One Reason Why Film Rules

PKM-25 · Nov 30, 2012

TooManyShots said:
It depends how you see it. You can't expect to shoot any paid gigs with film nowadays....unless your film photography (large film format I assume) is something unique.

You are almost right, the fact is that you can't expect in the coming years to shoot any paid gigs unless your photography period, is something unique. I shoot over half my work on film, the other on digital for now and expect to only be using the latter beyond 2015 for strictly full motion content generation for ad, corporate and documentary film work.

What you have said above is just far too broad to apply to this industry anymore. There are far too many nuanced cases of creative people using anything they want and people lining up to pay for it to pigeon hole it into a "dpreview-esque" type of thinking...

PKM-25 · Nov 30, 2012

TooManyShots said:
Like I said, it depends on your market and niche. No, I don't see any wedding photographers or sport photographers shooting films. Sorry, it isn't happening.

I am doing my first wedding in over 20 years, 3 hours of work in shooting the art side of this high end wedding for nearly five figures...all hand printed from IR film in a real darkroom...they sought me out, not the other way around. I also shoot Winter sports for editorial and ad work, again, a lot on film because I can and my clients like it...

TooManyShots · Nov 30, 2012

PKM-25 said:
I am doing my first wedding in over 20 years, 3 hours of work in shooting the art side of this high end wedding for nearly five figures...all hand printed from IR film in a real darkroom...they sought me out, not the other way around. I also shoot Winter sports for editorial and ad work, again, a lot on film because I can and my clients like it...

Look, for the fact that someone is paying your more than 5k to shoot a wedding...it means that the client is rich. Two, you are an established pro. This is rare. You can't compare yourself to the rest of the market. Do you think someone who is going to charge around 1k for shooting a wedding would be shooting film? I doubt it. And then you have the modern day, hipster couples who wants some photos to post on Facebook and expecting to see over 100 wedding photos. Do you think they would be happy only seeing a handful of print enlargements and nothing else? Maybe not. And for the general sport photographers or event photographers who often need to capture charity events....do you think they can capture over 1000 participants crossing the finish line with a film camera? I don't think so. I am referring to the general market. Not the top of the food chain.

PKM-25 · Nov 30, 2012

TooManyShots said:
I am referring to the general market. Not the top of the food chain.

Exactly, and that market is all but vanishing sir, so why is it that when ever the so called "market" is discussed at all on the net, it instantly drops to the lowest demographic in terms of both earning power and creative output? This baffles me...

But most importantly in terms of this discussion, photography in general is undergoing sweeping changes from top to bottom, so in my opinion you can't even use a broad based approach anymore to describing what is really going on, it is just far too varied when attaching a label to it.

Even if one pro in the whole world is using film in their work, then film is being used in paid work, period.

Poisson Du Jour · Nov 30, 2012

<*yawn*>
I am amused by the assumption that film is all the go for such events. Where did this idea come from, by taking trends in the USA into account? Please, for accuracy, analyse on a global scale and don't rabbit about how popular film is to one person when the reality, on a global scale, is quite the opposite to millions of others. We'd all like to use film on a continuing basis, but how long for is a matter of conjecture, with now chinese whispers suggesting that Fuji will cease two more emulsions in the new year. After Kodak, then what? Ilford? And...?

It is true that scan few professionals shoot film for weddings; I've known two for more than 25 years and they can get the IR effect, if and so desired, using digital. No big deal at all. Being paid five figures is all well and good, but I suspect they're just splashing cash rather than thoroughly checking portfolio work, especially since you have not shot a wedding in 20 years. So you think it is easy to jump back in and jump right out and snap!, it's delivered? The truth is that professional work is a grind (film or digital) and does not always pay well, as you seem to be bragging about. The industry is littered with failures due to competition, not lack of skill. There is nothing particularly spectacular about film as opposed to the variety available in digital: the world discovered this 10+ years ago. People should not be deluding themselves that just because there is some film about means there is a demand for shooting anything from weddings to corporate to billycart derbies based on one market alone, eg. USA-centric. If we jump to Australia, you won't see film being used in corporate and wedding events because of the much higher quality obtained and the speed of delivery, and the cashed up brigade don't pay based on egotistic overtures of punch and pizazz. Even the fastest darkroom worker is no match for the established digital hoi-poi

PKM-25 · Nov 30, 2012

Poisson Du Jour said:
<*yawn*>
Being paid five figures is all well and good, but I suspect they're just splashing cash rather than thoroughly checking portfolio work, especially since you have not shot a wedding in 20 years. So you think it is easy to jump back in and jump right out and snap!, it's delivered? The truth is that professional work is a grind (film or digital) and does not always pay well, as you seem to be bragging about.

Ummm, they know my work well because I am really well known and connected where I live. I have also known the parents of this bride for 8 years, they know my work from other areas, like the wedding I shot for the editorial side of New York Times last year which was in black and white film by the way. I can "jump back in" because I am not the hired digital gun which they do have but rather the artist who is being paid to do it the way I want to Poi.

I don't get to do everything on film, this week's NYT assignment on an architect had to be done on 101010 because of a variety of things...but man, it is almost never a grind, it is a great life.

Look, I don't come on here to brag, cause a stir but more to inspire people to do their thing and not give a floating fart what anyone else says or does. Who CARES what the shrinking general market does? That is not what dreams are made of...

"You miss 100% of the shots you do not take." Wayne Gretsky....

TooManyShots · Nov 30, 2012

PKM-25 said:
Exactly, and that market is all but vanishing sir, so why is it that when ever the so called "market" is discussed at all on the net, it instantly drops to the lowest demographic in terms of both earning power and creative output? This baffles me...

But most importantly in terms of this discussion, photography in general is undergoing sweeping changes from top to bottom, so in my opinion you can't even use a broad based approach anymore to describing what is really going on, it is just far too varied when attaching a label to it.

Even if one pro in the whole world is using film in their work, then film is being used in paid work, period.

I know the market in general because I am frequently in many discussions with people doing photography works. We often talk about the market. The money side of photography. I personally have been doing spec work on cycling race photography for 3 years. Local races. Is a miracle I could even make some money from my photography but in general sports photography does not pay unless you work for agencies and doing large commercial works. And wedding photography is one market EVERYBODY is trying to get into to make some money with their photography. Sorry to say but the reasons why the photography industry it is what it is right now because of the digital revolution. It is getting easier for most people to take photos. With practice, you can even produce pro results with a digital camera. And most people don't believe in paying for photos nowadays. Or most newcomers believe in shooting for free in order to gain recognitions and hopefully getting paid gig referrals in the future. LOL. Yes, I know the market. I am also the products of this revolution. I am getting into film right now after years of shooting digital. Is a nice change of pace. I don't hold any romantic view on film photography. It is just a different format, that's all.

PKM-25 · Nov 30, 2012

Whatev's...

I am with LX and JBrunner on this one, I don't understand blanket statements and blanket thinking, I wear a beanie if my head is cold...

Chan Tran · Nov 30, 2012

I hate the word RULES. I like film but hate the word RULES.

brianmquinn · Nov 30, 2012

Chan Tran said:
I hate the word RULES. I like film but hate the word RULES.

Well then let me re-phrase it.
Film is Superior.
.
.
I bet this will start a new arguement.

All I was trying to say in my OP was that I never lost a film image. However even with well above average effort I lost a lot of digital images. Poof they were gone.

lxdude · Dec 1, 2012

TooManyShots said:
I am referring to the general market. Not the top of the food chain.

You should have said that before. Thanks for the clarification. Your earlier statements make a little more sense now. It's hard for anyone to make money in the "general market" these days, film or digital.

JBrunner · Dec 1, 2012

TooManyShots said:
I know the market in general because I am frequently in many discussions with people doing photography works. We often talk about the market. The money side of photography. I personally have been doing spec work on cycling race photography for 3 years. Local races. Is a miracle I could even make some money from my photography but in general sports photography does not pay unless you work for agencies and doing large commercial works. And wedding photography is one market EVERYBODY is trying to get into to make some money with their photography. Sorry to say but the reasons why the photography industry it is what it is right now because of the digital revolution. It is getting easier for most people to take photos. With practice, you can even produce pro results with a digital camera. And most people don't believe in paying for photos nowadays. Or most newcomers believe in shooting for free in order to gain recognitions and hopefully getting paid gig referrals in the future. LOL. Yes, I know the market. I am also the products of this revolution. I am getting into film right now after years of shooting digital. Is a nice change of pace. I don't hold any romantic view on film photography. It is just a different format, that's all.

Please realize this is constructive. If you ever want to actually make money with photography you must move away from spec work and 1k weddings. Those are not really the professional market. I see now where you are coming from.

Diapositivo · Dec 1, 2012

The fact is that these days using film in itself is rather the exception than the norm.
The case may be that in the wedding photography sector the work produced in film is percentually* higher than in general photography. Maybe film is used in 3% of general photography and 5% of wedding photography.

I read somewhere an article written by a wedding photographer who had switched back to film. His main reason was that the post-processing work in a digital wedding shot can be a long task and it takes away a lot of time. This wedding photographer started again to make the work in colour negative, bring it to a pro lab, have the work back well printed, and live happily. His reasoning was that the film and lab cost was very convenient if compared to the labour saved.
This probably boils down to the fact that if the wedding is shot on film the client does expect some tenths of beautiful prints and not some hundreds of post-processed photographs delivered on a CD.

You mileage may vary. I am not a wedding photographer. Last wedding I remember was in December 2003 and there were a photographer, an assistant, a couple Hasselblads (series V) many film backs and at least a couple of torch flash involved. But that was 2003.

* How do you bloody say "percentually" in English without having the spell checker scream?

TooManyShots · Dec 1, 2012

JBrunner said:
Please realize this is constructive. If you ever want to actually make money with photography you must move away from spec work and 1k weddings. Those are not really the professional market. I see now where you are coming from.

I agree. It is often easier said than done....that's why I am not planning to do much spec works next year. Maybe a handful of bike races, instead of a full season of 35+ races.

Sirius Glass · Dec 1, 2012

lxdude said:
You should have said that before. Thanks for the clarification. Your earlier statements make a little more sense now. It's hard for anyone to make money in the "general market" these days, film or digital.

Especially since the GWCs give it away on the internet or give there work to newspapers and television networks just for bragging rights.

Sirius Glass · Dec 1, 2012

Diapositivo said:
The fact is that these days using film in itself is rather the exception than the norm.
The case may be that in the wedding photography sector the work produced in film is percentually* higher than in general photography. Maybe film is used in 3% of general photography and 5% of wedding photography.

I read somewhere an article written by a wedding photographer who had switched back to film. His main reason was that the post-processing work in a digital wedding shot can be a long task and it takes away a lot of time. This wedding photographer started again to make the work in colour negative, bring it to a pro lab, have the work back well printed, and live happily. His reasoning was that the film and lab cost was very convenient if compared to the labour saved.
This probably boils down to the fact that if the wedding is shot on film the client does expect some tenths of beautiful prints and not some hundreds of post-processed photographs delivered on a CD.

You mileage may vary. I am not a wedding photographer. Last wedding I remember was in December 2003 and there were a photographer, an assistant, a couple Hasselblads (series V) many film backs and at least a couple of torch flash involved. But that was 2003.

* How do you bloody say "percentually" in English without having the spell checker scream?

Wedding photography is more challenging now that it was in the past. Now the bridezillas want the wedding photographs and videos to send to friends and post on line two weeks before the wedding!

Sirius Glass · Dec 1, 2012

Finally someone spike the truth

Finally someone spike the truth

PKM-25 · Dec 1, 2012

Sirius Glass said:
Wedding photography is more challenging now that it was in the past. Now the bridezillas want the wedding photographs and videos to send to friends and post on line two weeks before the wedding!

Lol! You might onto something here, imagine walking up to a girl you fancy in a bar who has no ring on and saying to her, "You want me to photograph your wedding don't you....I can tell." as a form of pickup line...

I guess what you are really asking is to be her "Official Honeymoon" photographer...

Siriusly though, the people who practically begged me to do the creative work at their daughter's wedding next year own both original prints of mine and St. Ansel's and love what I do. I am not sure how many of these types of commissions I would want to do per year, maybe two?

markbarendt · Dec 1, 2012

TooManyShots said:
It depends how you see it. You can't expect to shoot any paid gigs with film nowadays....unless your film photography (large film format I assume) is something unique.

I would phrase it differently.

"You can't expect to shoot any properly paid gigs nowadays....unless your marketing and business practices are good."

There really are plenty of people that can do really nice photographs. I would think that a super majority of the 61,052 APUG members that exist at the time of this post could easily reach the quality threshold required.

There are far fewer people who are willing to do the work and take the risks needed to make a good business of it.

Examples of some successful film shooters in the portrait and wedding market.

http://canlasphotography.blogspot.com/

http://josevillablog.com/

I'm not suggesting that film can fit every market but these guys are proof that it can work just fine in their market.

TooManyShots · Dec 1, 2012

markbarendt said:
I would phrase it differently.

"You can't expect to shoot any properly paid gigs nowadays....unless your marketing and business practices are good."

There really are plenty of people that can do really nice photographs. I would think that a super majority of the 61,052 APUG members that exist at the time of this post could easily reach the quality threshold required.

There are far fewer people who are willing to do the work and take the risks needed to make a good business of it.

Examples of some successful film shooters in the portrait and wedding market.

http://canlasphotography.blogspot.com/

http://josevillablog.com/

I'm not suggesting that film can fit every market but these guys are proof that it can work just fine in their market.

No, this isn't about your ability. It is about the business of photography. Just because you are capable of shooting film, it does not mean you can make a successful business out of your photography. You must have a market for you works. And clients who are willing to pay for your services at your asking price. And whether or not you can fulfill your client's expectations with the necessary turn around time. I am pretty sure it is not a smart idea to promote yourself as a film wedding photographer in order to define your niche market and your style.... you have to ask yourself if the couples would care if the photos are shot with film or digital?? All they want is good quality photos. Not all couples are art majors. Not all couples know anything about photography.

JBrunner · Dec 1, 2012

markbarendt said:
I would phrase it differently.

"You can't expect to shoot any properly paid gigs nowadays....unless your marketing and business practices are good."

This is exactly what I mean. There are many reasons I might use various tools and methods. To allow what others do and say to dictate my methods make me a victim of hype and marketing. I's rather be a damn good photographer who's in demand because of his work. If I went around trying to compete with soccer moms and GWC's I'd be one of them. No way. By the way these people existed long before 010101. There are just more of them these days. I din't pay attention to them before, and i don't now. I cant afford to.

PKM-25 · Dec 1, 2012

TooManyShots said:
No, this isn't about your ability. It is about the business of photography. Just because you are capable of shooting film, it does not mean you can make a successful business out of your photography. You must have a market for you works. And clients who are willing to pay for your services at your asking price. And whether or not you can fulfill your client's expectations with the necessary turn around time. I am pretty sure it is not a smart idea to promote yourself as a film wedding photographer in order to define your niche market and your style.... you have to ask yourself if the couples would care if the photos are shot with film or digital?? All they want is good quality photos. Not all couples are art majors. Not all couples know anything about photography.

So let me get this straight...

You do cycling spec work and talk among other amateur photographers who engage in the new practically-free-till-I-make-it-big wedding market and then reply with the statement above to full time professionals who are giving you *direct* examples of how it does work?

I'm sorry but you are just not getting it in my opinion. The market for the 1K shooter is not growing, it is contracting....fast. So that is not really a market to aspire to then, right? The market to aspire to break into is one that requires you as the shooter to effectively show through dynamic marketing presence high levels of skill and above all, talent. This shooter can easily market his film work to further set his product apart and it will work, because his client base IS educated, well cultured and wants more than "Just good quality photos" to begin with.

The people you refer to above are not even a market as they would happily pay you $100 or nothing at all for "Just good quality photos"....

That is what you are missing here, what you refer to is not even a market while the one the film shooter is going after most certainly is...

TooManyShots · Dec 1, 2012

PKM-25 said:
So let me get this straight...

You do cycling spec work and talk among other amateur photographers who engage in the new practically-free-till-I-make-it-big wedding market and then reply with the statement above to full time professionals who are giving you *direct* examples of how it does work?

I'm sorry but you are just not getting it in my opinion. The market for the 1K shooter is not growing, it is contracting....fast. So that is not really a market to aspire to then, right? The market to aspire to break into is one that requires you as the shooter to effectively show through dynamic marketing presence high levels of skill and above all, talent. This shooter can easily market his film work to further set his product apart and it will work, because his client base IS educated, well cultured and wants more than "Just good quality photos" to begin with.

The people you refer to above are not even a market as they would happily pay you $100 or nothing at all for "Just good quality photos"....

That is what you are missing here, what you refer to is not even a market while the one the film shooter is going after most certainly is...

You make it to sound like film photography is making a come back and driving out all those wedding photographers shooting with their 20mp+ full frame camera. The reality is the opposite. This is the first time I heard about the 1k wedding market is shrinking. With today's economy, 1k for most couples for wedding photography can be too much. Don't believe me? Go look up Criag List for the $500 wedding photographers. Of course, if your typical clients are making more than 6 figure annual incomes, you would probably don't care too much about the normal folks. To generalize your unusual experiences to the general photography market is just wrong. Just out of touch with the reality.

markbarendt · Dec 1, 2012

TooManyShots said:
No, this isn't about your ability. It is about the business of photography. Just because you are capable of shooting film, it does not mean you can make a successful business out of your photography. You must have a market for you works. And clients who are willing to pay for your services at your asking price. And whether or not you can fulfill your client's expectations with the necessary turn around time. I am pretty sure it is not a smart idea to promote yourself as a film wedding photographer in order to define your niche market and your style.... you have to ask yourself if the couples would care if the photos are shot with film or digital?? All they want is good quality photos. Not all couples are art majors. Not all couples know anything about photography.

People like stories and reasons. Film doesn't need to be "the" story or reason but it can be easily used as another thing to help people make a choice or remember you.

That really isn't why Jose or Jonathan use film though.

Two of the reasons are 1-that they can use films intrinsic qualities to reliably get a beautiful salable product with the specific qualities they want and 2-the production workflow is simple and very high quality; Shoot, send to a really good lab, receive proofs and scans back from lab, show client proofs, send orders to lab, receive finished stuff, take cash, deliver.

To the best of my knowledge these guys, like Henri Cartier-Bresson, don't do the back end work themselves; so they get to spend their time on more profitable work like looking for more gigs or putting on seminars.

PKM-25 · Dec 1, 2012

TooManyShots said:
You make it to sound like film photography is making a come back and driving out all those wedding photographers shooting with their 20mp+ full frame camera. The reality is the opposite. This is the first time I heard about the 1k wedding market is shrinking. With today's economy, 1k for most couples for wedding photography can be too much. Don't believe me? Go look up Criag List for the $500 wedding photographers. Of course, if your typical clients are making more than 6 figure annual incomes, you would probably don't care too much about the normal folks. To generalize your unusual experiences to the general photography market is just wrong. Just out of touch with the reality.

This has almost nothing to do with film, it could be paper machece for all I care. What it does have to do with is that the higher end of the market has the education and the funds to hire out truly great work and that market will pretty much be there unless the entire planet falls into socialism and no one makes upper income.

The Craigslist market you refer to is being flooded by more and more software developers and store clerks who want to shore up their income so this is more of a supply and demand meets public perception thing....it's not a market for a professional photographer as JBrunner tried to tell you...

And yes, although not on remotely a scale that harkens that pre-digital, pre-Internet days, film is making a fine art-esque and welcome come back into paid work. All my art directors and editors are enjoying it and are even paying the slight markup in some cases. We are all enjoying it, that helps to keep the final product fresh not to mention those involved.

No one is saying that film is making "the" come back in some form of anti-digital retaliation but more of the high profile niche it rightly deserves. When you are competing in a world of millions of people with cameras who call them selves photographers, having a niche is a good thing, being part of the general market is simply not....

Not where "Freetography" is concerned anyway...

One Reason Why Film Rules

PKM-25

PKM-25

TooManyShots

PKM-25

Poisson Du Jour

PKM-25

TooManyShots

PKM-25

Chan Tran

brianmquinn

lxdude

JBrunner

Moderator

Diapositivo

TooManyShots

Sirius Glass

Sirius Glass

Sirius Glass

PKM-25

markbarendt

TooManyShots

JBrunner

Moderator

PKM-25

TooManyShots

markbarendt

PKM-25

One Reason Why Film Rules

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