Why? They seem to be serving their intended market.Maybe film companies should stop introducing cheap crap “film fad” sploitation cameras?
Something like a Nettar with a few modern trimmings, I’d be all over the moment it landed.
Electronic shutter, possibility of optionally using your iPhone as a viewfinder, range finder and light meter, made of tough durable and light plastic and serviceability are just a few possible examples of things not readily possible with old cameras.
The problem for me with prints, is I'm limited to what I can do with them. Sticking them in a folder after looking once or twice just seems like a waste of time and effort. Scanning for Flickr or a slide show is pretty much what I could do now on a regular basis. It's just what it is.
What do others here do with their prints if you can't mount them and stick them up on a wall? And why do it then?
A market can be educated and guided.Why? They seem to be serving their intended market.
Yes, and later you realise that you were one of thousands trying to be different in exactly the same way.I think humans want to distinguish themselves from others. We all try to be different.
That’s a really good question. For me, I have all these boxes…..
But to answer the “why do it then” query, that’s really easy. I do it because I have to. It’s for the same reason I have hundred of pages in my drawing sketchbooks and stacks of old sketchbooks around. In my approach, it has never been about the finished product but, rather, about being in the process of creating and doing. I suppose this is why I have never been motivated to monetize or even show what I do.
Engaging in the process, or either doing photography or drawing (or when I go out for a long run), puts my in what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined as “flow.” My focus is on what I am doing, the mind relaxes, and time disappears. It is not unusual to emerge from the darkroom, surprised that it has transitioned from day to night while I’ve been in there. It’s the same when I draw. Nothing else that goes on the world around me matters and a couple hours slips by.
That I end up with all this flat work as a result is just a measure of how effective the process is. I have the space to store the work and it will eventually become something for my children to deal with.
The problem for me with prints, is I'm limited to what I can do with them. Sticking them in a folder after looking once or twice just seems like a waste of time and effort. Scanning for Flickr or a slide show is pretty much what I could do now on a regular basis. It's just what it is.
What do others here do with their prints if you can't mount them and stick them up on a wall? And why do it then?
What I fell in love with all those years ago was prints. I never saw the negatives of the photos I admired, which I saw in exhibitions. My main ambition has always been to make photos good enough that I wanted to hang them on the wall and look at them. If others like them, that's a fun bonus.For some people, possibly more than you imagine, the final product is the negative or positive image captured on the film.
For said above user group, a flat, linear, gamma corrected 16bit/channel scan of the final photo on the negative/positive is a much more faithful (and/or useful, depending on purpose) representation of the signal on the film than a strongly compressed, strongly non linearised rephotographed version of said negative on silver gelatine paper.
The process you are familiar with, nowadays, ends at different stages for different people, and that is fine.
I get similar pleasure for making slideshows that I could show tp others on my TV or YouTube or on a monitor.
I tend to agree about the primacy of prints and I observed a reaction them just this past week. I spent 2 weeks in Italy in May on a study abroad with other university students. While I shot lots of images with my phone that I used in the daily blog I wrote on the trip, I also took along my Minolta SRT-201 and several rolls of Ilford HP5+ which I used, mostly, for shoot-from-the-hip street photography. After returning, developing and scanning the film, I added them to my blog so my fellow travelers could see them. I’ve also posted some of those images in the gallery here.
The professor who led the trip sent out a mass email and invited any and all to a summer critique where we could show work we’ve been doing since school let out in early May. The majority of those who showed up had been on the Italy trip and had seen these black and white images online. I brought 8x10 enlargements of some of these street shots made on Ilford FB paper and mounted on matte board. I didn’t install these but passed them around and noticed how they spent more time looking at each image than they probably did with the digital version. Not only did they hold each one in their own hands, they would hold it away, then bring it in close up, tilt it to change the way light reflected off the emulsion and the surface, and generally embrace it as a physical object. Comments included revenue to the richness of tones in the prints.
The subject matter and compositional elements aside, I am leaning toward believing that it’s the physicality of the print, whether from a digital or film source, that allows it to transcend what the digitally viewed version has to offer.
I took a local community college elective photo class this Spring to jump-start a different facet of a project I have been working on. It was film-based and limited enrollment. There were something like 14 students (a mix of generations) at the first meeting, and only 3 completed the final assignment. It was an excellent class and could have been much better if more of the students had followed through. The instructor warned over and over that those who withdrew were wasting an opportunity. The class was not likely to be repeated anytime soon, maybe never because of the high drop/withdrawal numbers. And it was not his lack of charisma, knowledge or teaching skills that were to blame. Many come to film photography from digital, and cannot get over the effort and technical hurdles involved in producing a good black and white darkroom print. Plus the fact that this particular class required some creative, critical thinking and not just some snaps of your friends.I think there is more of an interest now than there was five years ago, because my enrollment is increasing each year...or that could just be down to my sparkling personality...
The problem for me with prints, is I'm limited to what I can do with them. Sticking them in a folder after looking once or twice just seems like a waste of time and effort. Scanning for Flickr or a slide show is pretty much what I could do now on a regular basis. It's just what it is.
What do others here do with their prints if you can't mount them and stick them up on a wall? And why do it then?
Why make a new Nettar when it will likely cost 10x more than a vintage one? It's one thing to steer newbies towards a vintage Nettar on sale at 30-40 dollarpounds....quite another to say "well, your choice is that plastic Kodak at 50 or the New Nettar at 400".
That and the lack of immediate gratification that they get with digital.….Many come to film photography from digital, and cannot get over the effort and technical hurdles involved in producing a good black and white darkroom print.…
A new Nettar.....and how much would it cost? Adjusted for inflation those things cost hundreds of dollarpounds when they were new, and that's when there was an existing film camera/mechanical shutter/lens factory going full tilt.
The simple, plastcicky cameras marketed by Lomography and now Kodak serve a purpose, and provide a cheap way in with a brand new product. The Kodak half frame camera functions, and probably produces pictures as good as an early 70s instamatic....which, when one adjusts for inflation, cost only a little less.
Why make a new Nettar when it will likely cost 10x more than a vintage one? It's one thing to steer newbies towards a vintage Nettar on sale at 30-40 dollarpounds....quite another to say "well, your choice is that plastic Kodak at 50 or the New Nettar at 400".
Because those plastic cameras *are not aimed at us*. I come close to tearing my remaining hair out every time I hear the clamour "We need new film cameras".....company introduces new film camera at reasonable entry price point..."NOOOOO NOT LIKE THAT! I DEMAND A NETTAR AT $4.99"
That and the lack of immediate gratification that they get with digital.
I have a friend, a former student and now an architect, who made such a comment about why he’d never do film: it takes too long to see what you’ve got. On the other hand, several of my 20-something fellow art students have fallen in love with the darkroom at our university. Anecdotally I have noticed that they also work with other media that is time consuming.
Photography can be instantaneous if you want it to be. Photography is flexible. You can do a lot of things a lot of different ways, some fast, some slow, some in-between. You just need to chose the appropriate tool for what you want to accomplish.Isn't it interesting that many today expect photography to be instantaneous.
Isn't it interesting that many today expect photography to be instantaneous. As you say, other media takes time to even start to be finalized. Ceramics, painting, sculpture. Painters can take months if not years to finish a painting. although there are some who will churn out a quantity of small paintings in a single day. Watercolors are pretty spontaneous, but take a lot of skill. There's no undo or painting over with them.
You forgot to add 'in my opinion'. Again, and for your information, the 'final product' is whatever people want it to be.
For some people, possibly more than you imagine, the final product is the negative or positive image captured on the film.
For said above user group, a flat, linear, gamma corrected 16bit/channel scan of the final photo on the negative/positive is a much more faithful (and/or useful, depending on purpose) representation of the signal on the film than a strongly compressed, strongly non linearised rephotographed version of said negative on silver gelatine paper.
The process you are familiar with, nowadays, ends at different stages for different people, and that is fine.
That and the lack of immediate gratification that they get with digital.
I have a friend, a former student and now an architect, who made such a comment about why he’d never do film: it takes too long to see what you’ve got. On the other hand, several of my 20-something fellow art students have fallen in love with the darkroom at our university. Anecdotally I have noticed that they also work with other media that is time consuming.
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