photographers I meet. They really love to look through the ground glass and see the upside down images after I've shot! I generally don't mind talking to them, unless I'm in a hurry. Then again, I really like learning from others and teaching people what I know.
I think there is a lot of victim mentality around here.
Facile New York response, quoting a frequent local commercial tag line: "Ya go ta B&H".
Charley
I usually get positive responses to me shooting film (if noticed at all), but recently when I was in Greece I went on a half-day tour in Meteora, and an older gentlemen there had the same questions about film and processing and I gave him polite answers about it, but for the rest of the afternoon he kept switching between telling me how happy he was with his digital setup(s) while alternating waxing nostalgic about the film gear he used to have (and then going back to why he was happy he didn't shoot film anymore). I think a lot of (older) photographers who made the switch to digital suffer from some form of cognitive dissonance, where, deep down, they may not be truly happy with the switch but need to constantly convince themselves, and others, that it was the right thing to do - and, by association, that everyone else should make that switch too.
Bang on!
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- 35mm RF
You know what they say, you can't fix stupid....
People don't generally bother me. Every now and then someone makes a comment. Oddly for whatever reason it is usually women. If someone is interested and I have a medium format or 4x5 camera on a tripod I'll offer to let them look through it.
The whole film/digital thing is because everyone has an ego, and no one wants to feel inferior. I suspect deep down a lot of digital photographers feel like a film photographer is more of a "photographer" so they get weird. People are always looking for confirmation too. When you are different to them, they feel insecure which is why they say stupid things. It is just human nature. It is displayed all the time on the forums here. Every question is answered with what the answerer does, not what the poster asked.
People don't generally bother me. Every now and then someone makes a comment. Oddly for whatever reason it is usually women. If someone is interested and I have a medium format or 4x5 camera on a tripod I'll offer to let them look through it.
The whole film/digital thing is because everyone has an ego, and no one wants to feel inferior. I suspect deep down a lot of digital photographers feel like a film photographer is more of a "photographer" so they get weird. People are always looking for confirmation too. When you are different to them, they feel insecure which is why they say stupid things. It is just human nature. It is displayed all the time on the forums here. Every question is answered with what the answerer does, not what the poster asked.
Why? Each generation grows up in a different world and that is how it should be.
That is because in the past we have been verbally attacked often.
One could also say that no matter how different each "world" is through the passage of time, no world exists independent of the world that preceded it: one gives birth to the next. Many things we have accomplished and experienced are worth carrying forward into the next iteration.
Painting has not died.
I've tied it, doesnt work.
That’s because you’re in Australia, where everything is already upside down or backwards. You need to turn the camera over, and then over again to compensate.
I wonder whether oil and watercolor painters fight with each other on internet forums.
Two of my close friends paint: One calls the other's watercolour paints "kindergartener's toys". The other in turn mock the firsts's "inability to master control and detail" or something...
Humans are weird.
If anyone comments to me at all about using film it’s always positive. Most people I encounter, regardless of age, think it’s cool. Many have been digital photographers, actually.
I do get asked about the availability of film once in while. “Yes, it’s still being made and not too hard to find.”
I agree with others who have experienced more interest from strangers when using TLRs. I don’t know what it is about a TLR, but I got into five different conversations this past Sunday while I was using my Rolleiflex. People really react to it.
I do get asked about the availability of film once in while. “Yes, it’s still being made and not too hard to find.”
I agree with others who have experienced more interest from strangers when using TLRs. I don’t know what it is about a TLR, but I got into five different conversations this past Sunday while I was using my Rolleiflex. People really react to it.
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