Is there really a strong interest in film photography?

[Helge]

What that says about me is that my knees are getting old faster than the hills are eroding.

One should experience the joy of riding a one gear bike at least once in life.
You get a clear sense of how much of your power is actually wasted.
And how much time is wasted fumbling with gears.
Also very little and easy maintenance.
Got to a steep hill? Get off and walk. That’s a gear.
Need to go fast on a straight? Just pedal faster.
Most of your time will be spend in the mid power band though. And that’s where a one gear bike shines.

 

[Cholentpot]

Wonderful bike!
I think there is a definite crossover between various 'anachronistic' hobbies - steel bikes, typewriters, film photography, etc. This past weekend, I passed a college student riding a 70s Schwinn Continental with a Rolleiflex slung over his shoulder. I used to get the appeal of the lean, mean, carbon machines, but find that I am significantly happier on a relaxed Raleigh 3 speed or indeed, the old Schwinn I found in my college dorm years ago. Sometimes it is less about the result than it is the journey -- and looking cool while doing it!

Mine's got yellow handlebars. Doesn't get much cooler than that.

 

[Sirius Glass]

One should experience the joy of riding a one gear bike at least once in life.
You get a clear sense of how much of your power is actually wasted.
And how much time is wasted fumbling with gears.
Also very little and easy maintenance.
Got to a steep hill? Get off and walk. That’s a gear.
Need to go fast on a straight? Just pedal faster.
Most of your time will be spend in the mid power band though. And that’s where a one gear bike shines.

I prefer the 27 gear Haluzak Hybrid Race

It is my beach chair with an attitude.

 

[markjwyatt]

Is there really a strong interest in... bicycles? Maybe we should talk about trains- I mean this thread is a bit off track!

 

[snusmumriken]

Is there really a strong interest in... bicycles? Maybe we should talk about trains- I mean this thread is a bit off track!

I guess we have run out of answers for the OP ...

 

[Agulliver]

Back in the 1980s, there was a fellow who lived down the road who frequently rode his penny farthing bicycle complete with plus-fours and flat cap. Looked like something from a bygone century. He ended up becoming friends with my father, who owned a 1936 three wheeled Morgan.

As for me, I do not put on a costume when going around with ancient film cameras.

 

[jtk]

Nouns and verbs are both useful but they don't typically serve the same purpose.

That applies to fishing rods, bicycles, toys (such as cameras), and concepts.

"Photography" for some people means toys and technologies...ownership...acquisition. For other people (like me) photography is an active verb that's mostly about making images that can be shared.

In my case, sharing images centers on making prints...I rarely bother to put images online.

 

[markjwyatt]

Nouns and verbs are both useful but they don't typically serve the same purpose.

That applies to fishing rods, bicycles, toys (such as cameras), and concepts.

"Photography" for some people means toys and technologies...ownership...acquisition. For other people (like me) photography is an active verb that's mostly about making images that can be shared.

In my case, sharing images centers on making prints...I rarely bother to put images online.

Photography is a "Form" in Plato's concept of Ideas. In "heaven" (the "place" where the ideal Form resides) Photography is a process an artist or practitioner of photography uses, creating an image on photo-sensitive material, and ultimately expressing the idea he wants to express, usually on a print, but perhaps a slide or other form. Like all Forms, what results on earth is something less than the ideal, but still true to the form (e.g., idea not expressed on print as envisioned, negative scanned and displayed electronically, digital sensor used, etc.). Examples of Forms could be "horse", "happiness", "justice", etc. All these exist to some degree in the physical world, most are far from the ideal.

 

[snusmumriken]

Nouns and verbs are both useful but they don't typically serve the same purpose.

That applies to fishing rods, bicycles, toys (such as cameras), and concepts.

"Photography" for some people means toys and technologies...ownership...acquisition. For other people (like me) photography is an active verb that's mostly about making images that can be shared.

In my case, sharing images centers on making prints...I rarely bother to put images online.

I'm afraid 'photography' is actually a noun. But that's fine, I get your point. I share your view that prints are the preferred output, but online sharing can be useful too. I never put my fish online.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Nouns and verbs are both useful but they don't typically serve the same purpose.

That applies to fishing rods, bicycles, toys (such as cameras), and concepts.

"Photography" for some people means toys and technologies...ownership...acquisition. For other people (like me) photography is an active verb that's mostly about making images that can be shared.

In my case, sharing images centers on making prints...I rarely bother to put images online.

I'm afraid 'photography' is actually a noun. But that's fine, I get your point. I share your view that prints are the preferred output, but online sharing can be useful too. I never put my fish online.

So Kodak is a verb? As in Kodaking, right?

 

[snusmumriken]

So Kodak is a verb? As in Kodaking, right?

Kodak is unlikely to become a verb now, but Hoover did (as did cycle and fish and kayak).

 

[jtk]

I'm afraid 'photography' is actually a noun. But that's fine, I get your point. I share your view that prints are the preferred output, but online sharing can be useful too. I never put my fish online.

Actually you're right about the noun-ness vs verb-ness, so I'll reframe: making photographs requires making prints.

Online sharing doesn't share "photographs". What we see online merely refers to something else, something that barely exists...whatever it is cannot be a photograph.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Kodak is unlikely to become a verb now, but Hoover did (as did cycle and fish and kayak).

It was a reference to the use of the term "Kodaking" in the past.

 

[jtk]

It was a reference to the use of the term "Kodaking" in the past.

"Kodaking" was never used by civilized people to refer to making photographs. It would be like "Hasselbladding" today.

 

[MattKing]

For a significant period of time, "Kodak" and "Camera" were equivalent in many people's minds.
Sort of like "Kleenex" and "facial tissue".
So it wouldn't surprise me if many might have, during that period of time, referred to "photographing" as "Kodaking".
We are talking of course about a time long before Hasselblad cameras were a gleam in even Sirius' eye.

 

[markjwyatt]

"Kodaking" was never used by civilized people to refer to making photographs. It would be like "Hasselbladding" today.

Maybe Sirius Hassles people with his 'Blad?

 

[Sirius Glass]

For a significant period of time, "Kodak" and "Camera" were equivalent in many people's minds.
Sort of like "Kleenex" and "facial tissue".
So it wouldn't surprise me if many might have, during that period of time, referred to "photographing" as "Kodaking".
We are talking of course about a time long before Hasselblad cameras were a gleam in even Sirius' eye.

Yes, much before my time.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Maybe Sirius Hassles people with his 'Blad?

I do not take portraits. REF: See previous comments about what my father did while taking portraits.

 

[jtk]

fwiw I do call myself a photographer and sometimes even "artist" but I don't actually care because I spend more time admiring work of people who call themselves auto mechanics, historians, illustrators etc etc.

 

[Pieter12]

making photographs requires making prints.

So a slide projected on a screen or viewed on a lightbox is not a photograph then?

 

[MattKing]

Argumentative and rude posts deleted, plus responses to same.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Was the available light such that he needed a large flash? Did he also have a large lens?



Probably people don't want to be photographed in their bathing suits. I haven't been to the beach in a while, but from what I remember, it is understandable why people don't want to be photographed in their bathing suits. And then there is the issue of photographing children. I'll go out on a limb and say you would get the same reception if you took a DSLR to the beach.

You are correct. About 12 years ago when I lived in Sarasota, Florida, I took pictures with my digital camera. After I got to my car, a police car pulled up behind me so that I couldn't leave. They had gotten a complaint that I was taking pictures of children. I showed him how to look through my images, and of course, there weren't any kiddy porns.

Effing busy bodies.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Yes, there is. All you have to do is look at the catalog of a place like Freestyle. Film hit its nadir about 2008. Somewhere here I have a post of that year lamenting the very, very few film and paper options at Freestyle. Literally, just a few. And, if not there, where?

And look at Kodak resuscitating many of their old films.

There's a huge fan overlap between audiophiles and photographers. Probably most here know of the resurgence in analog audio.

Like many here, I used digital cameras and digital audio, but for fun and satisfaction, it's back to analog. As many are discovering, even the young. Nothing like holding a piece of art in that 12"x12" LP cover. Versus some scribble on an MP3 player.

We are analog creatures!

 

[Agulliver]

Yes, there is. All you have to do is look at the catalog of a place like Freestyle. Film hit its nadir about 2008. Somewhere here I have a post of that year lamenting the very, very few film and paper options at Freestyle. Literally, just a few. And, if not there, where?

And look at Kodak resuscitating many of their old films.

There's a huge fan overlap between audiophiles and photographers. Probably most here know of the resurgence in analog audio.

Like many here, I used digital cameras and digital audio, but for fun and satisfaction, it's back to analog. As many are discovering, even the young. Nothing like holding a piece of art in that 12"x12" LP cover. Versus some scribble on an MP3 player.

We are analog creatures!

I do wonder how much crossover there is. I was shooting film at a micropub in Gravesend a few weeks ago, as they had a guitarist performing there. He was quite interested that I was shooting him on film, as his wife/partner had a digital camera and he felt the film would add a certain something to the pictures and asked if he could see them with a view to using them for marketing. His partner was *pissed off*.

Said pub has an event every Thursday where they get out a thoroughly decent turntable and invite punters to bring their own records. My local jazz and blues club does something similar once a month, as well as having a couple of regular film shooters attend gigs. One photo I shot there on my Yashica Minister III did in fact end up adorning a 12x12 LP cover - purely because the musician loved the shot I took of him playing and offered to throw money at me.

Music and film...two of my passions...

 

[snusmumriken]

One photo I shot there on my Yashica Minister III did in fact end up adorning a 12x12 LP cover

Yes! Can we see?

A little while back in this discussion, somebody (faberryman?) stated that no-one went back to old technologies except for nostalgia's sake. It took me a while to react, but it really isn't true. Think of painting for a start. Also wool, which is being re-discovered, and of course bicycles. I asked my son, who is futuristically techy and has no books, for any examples in his field. He thought for a moment and said 'tape for big-scale digital storage'. The point is that all these technologies have unique characteristics, and while they may only continue in a smaller niche, some can become startlingly relevant once again. When the oil runs out I will become startlingly relevant again myself.

However, to return to the OP, I suspect the current minor fashionability of film among the young is largely nostalgia - for an era they never knew. A large number of beautifully engineered film cameras suddenly hit the s/h market at crazy low prices. They were cool objects in themselves and could be used to create pictures reminiscent of the last century.
As that irreplaceable population of old cameras gradually fails and becomes un-repairable, I suspect the manufacture of film and paper will quite quickly become non-viable. I'm enjoying it while it's still an option.