Ken Rockwell and the popularity of film photography

[Ken Nadvornick]

 

[blansky]

The two processes are not mutually exclusive, they are just not the same. And because they are not the same process they produce different end results. Both physically and aesthetically. Which result suits any individual's needs at any given moment is up to each individual to decide for themselves. And that decision may change with each subsequent moment or need.

Go back and reread our extensive PM exchange again. I can't be any more clear and consistent in this common sense position. Neither method is better or worse than the other. They are just not exactly the same thing. And asserting that they are, as you and others have repeatedly done in the past, does a massive disservice to both. As well as to the blindingly obvious realities of both.

So tell me, when you have finished a portrait session do you normally disassemble your camera, then disconnect and remove the CCD sensor, then immerse it into D-76 diluted 1+1 for 11 minutes at 68F/20C with agitation for 10 seconds out of each 60?

Why not??

Ken

You see whenever two people have a conversation/exchange with each other there has to be a couple of factors present for it to work. One is that both people must be relatively sane, have an ability at rational thought, maybe have a part of the empathy gene to see the other persons point of view etc etc.

So when your pet peeve is that digital and analog are NOT THE SAME, and some of us say that it pretty much is, there has to be the ability to discern language and realize that of course NOBODY would ever say they are exactly the same thing. But what is meant and you know this, but can't let go of, is that in the evolution of photography from analog to digital, in each case, one part of the process replaced the other. For better or worse, depending on your point of view.

The cameras recording device changed from film to a card. The developing process changed, the retouching part changed, the printing part changed and what was left was a print much like but obviously not exactly like the previous process.

Rational people can follow this and when someone says that to them the process changed, but it still the same thing, only different, we get it. It's not a literal statement. Like my stick shift to automatic transmission analogy. Driving is NOT the same but in rational conversational reality it is. You still drive your car from A to B.

As I said you love the analog process. Great. I love the digital one. And in the workflow, one process changed for another.

So when you want to harp on about how it's not the same technically, it is not. It's the same but different.

But to goal oriented people, since the print on the wall was always the goal and how you got there was fun/ a nuisance/work etc, for us nothing has changed. The subject to a bunch of mundane tasks to the print on the wall. Still the same.

When I say to you, it's a beautiful day. I'm referring to the fact that I'm sitting on my back deck awash in sunshine, with two nude 24 years olds serving me wine, you have to have a few brain processes at work here. You have to assume that where I am it's nice and you get the meaning. You could be up to your ass in snow and don't feel the same way and so to argue with me would seem a bit strange because you have to have an empathy gene and sort of get it. Not the nude 24 year olds but the overall concept.

So when I say the analog process and the digital one are the same for me, to argue and say NO THEY ARE NOT, is just a reflection of how YOU feel, which could be different because you love the analog process and enjoy the workflow. The world of language is not literal, it's nuanced.

So in reality the fact that my nude 24 year olds are actually 44 year olds does not changed the overall concept of a beautiful sunny day.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Not ignoring you here... I'm at work right now... In a software development status meeting for an upcoming product release... Back later...



Ken

 

[ntenny]

(Blansky was addressing Ken N, but how could anything bad ever happen due to jumping into someone else's argument on the inet?)

You are a "process" guy. You love the process and to you if we don't agree with you then we are not authentically experiencing photography.

But some people are goal oriented. The process is semantics. They'll use the tools available to achieve the best print they think they can get because to them the print is the ultimate goal of the exercise. Now you can argue that in your world the print is better, but in my world and experience it is not, for many reasons.

And even that distinction isn't at all sharp, because there are a bunch of different levels of "process" involved in photography. What you might call the high-level artistic process---see, visualize, capture, print---doesn't seem to me to be very different in different photographic media, but the "craft" processes are very different; not just between analog and the D-word, but between darkroom enlarging and cyanotypes, wet plate, liquid emulsion on an eggshell. Heck, the differences in process between rollfilm and sheet film are significant to many people.

But what's the point in trying to draw a boundary in that set of craft- and medium-specific processes and say THIS side is all basically the same and THAT side is totally different (or "is not photography", "is inauthentic", "sucks", or similar sweeping generalities)? Is there something to be achieved through that argument, other than the usual chimera of "I won" bragging rights and the subsequent "No you didn't" meta-argument? It just seems to me like people are going to perpetrate images the way they want to, and call it whatever they call it, and so what?

Personally, I long ago gave up on purism and will cheerfully shoot any old thing and print it any old way. Interestingly, if I look around the stuff I've chosen to put up in my office, almost all of it was shot on film. (The really good stuff, as opposed to "cute picture of the kid that coulda been taken with anything", is mostly large format, but it's not because my contact prints are technically awesome---they're actually pretty awful---but because I compose better on a big ground glass, I think. So the "craft" processes end up affecting my "art" processes, in the terms I used above; which I think is quite compatible with anything being said in this discussion.)

-NT

 

[clayne]

It's a bit trite to split the methodology divisively into just process or goal. It's not either/or and one can easily be obsessed with too much of one direction. But to not acknowledge that process plays a part IN the goal is just underhanded. If it didnt play a part many of the digital shots I see how there would exercise restraint, some kind of character, and a sense of patience. The vast majority do not and this isn't even touching on the technical aspects of the medium.

And any true car guy worth his merit isn't saying "oh automatic or manual, it doesn't matter" - they know the only proper way is a stick shift. Everything else is just justifying worth and/or trying to hunt for "equality" where there innately isn't any.

 

[blansky]

(Blansky was addressing Ken N, but how could anything bad ever happen due to jumping into someone else's argument on the inet?)



And even that distinction isn't at all sharp, because there are a bunch of different levels of "process" involved in photography. What you might call the high-level artistic process---see, visualize, capture, print---doesn't seem to me to be very different in different photographic media, but the "craft" processes are very different; not just between analog and the D-word, but between darkroom enlarging and cyanotypes, wet plate, liquid emulsion on an eggshell. Heck, the differences in process between rollfilm and sheet film are significant to many people.

But what's the point in trying to draw a boundary in that set of craft- and medium-specific processes and say THIS side is all basically the same and THAT side is totally different (or "is not photography", "is inauthentic", "sucks", or similar sweeping generalities)? Is there something to be achieved through that argument, other than the usual chimera of "I won" bragging rights and the subsequent "No you didn't" meta-argument? It just seems to me like people are going to perpetrate images the way they want to, and call it whatever they call it, and so what?

Personally, I long ago gave up on purism and will cheerfully shoot any old thing and print it any old way. Interestingly, if I look around the stuff I've chosen to put up in my office, almost all of it was shot on film. (The really good stuff, as opposed to "cute picture of the kid that coulda been taken with anything", is mostly large format, but it's not because my contact prints are technically awesome---they're actually pretty awful---but because I compose better on a big ground glass, I think. So the "craft" processes end up affecting my "art" processes, in the terms I used above; which I think is quite compatible with anything being said in this discussion.)

-NT

The evolution of this discussion with Ken has been rather ongoing and my background for 30 years was analog then switched to digital. (Professional studio/outdoor portrait photography) And my personal position is shoot and use whatever you enjoy and for me personally I switched to digital very late for various reasons and have stated and been agreed with by some and disagree with by others that for me one process was just replaced by the other and it is pretty much the same.

Ken is more of a purist and we never reached any consensus because he feels that they are not the same.

Which they obviously aren't but for me they actually are in the sense as I said that one just replaced the other and my ONLY goal is the print.

So Ken makes sure to stress in many threads that Damn it, they are different.

So this last post was to assure him that any idiot can see that technically, physically, and psychically they are DIFFERENT.

But yet the same.

 

[blansky]

It's a bit trite to split the methodology divisively into just process or goal. It's not either/or and one can easily be obsessed with too much of one direction. But to not acknowledge that process plays a part IN the goal is just underhanded. If it didnt play a part many of the digital shots I see how there would exercise restraint, some kind of character, and a sense of patience. The vast majority do not and this isn't even touching on the technical aspects of the medium.

And any true car guy worth his merit isn't saying "oh automatic or manual, it doesn't matter" - they know the only proper way is a stick shift. Everything else is just justifying worth and/or trying to hunt for "equality" where there innately isn't any.

Absolutely right.

Except not for me. The print is my ONLY objective. Not process.

I'm a car guy. Would never own a stick shift.

As I've always said, use what you enjoy.

 

[Klainmeister]

I'm a car guy. Would never own a stick shift.

-1 beer

 

[blansky]

-1 beer

Good. You had too many stacked up to begin with.

 

[Klainmeister]

Yeah, it was getting spendy.

 

[dngrhm]

I started off reading KR because I found his site when looking for reviews on digital gear for my T4i (yes, I'm new to photography). Reading his site (with the understanding that it is one person's opinion in an industry of opinion) has gotten me interested in film and lead to picking up a Canon EOS 620 and considering 4x5. I have spent about a month on APUG and am ready to give up and sell the 620 and remaining film due to all the chicken little film is dead mentality running around. Like his reviews and articles or not, his positive outlook on film does a lot more good than all the negativity I read here

 

[Prest_400]

I have spent about a month on APUG and am ready to give up and sell the 620 and remaining film due to all the chicken little film is dead mentality running around. Like his reviews and articles or not, his positive outlook on film does a lot more good than all the negativity I read here

Hey, given cross compatibility between film and digital and the cheap prices of film cameras I'd say keep it and, even if not for primary shooting; do shoot film every once in a while.
Negative film (cound be for a ban pun) does things that digital doesn't.

As of colour, E6 is holding on alright; C41 negative is going quite well and B&W will be around just forever.
While the material is out there, you can shoot with it.

And let's see what is Ferrania going to do... Introducing a new E6 film doesn't happen every day; and much less from a new and commited player.

 

[Roger Cole]

It's a bit trite to split the methodology divisively into just process or goal. It's not either/or and one can easily be obsessed with too much of one direction. But to not acknowledge that process plays a part IN the goal is just underhanded. If it didnt play a part many of the digital shots I see how there would exercise restraint, some kind of character, and a sense of patience. The vast majority do not and this isn't even touching on the technical aspects of the medium.

And any true car guy worth his merit isn't saying "oh automatic or manual, it doesn't matter" - they know the only proper way is a stick shift. Everything else is just justifying worth and/or trying to hunt for "equality" where there innately isn't any.

An awfulmatic, as I call them, isn't even driving. At best it's "causing a four wheeled conveyance almost but not quite completely like a car to roll around."

Seriously, it depends on why you drive. If you enjoy the driving, as I do, you'll probably like the stick, as I do. I've owned over a dozen cars (I think the total is about 14, I'd have to think about it) over the years of which only two were autos, both of which were kept less than six months, one for only about two WEEKS. If you drive only to get from one place to another as quickly and easily as possible you will probably like the automatic transmission.

Seriously, I don't know what someone who isn't at all interested in process and enjoys digital is even doing here. I don't say that's "wrong" at all, just "what are you doing on APUG then?" I don't get it. This forum is dedicated to the analog process.

 

[Roger Cole]

I started off reading KR because I found his site when looking for reviews on digital gear for my T4i (yes, I'm new to photography). Reading his site (with the understanding that it is one person's opinion in an industry of opinion) has gotten me interested in film and lead to picking up a Canon EOS 620 and considering 4x5. I have spent about a month on APUG and am ready to give up and sell the 620 and remaining film due to all the chicken little film is dead mentality running around. Like his reviews and articles or not, his positive outlook on film does a lot more good than all the negativity I read here

I don't get that at all. There's no chicken little here. If anything folks are overly optimistic. But that's ok - enjoy it while you can. If you like black and white, relax. If you like color neg, you have, in my estimation, a fair while to enjoy it. But if color transparency is your thing, well, "smoke 'em while you got 'em."

 

[MartinP]

Automatic transmission? Manual transmission? Pfffft, what you really need, to get the full genuine experience, is a vehicle having a transmission without synchromesh. Anything else is just namby-pamby, feeble imitation.


(Yes, I have driven a hell of a lot of thousands of km's without a synchro box. You have nice things to remember like needing verrrrrry slightly more revs to change gear (with double-declutching too of course) when going downhill, because the vehicle doesn't slow down momentarily when taking the extra time to go out of, then in to, gear - not in the same way it behaves on the flat. I suppose these things equate to wet-plate, or Dageurrotypes or something?? )

 

[Roger Cole]

No problem. I can double clutch at need and have driven them.

I don't think they're an essential part of my driving experience, but they aren't a problem.

 

[clayne]

So how do you feel about glass vs traditional cockpits Roger?

 

[Roger Cole]

No big preference either way, really. I just like to fly. J3 low and slow with the door off (never done it, would like to) or cooking along cross country - planning to start working on my IR soonish. It's all good.

Disclaimer - I've never actually flown with a glass cockpit.

As a practical matter, anything I am able to afford, even to partner in, for the foreseeable future is like to have steam gauges though the prices for some planes with the aftermarket glass are coming down as those become more common.

 

[blansky]

Seriously, I don't know what someone who isn't at all interested in process and enjoys digital is even doing here. I don't say that's "wrong" at all, just "what are you doing on APUG then?" I don't get it. This forum is dedicated to the analog process.

A fair question.

The reason I still haunt the halls is after 30 years of analog/darkroom work, using medium and some large format and producing many many hundreds of silver prints and being an active member here for quite a long time, I hang around because a great deal of this site is about photography. And photography didn't really change at all when digital rolled in.

Obviously many things changed from the professional business model, to the use of computers to the change in how a photographer's vision to final print process changed, but cameras, lighting, posing, composition, etc has not changed really at all.

When I say I'm not into process, that doesn't mean I know nothing about process, because obviously doing the process day in and day out for 30 years I must have accidentally tripped over some of it. But for me the process is only a means to an end. And that end is the print on the wall.

And you'll notice this thread is in the Ethics and Philosophy Section, meaning the ethics and philosophy of photography, not the ethics and philosophy of analog processes.

If you cruise through with your manual transmission web browser, you'll probably notice that there are a lot of sections on APUG related to many aspects of photography, composition, lighting that have no bearing on analog per se but instead photography in general which sort of bolsters my point that photography didn't really change fundamentally when digital showed up, it just created more outlets for the photographer to explore.

But I appreciate your concern that I'd taken a wrong turn when I stumbled upon APUG.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Sorry for the delay. What a nightmare that was.

Memory leaks, thread deadlocks, bad UI abstractions, non-reproducible bugs, MTBFs of only a day or two, and a carnivorous installed user base, all mixed up into a real-time, interrupt-driven, multi-process, multi-threaded, multi-platform Frankenstein's monster of a software engineering stew.

Good gawd! The thing has neck bolts! It's a miracle that any of this high technology stuff even works at all. I'm always surprised when it does.

Whew!

Now... where were we? Oh yeah. High technology photography...

So this last post was to assure him that any idiot can see that technically, physically, and psychically they are DIFFERENT.

But yet the same.

And there we have it at long last. Complete agreement among the idiots. Now at last I can die idiotically happy.



Different really isn't the same. By raw definition. Whether those differences matter to you... is up to you. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. But whether they do OR don't, they do still exist. And they do still matter. In fact, it's in those differences that we find the whole reason for APUG itself to exist. And for DPUG too. Because even though they don't matter to you, those differences are crucial to many of the rest of us. In the final analysis, they are why we are even here at all.

For example...

Remember our offline discussion of provenance? That is a difference which probably means very little to you. I know you know what it is. It's just not important to you for the purposes to which you practice photography. Nor should it be. Your needs and motivations are unique, and that concept just does not factor in for you. Fair enough.

However, for me physical provenance is possibly the most important attribute a photograph can possess. It's presence confers an authenticity to the work that cannot be replicated digitally. For the purposes to which I practice photography, it's crucial. Without it, it's not a photograph. It's merely a pretty illustration.

The point is that both of these are merely subjective judgments based on each individual's needs, desires and outlooks. But the facts that underlie those judgments are inviolate. You really don't extract an image from a CCD by dunking it into D-76. That's a fact based on a real difference between the two methods of image making. You may prefer and choose one method of extraction over the other for subjective reasons, but that choice is only available to you because the two methods are radically different in the first place.

So rejoice in the heightened level of awareness that comes with the simple recognition that chemical film and electronic digital are two completely different ways to create an image. And with those differences comes a plethora of choices presented for your consideration regarding which method will work better in helping you to realize your unique vision. Do not run from those differences by insisting they do not exist. Instead celebrate them as Good Things.

Just keep a clear head and don't confuse the massively different factual realities that, by design, underpin the two technologies. Those technologies only seem the same to you if those underlying realities don't matter to you.

Ken

 

[blansky]

Sorry for the delay. What a nightmare that was.

Memory leaks, thread deadlocks, bad UI abstractions, non-reproducible bugs, MTBFs of only a day or two, and a carnivorous installed user base, all mixed up into a real-time, interrupt-driven, multi-process, multi-threaded, multi-....

My God, who knew you moonlighted as a brain surgeon.

 

[lxdude]

Seriously, I don't know what someone who isn't at all interested in process and enjoys digital is even doing here. I don't say that's "wrong" at all, just "what are you doing on APUG then?" I don't get it. This forum is dedicated to the analog process.

Well, Blansky has been here since 2002, dang near the beginning of APUG. Some habits are hard to break.
Besides, most sites would not know what to do with his sense of humor.

 

[blansky]

Sorry for the delay. What a nightmare that was.

Memory leaks, thread deadlocks, bad UI abstractions, non-reproducible bugs, MTBFs of only a day or two, and a carnivorous installed user base, all mixed up into a real-time, interrupt-driven, multi-process, multi-threaded, multi-platform Frankenstein's monster of a software engineering stew.

Good gawd! The thing has neck bolts! It's a miracle that any of this high technology stuff even works at all. I'm always surprised when it does.

Whew!

Now... where were we? Oh yeah. High technology photography...





And there we have it at long last. Complete agreement among the idiots. Now at last I can die idiotically happy.



Different really isn't the same. By raw definition. Whether those differences matter to you... is up to you. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. But whether they do OR don't, they do still exist. And they do still matter. In fact, it's in those differences that we find the whole reason for APUG itself to exist. And for DPUG too. Because even though they don't matter to you, those differences are crucial to many of the rest of us. In the final analysis, they are why we are even here at all.

For example...

Remember our offline discussion of provenance? That is a difference which probably means very little to you. I know you know what it is. It's just not important to you for the purposes to which you practice photography. Nor should it be. Your needs and motivations are unique, and that concept just does not factor in for you. Fair enough.

However, for me physical provenance is possibly the most important attribute a photograph can possess. It's presence confers an authenticity to the work that cannot be replicated digitally. For the purposes to which I practice photography, it's crucial. Without it, it's not a photograph. It's merely a pretty illustration.

The point is that both of these are merely subjective judgments based on each individual's needs, desires and outlooks. But the facts that underlie those judgments are inviolate. You really don't extract an image from a CCD by dunking it into D-76. That's a fact based on a real difference between the two methods of image making. You may prefer and choose one method of extraction over the other for subjective reasons, but that choice is only available to you because the two methods are radically different in the first place.

So rejoice in the heightened level of awareness that comes with the simple recognition that chemical film and electronic digital are two completely different ways to create an image. And in those differences comes a plethora of choices presented for your consideration regarding which method will work better in helping you to realize your unique vision. Do not run from those differences by insisting they do not exist. Instead celebrate them as Good Things.

Just keep a clear head and don't confuse the massively different factual realities that, by design, underpin the two technologies. Those technologies only seem the same to you if those underlying realities don't matter to you.

Ken

No need to die over this, happy or otherwise.

And a perfect example that we can often get caught up in our own world and lack the understanding of someone else's.

You are completely right that I, and some others here have stated that the switch from analog to digital was to us no different than buying a new car and switching all our shit over from one to the other. Because as you pointed out the process is something we don't care about. Whatever it takes to get from the subject to the final print is what we will happily or begrudgingly learn but the print is the goal.


Granted the switch was a massive and often expensive and frustrating learning curve but the benefits were to us, massive. Retouching being the main one.

But for others, you being one, would happily take a sledgehammer to all things digital and piss all over your boss's desk in the process so you could go quietly home to you darkroom and make analog prints and only come out once a year to see if you can see your shadow.

But you are right, it's easy to forget other people's background, journey and aesthetics and think everyone thinks like you do.

But you have to admit that when we said, they are the same, it was an affect of language and meant that, obviously we know they're different but to us they are the same, namely a means to an end.

I for one found out how different they are when after not spending hours in the darkroom, I lost the ability to,write some of the stories I used to write here. Outrageous stuff. Not sure if they are in the archive or not. Due to the miracle of chemistry I could write an entire story in my head and walk out of the darkroom and write it down in maybe 5 minutes and post it. Now no darkroom, no stories.

So I sincerely apologize that I didn't take your feelings into account when I wrote and PM you the various posts and replies. Because obviously there are people that live for the darkroom experience, cherish the tactility of it and wonder at the magical results. I'm just not one of them. Although a print revealing itself in a tray is a pretty fucking cool thing, much cooler than falling out of a printer.

But spending 10 hours retouching a zitty kids face on a negative and a few prints can soon cure you of the romance and breath taking splendor of that moment.

But you keepers of the dark have to understand something as well. Those of us who are portrait types get a massive buzz and shot of adrenalin from the act of photographing people, mainly faces and all the magic and nuances that are human expression and then transforming that to a print on the wall that elicits a warm fuzzy feeling from the loved one who bought it, every single time they walk by it 10 times a day for many many years.

I can count at least 10 kids that died while that picture was on parents walls, hundreds that obviously moved away and started families of their own and all the other emotional baggage that comes with family photography. And you have to understands that our thrill, joy, rush, comes from the creation of the portrait at the sitting stage, and hanging of that creation onto their wall and not from the mundane act of development, printing...darkroom stuff, that is just a part of the process to get there.

And now my wine bottle is empty and I'll say goodnight and delete this syrupy bullshit of an apology.

SHIT, dammit I just posted it.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Aww, shucks... Does this mean that after all these years I finally get to come off your Ignore List?

:wub:

Ken

[Edit: Actually, I do have an enormous respect for what you do and the buzz it brings. Capturing the essence of a sitter's character in the few fleeting minutes one has their full attention is a skill—and buzz—that eludes me, regardless of the chosen technology. Only last weekend I was visiting my 86-year-old mother. Suffice it to say that time now runs short. So I had my 8x10 set up on her deck at slightly above eye level, six sheets ready and waiting, and a pleasantly soft overcast light to work with. It's my own mother, damn it. You'd think I could get something acceptable, wouldn't you? I was standing at the light table last evening looking at all six negatives. Not a chance. Formal portraiture is not a skill set I possess. I will be trying again, though. I have to...]

 

[blansky]

Aww, shucks... Does this mean that after all these years I finally get to come off your Ignore List?

:wub:

Ken

[Edit: Actually, I do have an enormous respect for what you do and the buzz it brings. Capturing the essence of a sitter's character in the few fleeting minutes one has their full attention is a skill—and buzz—that eludes me, regardless of the chosen technology. Only last weekend I was visiting my 86-year-old mother. Suffice it to say that time now runs short. So I had my 8x10 set up on her deck at slightly above eye level, six sheets ready and waiting, and a pleasantly soft overcast light to work with. It's my own mother, damn it. You'd think I could get something acceptable, wouldn't you? I was standing at the light table last evening looking at all six negatives. Not a chance. Formal portraiture is not a skill set I possess. I will be trying again, though. I have to...]

Don't feel bad, except for kids, family members are the toughest for some reason.