Photographic future

Poisson Du Jour · Dec 22, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
Well, WW 2.72 just ended in Iraq and 2.73 is ongoing.

That must be Afghanistan...
There must be documentary photographers active in that debacle; will we get to see what our tax money is being spent on?? If not contributing to WWIII... :confused:

Photo Engineer · Dec 22, 2011

All digital!

Poisson Du Jour · Dec 22, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
All digital!

Eck!
D*g*t*l is not considered a medium of truth. Film. D*g*t*l will come and go. Film is forever.

Danielle · Dec 22, 2011

My father is already almost frowning on my continued use of film, however he never was a photographer. As things are at the moment, it seems there's a trend back towards visual art (in all types) which is slowly growing. Makes one feel better about that.

I just hope that our art, being actual drawings and painting is still alive and well in the future.

gmay · Dec 23, 2011

When the robots begin standing in front of mirrors with their cameras in order to take their self-portraits: the end of photography?

John Austin · Dec 23, 2011

Tehy do already

gmay said:
When the robots begin standing in front of mirrors with their cameras in order to take their self-portraits: the end of photography?

They do already, look at FarceBook

Neanderman · Dec 23, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
I totally disagree.

The advance slowed down about 20 years ago, because it took more and more R&D to make smaller advances, but they did take place.

PE

I agree. Just in the last few years we've seen two electron sensitization; before that it was tabular grain.

But to answer the question, I see it coming full circle, with people making more and more of their own materials on their own or, perhaps, with them relying on much smaller companies to supply their materials. They still make artists oils; I suspect there will always be some sort of commercial photo materials available, but it will never be like it was just before digital hit.

Ed

benjiboy · Dec 23, 2011

Fortunately none of us will be alive in a hundred years to find out.

Jeff Kubach · Dec 23, 2011

cliveh said:
Maris, if you had shown a mobile phone to Alexander Graham Bell he would not have believed it possible.

What would happen if the first phone call was busy signal!

Jeff

Steve Smith · Dec 23, 2011

cliveh said:
Maris, if you had shown a mobile phone to Alexander Graham Bell he would not have believed it possible.

The same Alexandar Graham Bell who stated that he did not believe he was exaggerating when he thought that there would one day be a telephone in every major US town!

Steve.

Photo Engineer · Dec 23, 2011

Neanderman said:
I agree. Just in the last few years we've seen two electron sensitization; before that it was tabular grain.

But to answer the question, I see it coming full circle, with people making more and more of their own materials on their own or, perhaps, with them relying on much smaller companies to supply their materials. They still make artists oils; I suspect there will always be some sort of commercial photo materials available, but it will never be like it was just before digital hit.

Ed

Two answers here Ed!

It took over 15 years go get 2e sensitization into film in a useful manner, and R&D costs were huge by then! So, R&D became like squeezing blood out of a turnip!

As for making it yourself, the actual formulas and methods are very secret! There are only about 100 Photo Engineers left in the entire world. in 100 years, who will be around to teach it? Right now, out of the total membership of APUG, only about 20 are interested or are willing to act as you say may take place. So, the knowledge may be lost.

PE

Hexavalent · Dec 23, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
All digital!

Not while I can stir silver and salts in a beaker

dwross · Dec 23, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
Right now, out of the total membership of APUG, only about 20 are interested or are willing to act as you say may take place. So, the knowledge may be lost.PE

Ten dedicated people are enough to nuture and grow the Art of silver gelatin. "Secrets" ?? Not so much - just skills to be learned and shared (And, there's absolutely no reason to assume commercial film and paper will ever go completely away. One generation of photo chemist will teach the next -- just as it's always been. Chemical photograpy can continue without Kodak or RIT.)

d

Bob Carnie · Dec 23, 2011

Already happening with the hipstamatics, you can download apps that will mimic any kind of stlye.
I will be out of business within a year with all this new fancy gear able to make prints of any style.

cliveh said:
In terms of futuristic cameras, I am surprised that marketing men have not yet produced a camera, with instead of a shutter speed dial, it has settings like HCB, Kertesz, Sudek, Atget. Totally ridiculous, but which some members of the general public might actually believe is possible.

CGW · Dec 23, 2011

Bob Carnie said:
Already happening with the hipstamatics, you can download apps that will mimic any kind of stlye.
I will be out of business within a year with all this new fancy gear able to make prints of any style.

Just because they can make prints doesn't mean they should, Bob. The irony seems to be that anyone wanting a quality print still needs someone who can pull it off, whatever the capture media.

Crashbox · Dec 23, 2011

Photo Engineer said:
[SNIP] There are only about 100 Photo Engineers left in the entire world. in 100 years, who will be around to teach it? Right now, out of the total membership of APUG, only about 20 are interested or are willing to act as you say may take place. So, the knowledge may be lost.

PE

This disturbs me, as I've heard of this knowledge vaporization happening before. As an example, there were some large glass castings done way-back-when (IIRC they may have been lenses for a lighthouse) via a method which has been lost in history and has proven extremely challenging- so far, impossible- to replicate.

It can- and does, unfortunately- happen.

Photo Engineer · Dec 23, 2011

dwross said:
Ten dedicated people are enough to nuture and grow the Art of silver gelatin. "Secrets" ?? Not so much - just skills to be learned and shared (And, there's absolutely no reason to assume commercial film and paper will ever go completely away. One generation of photo chemist will teach the next -- just as it's always been. Chemical photograpy can continue without Kodak or RIT.)

d

Denise;

One dedicated person such as yourself can make an awful lot happen that is good for the future of analog, but it can only go so far in the absence of specific knowledge. I'll give an example..

Good reciprocity and LIK in emulsions is obtained by the use of Iridium in an emulsion. A bottle of Iridium Chloride or Nitrate runs about $300 / gram, is stored under Argon and is used at the rate of 6x10^-6 moles / mole of Silver. So, you open a $300 bottle and use 1 mg and the rest goes bad within the week. Well, unless you can share (and once it is open you cannot ship it because it goes bad!) It so happens that there is a method to treat it so that it will keep for about 5 years. Did you know that? Does anyone on APUG willing to make emulsions know any of this?

This is the type of knowledge that will be lost.

Recenly, the inventor of 2e sensitization passed away! I know nothing about how to do this, even though a friend did all of the Organic and Physical Chemistry on our napkins at Red Lobster back a while ago, and no one else is willing to teach it. This would have to be re-invented essentially from scratch.

How many layers can we hand coat or machine coat at one time? Well, I've hand coated up to 6 layers but there are "tricks" and with machines, don't ask how. I was never an expert. I know a bit of the technology behind it, but I handed in all of my charts and graphs when I retired. I could not do this now if I tried. And back then, 14 layers was a snap. I've even got my notes but reasoning backwards will only give me the answer to one coating set, not all possible sets.

The list goes on and on and old formulas and methods, while useful, are "quaint" in some ways. It is akin to a teenager being asked to drive downtown to shop and instead of keys to the car, he is given a buggy whip! The poor kid doesn't even know how to hitch the horses! My dad never taught me how to do this. Our house was equipped with gas lamps, but I could not replace mantles or clean chimneys! No one taught me how. I can guess, but when I tried, I broke the chimney!

Analog can be perpetuated, but it is not easy to do it well.

PE

dwross · Dec 23, 2011

You know, my friend, we are talking to (or perhaps "at") different corners of the room. I offically cry "Uncle!". While the passing of a life is always sad, I don't personally care that 2e sensitization is information lost. Nor am I ever likely to buy iridium. Nor make Kodachrome or any other type of machine multi-coated product. My horse and buggy are very compatible with buggy whip technology. I don't want nor expect to drive an emulsion automobile. What I did do this afternoon was take a camera bag full of film I made myself out in the wilds to photograph. Great fun. I expect that all the exposures will be technically fine. Whether or not any of the images rise to "art" is limited by my vision, skills, and luck, not by my materials. That's all I ask. Easy? Not always. I've got a Canon Powershot for easy. But immensely satisfying? Yes.

Handmade silver gelatin film, plates, and paper are as do'able as wet plate, albumen, or Pt/Pd. It is not necessary to damn the do'able for the unattainable.

re commercial production: I think the prospects look pretty good right now. I'll leave it to Ilford and crew to decide on the fate of that corner of the room. They seem to being doing an excellent job.

Hikari · Dec 23, 2011

As state by PE, once a technology is gone, it is so much harder to get back. I worked for a camera manufacturer in Japan and when I asked them about possibly reintroducing some of their old rangefinders in a digital version, they said the same thing--the expertise is just not there anymore for it to be possible. When Nikon reintroduced the S2 rangefinder in 2000, it was one of its most expensive products because the company had to relearn how to make the thing.

Hikari · Dec 23, 2011

One thing is sure about photography 100 years from now, it will still use light and people will still be arguing over the superiority of Leica optics...

Photo Engineer · Dec 23, 2011

Hikari;

Very good comments from an expert in this general area.

Denise;

One of your comments on Thelightfarm is on Solarizatiaon! Would you like to solve that problem?

If the answer is no, then you have to live with it, but don't speak for the rest of the world. Maybe someone does.

PE

Hexavalent · Dec 23, 2011

I feel like I'm in the middle of that same room, hearing it from both corners!

A large component of my journey is an attempt at retracing the footsteps of the brilliant/lucky/devoted/cuckoo people whose work brought photographic materials to the heights that we enjoy today. Of course, many of the innovations are not possible in a modest home lab, but I would certainly not want to discard any available knowledge because it is not of immediate practical use. It gives me a particular thrill to pull a print on hand-made paper, slow and fickle though it may be, I love the results. On the other hand, I thirst for knowledge of the beautiful chemistry (yes, chemistry is beautiful) and mechanics that lie within the 'modern' materials. I'd hate to see this journey reach a stop sign because there's nobody left that "knows".

MDR · Dec 23, 2011

Denise and PE your both right the knowledge of how to make highly complicated emulsions will probably be lost ( I still pray for a wonder that fries all digitalcameras and proves the superiority of film) but I also believe that there will a small group of gearhead or is it emulsionhead that will work with homemade Film and paper just like there still are artists that use oil painting made from poppy oil instead of lineseed oil and with hard to get pigments like real Dresdner Green. One thing is sure that the way we make photographs will change in the next 100 years if we're lucky the world will make a u-turn and rediscover film if we're not everything will be digital or the next it thing after digital.

Dominik

kb3lms · Dec 23, 2011

Someday one of us out here will be ready for iridium and solving the solarization problem and some of us will never care. I think you guys are talking about the difference between being an artist and an engineer. The artist wants to make it once and is happy with their result, the engineer needs to solve the problems and make it repeatable and reliable. That continuum has room for a lot of people on it and many will move to various points between the two extremes throughout their journey. Neither is right nor wrong, it's just about what you want to do and where you need to be.

Photo Engineer · Dec 23, 2011

I don't disagree.

However, much can be totally lost if you are not careful because the creation of a photographic system is as much an art as it is engineering and that is part of the beauty of it and part of the weakness as well.

Time will tell, but in the mean time, why take a chance.

Please rethink some of the thoughts you expressed. See what you think in a broader context.

Thanks.

PE

Photographic future

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