A large hat would help.
Another example of painting with a broad brush. I don't doubt that some photographers create art with Lomography film. But all of them? And young people with beards? Is that now a requirement for creating art? Facial hair? Really? How much? Full beard or can get get by with a moustache and goatee? Thank goodness you excepted women from the requirement. And what if you use the film that Lomography rebrands? Does it have to be in a Lomography cassette?
Who can say what art is?...
Are the moderators napping?
Anyone. They can say it is anything they want it to be. That's why "art" is a meaningless word. If a word means whatever anyone wants it to mean, it has no meaning.
But some art sells for more than I'll ever see or make in my entire life. The rest goes onto my fridge.
Anyone. They can say it is anything they want it to be. That's why "art" is a meaningless word. If a word means whatever anyone wants it to mean, it has no meaning.
So you sell art for big bucks and the pieces that don't sell go on your fridge? Thank goodness you don't make large sculptures.
Photography is also a craft as well as art. Working with different tools is fun, especially for the non-pro. Every hobby has different tools. I spent a lot of money on a 4x5 film setup during Covid because I was bored. But I still enjoy medium format film cameras and also use digital cameras including P&S and cellphones to capture shots. I may not make prints but slide shows instead to be shown on 4K TV screens. In the old days I projected slide shows using chromes or did prints for a photo album. I'm now working on a coffee tabletop book which will be made digitally. The original images will be from both film and digital. It's all interesting and fun and creative. It's not an either/or situation.
We got from the question of whether there is really an interest in film photography, to whether young people interested in photography are faddish hipsters who will give it up, and whether young people make prints, and whether any of the newly interested photographers are making art, or good art. This is goalpost-moving.
It's like "No true Scotsman ..." - one can always define terms such that someone else's interest in a pursuit such as photography is less sincere or worthy than one's own requirements. I don't really care, as long as they are happy doing it and buy some film to keep the film factories running.
I certainly don't wish film were dead, I am just a realist who sees the signs of it dying or at least being relegated to an archaic process that is expensive and in the near future practiced only by those who derive real pleasure from it, shoot film for the sake of shooting film (kind of like tintypes or collodion) or are just unwilling to adapt.
Sorry, I forgot everyone deserves a trophy.
I’m just catching up on this thread and this comment stuck out to me. Helge, I fully get where you are coming from in the context that you made it, however, for some/many, the “process,” as tedious as it can be, is in integral part of creation and, again for some/many, is what attracts them to the medium.
I work in several mediums outside photography and without the “process,” I probably would be less interested in pursuing them. For example, the process of creating a drawing through stippling involves many hours of placing a pen on paper, making a dot, lifting the pen, and then repeating. Many who have looked at my work, especially other artists, tell me they could never create work like that because the process turns them off. Yet, for me, the zen of the process is what I like best. After all, Wassilly Kandinsky said, “All drawings start with a dot.”
As others have said, it’s that process of film photography that attracts them. I recently helped a neighbor kid, a 17-year old, complete his photography merit badge toward attaining his Eagle Scout rank. When I told him he’d fulfill all the requirements of the badge through film photography, he was intrigued. Over the course of several months he learned how to bulk load film, properly expose it, develop it, and print it. He had full run of my darkroom. One day, after he’d spent several hours of printing, on his way out he said “Think you for passing on the tradition.”
That meant a lot and I think that speaks to why some of us want to continue working in these antiquated modes of creation, to engage with processes of the past, and, in a way, interact with those who came to the medium before us.
We got from the question of whether there is really an interest in film photography, to whether young people interested in photography are faddish hipsters who will give it up, and whether young people make prints, and whether any of the newly interested photographers are making art, or good art. This is goalpost-moving.
It's like "No true Scotsman ..." - one can always define terms such that someone else's interest in a pursuit such as photography is less sincere or worthy than one's own requirements. I don't really care, as long as they are happy doing it and buy some film to keep the film factories running.
Edit to add: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman for explanation of the term (a type of rhetorical fallacy).
You're a pessimist.
Even if you believe what you write, why force something so negative, on which the existence of this very forum hinges, on other people? What good will it do?
Words have power, negative words often double so. Someone on the fence and/or impressionable could be swayed by what you write.
If you truly want the best for film, talk it up. Or if you can't stomach what you perceive as a lie, then don't say nothing at all.
How does that even fit into the discussion? This is not a about militant positivism. It's about not being cynical and nihilistic for the sake of it.
The vast majority of the people waxing lyrical about "The Process" has never seen the inside of a darkroom.
For them it entails the grandiose journey of buying film, loading it, snapping away, handing it to some dev-scan place and receiving JPEG files a few days later.
It's making mountains out of molehills. In that case, then many banal things are a process, in the strict sense of the word. And many things should be about those processes.
Darkroom work can be art and artful. But most often it is about getting a fair representation of the negative on the film (or what you gleaned in the contact). Photoshop work on scanned or purely electronic photos can equally be a process and an art.
Anyhow, process without a worthwhile result (or the eventual promise for the trainee) would soon feel super pointless. Shooting film and just getting something that looks like digital would be bad.
It's only slightly worse in the not so long run, to have it look worse than digital all the time (at least a certain kind of worse is something) . Especially when it certainly doesn't have to be that way.
People should engage in darkroom work more, definitely!
But it's not everything that could or should be printed.
The problem is that they anyone will give their hobbies up, small or big, if they are put BS obstacles in the way.
Scanning is important and here to stay. If they can't scan their stuff without it costing an arm and a leg, and it giving sub iPhone 3 quality photos, with no creative control, then they will eventually, despite any amount of initial infatuation, give up.
Quite the contrary. I am a realist.You're a pessimist.
Quite the contrary. I am a realist.
It looks like more people are selling digital gear. I’m assuming Nikon produced more “equipment “ from 1950-2000 in analog gear then 2000-2020 in digital gear. If the percentage was the same, more analog gear would be for sale than digital. All things being equal. What appears if your numbers play out correctly, digital gear is being liquidated quite rapidly compared. But why? Please be an honest broker when contemplating such occurrences!! It’s easy being a hater of digital.
From my own perspective...
Before digital, I wasn't too bothered about buying the latest and greatest new whizz-bang tech cameras, so my old OM-1 lasted me for 40 years. I was quite happy, with my manual focus, and couple with motorwind, I was in hog-heaven.
Digital now, different kettle of fish. Even though my old Canon 10D is perfectly capable of producing a quite decent 8x10 print, I've allowed myself to be seduced by the lure of more megapixels. I'm always way behind the curve though, as my 'best' digicam is a 5DII and the most recent is a Nikon D3200, both long in the tooth by current market standards, but both excellent picture taking devices in their own way.
In short, there's more of a churn with digicams.
Moooooaaaaarrrrhhhh pixels, make me bettah photo grapher, innit?
PS. I should add, I never sell a camera.
Should the need arise, the ancient 10D is still excellent kit for throwing into a pannier and taking out and about for some snaps. Same applies to the Nikkormat, the various Pentaxes, the Ricohs, etc, ad nauseum.
Pixel wars ended a while back. Now they've declared war on mirrors and the mirrors seem to have lost before the battle was even fought.
Ve con Dios Pentax.
There is no doubt that the market crashed between 2000 and 2010. Like @Sirius Glass I took the opportunity to buy lenses and other gear I could not otherwise afford. the curious thing is that prices are now up again and I could not afford them if I didn't already own them.
Anyone. They can say it is anything they want it to be. That's why "art" is a meaningless word. If a word means whatever anyone wants it to mean, it has no meaning.
Fortunately the word "art" doesn't mean whatever anyone wants it to mean, so the word "art" is not meaningless.
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