If there were no film...

[darkosaric]

If there were no film... would you give up photography?

Yes.

 

[Chan Tran]

I will have to shoot digital!

 

[ColdEye]

No, I will not give up photography. I hate editing digital files, that is why I use film (also I am enjoying the darkroom work), but I still use digital cameras, I just shoot BW jpegs. I enjoy both so I will still continue.

 

[cliveh]

.... would you give up photography?


If Fuji, and Kodak, and the others decided to stop making film because it was no longer profitable - and your hoarded stock in the chest freezer ran out.... would you give up photography completely? Or start buying megapixels?

I think I would re-mortgage the house to have Leitz engineers make me a digital Leica M2. The film version would be put in some holy shrine that I could handle and sit with for moments of contemplation. When the images from the digital version come up on the computer screen monitor I would make sketches of them.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

A lot of confusion might have been avoided if digital had continued to be called "imaging" or some similar term versus traditional "photography." That wouldn't invalidate the former, but it would help demarcate them a bit better. One art is distinguished from another by process, not artifact. Otherwise, "photo-realistic painting" would be the same art as photography, and it clearly isn't.

Webster ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/photography ) defines photography as: "the art or process of producing images by the action of radiant energy and especially light on a sensitive surface (as film or a CCD chip)". This encompasses lots of different light sensitive media possibilities but DOESN"T encompass 'photo-realistic painting'.

 

[removed account4]

i wouldn't give up anything.
i'm headed back in time anyways,
i just need a bowler hat and a velocipede
besides, i find very little of my photography
has anything to do with film ...

 

[DWThomas]

I shoot plenty of both technologies; the electrocuted bits for instant gratification or documentation and (mostly) B&W film for my artistic warm fuzzies. I would not stop taking pictures if film went away, but at 71, I doubt I'll have to face that issue (if it ever happens). It may get more expensive.

Heck, there are still painters using encaustic to make images, painting with pigments in melted wax, a technique that goes back fairly early in the history of Egypt. Of course, even that has had some technology upgrades, one guy I've seen uses little tin cups in an electric frying pan for a "hot palette!"

 

[cdholden]

I got no "buzz" from the process.

You need more ether.

 

[CD55]

No way! Film is just another medium to me as I enjoyed using both film and that D-word. I doubt film will be gone in my lifetime I hope (I'm in my 40's) so I don't worry about it.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Nope. I would make my own. No worries for printing either as I'm into carbon transfer and kallitype.

 

[Brian C. Miller]

Here's another thing to consider: x-ray film. X-ray film is available in 8x10 and up, and it's so very, very cheap. 26 cents per sheet. TWENTY SIX FRICKIN' CENTS FOR A SHEET OF 8x10!!! I just spent about $15 per sheet for Kodak E100G 8x10.

Can anybody spot a price differential??

Now, are all of the doctor's offices going to switch to digital cassettes? How about the veterinarians, too? Lots of 8x10 and up xray film being used, again and again and again. So x-ray film would also have to go for me to give up film photography.

And then I would be coating glass plates and all of the rest of it.

 

[Eric Rose]

Would I give up photography. No way! I have no beef with digital as a creative tool. I love film too. I have 40 years worth of negs to print so will always have a darkroom. I love "photography" not the process.

 

[removed-user-1]

If I could no longer get any commercially-manufactured film, I would start coating my own glass plates. I have never done this but I would learn. In fact, I am hoping to do this anyway.

Seriously, I don't believe film will die, as in dead, buried, and forgotten. Will the manufacturers and the market change? Of course. But painting did not die with the advent of photography, and acoustic music did not die with the advent of the synthesizer.

 

[hoffy]

No way - I have loved digital in the past. I would learn to re-love digital if this was ever to occur.

 

[h.v.]

Good question.

I think, at this point, I would loose a lot of the love and "buzz" I had for photography if I could no longer buy/process film. I wouldn't go so far to say I'm anti-digital, but I do have a lot of pessimism towards it. But then again, if I gave up photography, it would create a massive hole in my life, so I just couldn't give up photography. As hoffy says, I loved digital in the past, I'm sure I'd learn to love it again. I'm just not sure it'd be with a DSLR. I'd probably be happy with a M9 or X100.

But I don't see film dying for a very, very, very long time, if ever. I think at this point, film is stabilizing in terms of usage and sales in general (as opposed to the decline of the past 12 years). From here on out, I suppose there will be a roughly similar demand for film, at least for the next while. At the very least, we'll have Ilford for a long while.

 

[moose10101]

However, *I* often say it should be so defined. A lot of confusion might have been avoided if digital had continued to be called "imaging" or some similar term versus traditional "photography." That wouldn't invalidate the former, but it would help demarcate them a bit better. One art is distinguished from another by process, not artifact. Otherwise, "photo-realistic painting" would be the same art as photography, and it clearly isn't. For commercial work, it's the artifact, the finished product, that is defining. Are we talking about art or commercial photography? I include selling the ability to take snapshots of the vacation and kids to the general public as commercial in this case. It sure ain't art.

So, if I use my DSLR to produce an image of my kids that I put on Facebook, it's a photograph, because it's "commercial", and it's the artifact that counts. But if I use the same process to produce an image that is sold in an art gallery, it's not a photograph, because it's "art", and it's the process that counts? Seriously?

Whoever labeled Man Ray's photograms "cameraless photography" must not have gotten the memo.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I would become a sculptor.

 

[welly]

I started photography with digital (was never interested in photography as a young 'un) and after being fed up and disillusioned by digital, got into film. I would explore other avenues of "analogue" photography before going back to digital. Maybe Daguerreotypes?

 

[batwister]

I've been fascinated by Michael Wolf's large format digital work for a while now - almost in spite of myself. His images embrace digital imaging in such a way that gives me hope about a possible filmless future - http://www.photomichaelwolf.com/transparent_city/ They are conceptually bound to the technology in a way that excites me.

The problem for us potentially making the move is that there's a leap of faith to be made in embracing the strengths of digital, rather than doing the same old thing and trying to emulate the film look - to the detriment of our photographs. Manipulation with digital images is always a veil which is the very reason Photoshoppery is becoming a seperate creative enterprise or... art form.

My main problem with digital photography is that nearly everything I've seen suffers from an identity crisis - digitalists are inhibited by that nagging urge to turn their images into CGI. There is a fine line that is so easily crossed once an image is on a computer and we're slowly learning to differentiate between 'image' and 'photograph'. The best digital 'photography' I've seen, like Michael Wolf's, unashamedly smacks you in the face with its straight to the point, no frills clarity. That overwhelming hyperrealism is what marks digital images as photographs and for me, this is when they excite me most. When digital is so bold as to rely on its massive resolving power to tell the story, it almost experientially heightens your awareness and the subtlety becomes apparent after that initial rush of adrenaline. With megapixels going up by the day, eventually constructing an image will be akin to building Rome. If this means we'll spend more time looking at photographs, then digital will be doing a great service for the evolution of photography as art. Isn't the biggest creative challenge of our medium to keep them looking?

The fact that we're so aware of how different digital is means we should be optimistic that it will eventually become a separate and identifiable strand of photography with its own conventions and standards. I don't think it's a steam roller trying to take us all out.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

The fact that we're so aware of how different digital is means we should be optimistic that it will eventually become a seperate and identifiable strand of photography with its own conventions and standards.

Maybe we should be looking at the MANY ways analog and digital photography are the same.

 

[batwister]

Maybe we should be looking at the MANY ways analog and digital photography are the same.

The more we think of them as separate 'media', the more choices we have for image making and in turn the more varied the art?

 

[Prof_Pixel]

The more we think of them as separate 'media', the more choices we have for image making and in turn the more varied the art?

Are shooting with a 35mm rangefinder camera or shooting on a 4x5 view camera 'separate media' choices?

 

[batwister]

Are shooting with a 35mm rangefinder camera or shooting on a 4x5 view camera 'separate media' choices?

No, different brush sizes.

 

[c6h6o3]

My main problem with digital photography is that nearly everything I've seen suffers from an identity crisis

My main problem with digital photography is the cost of the equipment. If I ever sell my film cameras, the biggest will be the first to go. I'll keep the Hasselblad because I know that at some point the prices for digital backs for it will enter the realm of the possible for me.

 

[tomtraubert]

.... would you give up photography?

If Fuji, and Kodak, and the others decided to stop making film because it was no longer profitable - and your hoarded stock in the chest freezer ran out.... would you give up photography completely? Or start buying megapixels?

That is interesting - I'm just looking at the eBay site selling efke bulk rolls. You actually have to pay and then wait until January 2013 before you can get your roll! That is due to "increased sales demand", as they say. My understanding of economics may be limited, but even so it's hard to relate such demand with a product being unprofitable. Perhaps Kodak was too big for current demand, but the small producers are not?

As regards to the main question here - of course I wouldn't, I shoot both film and digital anyway. (As much as I prefer film). I suppose if film was really to disappear (which I don't think likely, see above) we'd see more and more digital technology aimed at "mimicking" the film experience. (As already indicated by the PS filters that mimic specific emulsions, the absolutely massive "instagramization" of digital photography, and all these digicams that were made to resemble old-fashioned rangefinders... perhaps even the appearance of monochrome-only Leica is another sign of that, albeit aimed at the really well off).