I don't view film as being something of the past. I spent a good deal of today trying to persuade my Jobo CPP-3 to heat up correctly to process a batch of E6 film. It worked eventually and I now have some transparencies hanging in my film dryer. I'm happy to see film photography, darkroom work, and the digital domain as co-existing fields, strong on their own or together.
NBC short film documenting rise in film use
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.. I think there was not so much a fraternity house but more of a fraternity that housed Tito's partisans
pentaxuser
I'd say you are quite correct here, pentaxuser
I've got a few, all from ebay. All seem to work. They were as little as $8 each.
I mentor a fair number of young photographers, I also live a very hip / young life for a guy age 50+ plus so I am well aware of what you speak of here.
I tried for years to get others to see that the old guard attitude is driving away fresh eyes with fresh perspectives here. What I find really troubling and even more so than the film is dead chants are the blanket statements that put young people using film in a phase, hip or trend category but not a serious one. It’s as if there is no idea that young people who are choosing to use film are doing anything new with it or will stick with it long term, a cynical echo chamber.
In actual real life, I find photographers who are serious about the craft regardless of medium are indeed sticking with film and darkroom work if that is what they have chosen to communicate their vision. I helped set one guy who is 24 up with a darkroom this Spring, he is doing really well with it. Last night I helped a 20 year old former student of mine choose a 210mm 5.6 lens for a project on 4x5 he is about to start. The list goes on and what is really going on in the world of young people and film is sadly not very well reflected on this site in terms of any content, visual or written.
Bottom line? What my former students and young film using friends tell me is that the value in this place for them is in the technical. Once they get that, they populate other venues that don’t have the attitude that this site can often display.
Maybe one day it will change here? All one can do is hope...
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If someone is interested in taking on a new endeavor then the chants of "Film is dead" or "No one skiis any more" [feel free to insert any chant that you find obnoxious here] fall on deaf ears. They will follow there desires. Unfortunately I, personally, do not cross paths with young people who are interested in film, but I occasionally while skiing find young skiers on the slopes. I guess I am just not in the right place to meet young film photographers. I should really spend more time hangning around at FreeStyle.
I might still count as a "young" photographer. I'm still under 30 with a freezer full of film and a bathroom stocked with chemicals. Here's my take.
I think the question is: "How many people are able to learn about film on a forum when they haven't been around a darkroom?" How would you teach someone about developing and printing techniques here?
It might make sense for people who have experienced seeing all sorts of different development and printing techniques before. To someone without that experience, me, talk of grain and sharpness between developers or contrast and tone while printing don't mean anything. I've never seen it in any meaningful context, and HP5+ in HC-110 works just fine for all I know.
I think the closest experience available to many of us is viewing edited, low quality scans online. It's really hard to drive across any information there. I would love for someone to bridge the gap and find a way to share this information.
Someone going on about finding the proper EL of their XTOL-R process they've verified with a densitometer for the new formulation of TX400 just doesn't have any bearing for the beginner developer on a budget.
I think the question is: "How many people are able to learn about film on a forum when they haven't been around a darkroom?" How would you teach someone about developing and printing techniques here?
It might make sense for people who have experienced seeing all sorts of different development and printing techniques before. To someone without that experience, me, talk of grain and sharpness between developers or contrast and tone while printing don't mean anything. I've never seen it in any meaningful context, and HP5+ in HC-110 works just fine for all I know.
I think the closest experience available to many of us is viewing edited, low quality scans online. It's really hard to drive across any information there. I would love for someone to bridge the gap and find a way to share this information.
Someone going on about finding the proper EL of their XTOL-R process they've verified with a densitometer for the new formulation of TX400 just doesn't have any bearing for the beginner developer on a budget.
I too am vexed by the inexplicably doomsday talk, or just plain sulking tone in here sometimes.
In that I don’t see where it really comes from or what motivates it.
Even if you are depressed or generally negatively inclined, I don’t see how anyone would think it would help to vent those feelings here.
It also obfuscates valid, and well considered criticism and concerns, which is perhaps just as big a problem.
I’m not advocating a hysteric, glued on stilted, cramped smile at gunpoint at all the times.
Just a conscious idea and sensibility to what your voice, however small you think it is, contributes to the overall holistic stimmung and vibe around film.
We want this to grow. Right?
In that I don’t see where it really comes from or what motivates it.
Even if you are depressed or generally negatively inclined, I don’t see how anyone would think it would help to vent those feelings here.
It also obfuscates valid, and well considered criticism and concerns, which is perhaps just as big a problem.
I’m not advocating a hysteric, glued on stilted, cramped smile at gunpoint at all the times.
Just a conscious idea and sensibility to what your voice, however small you think it is, contributes to the overall holistic stimmung and vibe around film.
We want this to grow. Right?
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I'm not young and I feel the same way. There is a tendency among photographers to get off in the weeds chasing "The Best". It is often so absurd but...whatever. To each their own. It is easy enough to pass over that silliness.
I may be new here but having been on the interwebs (Compuserve) since 1995 and being a person who likes to discuss his interests with likeminded, I've seen my fair share of forums. This one is exactly like all the rest of them, the range of people and opinions range from "everything goes" to "shut up up, I'm sniffing my purist corks".
You could easily exchange the keywords "camera", "film" and "digital" here for corresponding buzz words on the guitar forum, the classic car forum, the boating forum, the Linux forum or probably any other forum for special interests.
I've learnt that If I just keep an open mind there's stuff to learn and take away from all members, regardless of where they or I sit in the mix.
And finally. If it doesn't have "U.S. Robotics" stamped on top and go screeech, screeech, biiiiing it's not a real internet connection. So there!
You could easily exchange the keywords "camera", "film" and "digital" here for corresponding buzz words on the guitar forum, the classic car forum, the boating forum, the Linux forum or probably any other forum for special interests.
I've learnt that If I just keep an open mind there's stuff to learn and take away from all members, regardless of where they or I sit in the mix.
And finally. If it doesn't have "U.S. Robotics" stamped on top and go screeech, screeech, biiiiing it's not a real internet connection. So there!
The film industry is trending upwards in terms of yearly sales and new customers, but this is because it's shifting from a former de-facto standard of imaging to an artistic medium. Do you think portrait painters made as much money following the introduction of photography? Of course not.
As for the whole "film is dying no young people are into film" It's not film, it's centralization of social media and people not wanting to use forums.
As for the whole "film is dying no young people are into film" It's not film, it's centralization of social media and people not wanting to use forums.
-) Apug is no teaching medium
-) When a beginner is advised to first use one of the widespread textbooks a reply is "Who still reads books?".
-) A beginner looking at Apug's discussions is lead to think that analog photography is about things of the level of establishing EI, dedicated developers and intricate differences between films. On the advice of just starting, without all that headache, one is seen as arrogant and not taking the beginner serious.
Actually I take the time to teach a beginner on APUG when I am asked a question. Usually online, but occasionally by a PM conversation on request. I do not get into the mechanics of the Zone System or EI. If ones equipment is calibrated and the techniques are correct EI is not need with modern films. CLA'd equipment, calibrated light meters and appropriate techniques allow one to get the exposure correctly without EI.
If we want to be part of promoting "analog" photography, we should be open to some informal instruction/advice/tips. Each member can contribute as they have time, but it helps create a community around film photography. We should not be expected to teach entire courses, and we should emphasize that photography is about creating images, and all the technical stuff is a means to that end . My 2 cents (or pfennigs).
I've already received a lot of help here...
Like I said, I'm also on other forums and perhaps I have old-man-interests but I'd say that the lack of influx of younger people isn't unique here, it's everywhere. Internet forums seem to be for those of us who are a bit older, maybe those who thought that BBS's were once the shitznitz, perhaps those who remember what a BBS actually was.
My guess is that the younger crowd hang out in facebook grouos ot whatever is the new hot social media.
Like I said, I'm also on other forums and perhaps I have old-man-interests but I'd say that the lack of influx of younger people isn't unique here, it's everywhere. Internet forums seem to be for those of us who are a bit older, maybe those who thought that BBS's were once the shitznitz, perhaps those who remember what a BBS actually was.
My guess is that the younger crowd hang out in facebook grouos ot whatever is the new hot social media.
Deleted member 88956
They also feed the digital forums where latest and greatest is discussed to death. Only a handful of the young are interested in meh equipment, nasty chemicals, wait-forever to see what came out etc. It would probably take at least a generation of concerted effort in homes, schools and media to revert current mind set away from what is driving lives these days and continuing on same path for the worse. Why would one want to bother with something as arcane as shooting film, when they see everything being done ever so faster, leaving more time to finger-communcate with others?
Kind of what we do here, the only difference is that the stuff we discuss isn't the lastest.
And those are the ones that are the future of analog photography. Heck, those are the future, period.
There is no future in film, it will be there yes, but the future of commercial photography is in digital. The truth is that probably 99% of potential clients and viewers don't care what medium the photo was recorded on and nor should they. The elements which make up a good picture or photo are the same today as they were when da Vinci painted Mona Lisa, light, color and composition. Those don't change and it doesn't matter if we produce the picture using an ink pen, a smartphone or the latest digital medium format camera, the essence of the picture remains the same.
After all, what good is it to discuss cameras, film, paper, image editing software, memory cards, pencils, brushes, oil paint, canvases or any other gear meant for creating pictures, if the end purpose isn't to actually use it to produce said pictures? And when we do produce those pictures, we all have to adhere to the same "rules" or standards, regardless of our medium of choice.
When I was 25 I found a box of Super 8 reels in my Father's loft. Digging more I found his old projector and I set this up and watched those movies. They were of me learning to walk, to ride a bike and generally being a toddler in the mid 1970s. I had never seen the films before and it was a magic moment. I fell in love with cine film then and I still love it now. I think I'm trying to make these little movies now of my son learning to walk, ride a bike, learn to skateboard and be a kid on holiday 'cause I hope when he's 25 he'll find the reels in my loft and bring them down to project. Maybe I am living in the past but I also think I have this romantic notion of passing on memories to future generations through a magical medium.
Deleted member 88956
What we do here is NOT, to a large extent, what they do OVER THERE. Infatuation with latest sensors, firmware, editing software etc. is just that. Analog process has always had topics to discuss, test to perform etc., but digital discussion by comparison is just plain tiring.
I never said future is in film, all I said was in order for film to remain is to get the young interested. Digital and film can easily coexist, film will continue to have advantages for quite a few years over digital in some aspects, but not in run off a mill commercial photography, that boat has long sailed.
I am a non-native speaker and I so far understood "teaching" as different from answering a question.
I think what we do here is exactly the same. Discussions regarding digital photography may be tiring to some but interesting to others. Similarly, what we discuss here is probably tiring to those who are not interested in it. Digital photography also have topics to discuss and many are commonly shared between the two, like composition, story telling through images etc. while others are specific to the medium but no less interesting to those involved with it.
Naa, that was more a general reflection and not directed at you, sorry for the confusion
I think we agree here.Deleted member 88956
Seems like you missed my point. Gear used matters to many, but when you compare analog to digital users, there is no comparison. Digital discussions take things into technological direction to ridiculous lengths and they do it for only one reason: newer is better and you need newer to make your photographs better. it's a mind-set that manufacturers love to see and drive themselves too. It's all about ensuring supply of technology will remain incremental, no quantum leaps allowed, and discussions feed the same without even noticing the trend. it is insanity as far I am concerned.
But in the end, it is the old blokes looking at the young, seeing the blind alley they are in, and by now realizing there is no hope.
I have no problem shooting digital, but also have no reservations saying, that those who don't know analog capture are missing a lot on many levels, and that is why I hope to see it eventually understood by new generations.
This is a blanket statement that seems to be applied to everyone who participates on forae where digital cameras are discussed, suggesting that those who partake in the discussions are only interested in gear and not in photography. While I'm sure this is the case for some, it certainly doesn't apply to everyone and therefore simply isn't true.
The "future of film" from a business perspective is archival materials. We don't have a proven good data storage technology that can last hundreds of years that isn't film yet.
I disagree that the medium is just a means to an end. Sure, for the vast majority of snapshotters it is, but the transformation of the analog photography world is the transition from everyone and their mom taking snapshots with an instamatic and getting it processed at the pharmacy to a world of someone exploring the medium in depth in their basement darkroom.
And the analog community is no different, there's a huge subset of people that absolutely need a leica m3 or a hasselblad to make a good photo and any other camera is just "good for the lomography crowd". The problem with digital is that objectively digital cameras improved drastically year over year until about 2010ish, after that the leaps became a lot less pronounced. The early digitals had terrible low light performance, and produced tiny, terrible looking images, but that was enough to fill the need for people to take birthday photos with grandma, and that's OK, because frankly for most uses, film is overkill.
We're viewing it from different angles I think. As we all have different tools that we feel comfortable using the medium isn't a means to an end from the artist's point of view, on that I agree with you. My point is that to the vast majority of people looking at photos, pictures, paintings, sculptures etc. the technique, tools and materials that went into making them aren't what matters. If the artist succeeded you will find yourself drawn into the piece for other reasons and maybe after you've stared in awe for 15 minutes you'll start wondering how it was made. From that point of view I maintain that whatever tools the artist is comfortable with are no more than means to an end, making whoever looking at the pice go "wow" should always (IMO) be the end goal. Except of course if we're talking forensic photography
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