"Photography IS Film"

blockend · Jun 28, 2018

ReginaldSMith said:
The downside of all that artificial creativity is that it will continue to replace human photography because it is simply cheaper

Photography is cheaper because everyone has a digital camera, and is willing to give their images away for free. In film days a semi-pro with a medium format camera and a few rolls of slide film could make a decent sideline shooting almost any subject from aircraft to narrow boats and selling the shots to specialist publishers. Now an airshow would be covered by a few dozen amateurs with specialist lenses and a few hundred more with gear that would embarrass the film generation. Very few of those tens of thousands of shots can be monetised in a meaningful way. Unless someone is paying you to attend, you're unlikely to recover travelling expenses in hard cash. Human photographers took the pictures, they look at least as good as the film equivalent, but nobody's buying because they don't have to.

Berkeley Mike · Jun 28, 2018

ReginaldSMith said:
Unquestionably. It's my intentional response to nastiness and ignorance of the post to which they are attempting to refute.
You know, the one where someone jumps up and yells, "I'm calling BS!" when what was offered was say, personal experience, or the guys who do such lousy fact checking, or guys who assault my character, not the argument, or expect me to "prove" something on a forum. That sort of nonsense will get a condescending reply. I work hard at it, too.

Rise above that stuff Reg. Otherwise it just perpetuates itself.

ReginaldSMith · Jun 28, 2018

blockend said:
Photography is cheaper because everyone has a digital camera, and is willing to give their images away for free. In film days a semi-pro with a medium format camera and a few rolls of slide film could make a decent sideline shooting almost any subject from aircraft to narrow boats and selling the shots to specialist publishers. Now an airshow would be covered by a few dozen amateurs with specialist lenses and a few hundred more with gear that would embarrass the film generation. Very few of those tens of thousands of shots can be monetised in a meaningful way. Unless someone is paying you to attend, you're unlikely to recover travelling expenses in hard cash. Human photographers took the pictures, they look at least as good as the film equivalent, but nobody's buying because they don't have to.

Agreed. And that fits my contention that "photography is changing." A few weeks back I was watching a Tony Northrup videocast and he reviewed the horrendous declines in demand for various kinds of professional photographers. 50% to 75% declines in portrait, 75% declines in wedding photogs, and for sports forget about it - SI fired them all. Many newspapers have fired most if not all staff photogs. Amateur stringers with their pro-sumer cameras are only to happy to supply photos free just to get a by-line. Of course some niches still work, but median pay for pros is simply pathetic beyond belief - - $35k/yr. Who can live on that?

So my summary is: pros are being driven out of business in droves by slave wages or simply being fired, and AI will begin to fill in the rest of the market where it finds itself well suited - like stock. What was once a career is now a vacant lot. If that's not change, then - 'God didn't make little green apples and it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.'

faberryman · Jun 28, 2018

ReginaldSMith said:
Agreed. And that fits my contention that "photography is changing." A few weeks back I was watching a Tony Northrup videocast and he reviewed the horrendous declines in demand for various kinds of professional photographers. 50% to 75% declines in portrait, 75% declines in wedding photogs, and for sports forget about it - SI fired them all. Many newspapers have fired most if not all staff photogs. Amateur stringers with their pro-sumer cameras are only to happy to supply photos free just to get a by-line. Of course some niches still work, but median pay for pros is simply pathetic beyond belief - - $35k/yr. Who can live on that?

So my summary is: pros are being driven out of business in droves by slave wages or simply being fired, and AI will begin to fill in the rest of the market where it finds itself well suited - like stock. What was once a career is now a vacant lot. If that's not change, then - 'God didn't make little green apples and it don't rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.'

If amateurs working for a byline can replace professionals, then the professionals need to up their game or change professions. Competency is no longer enough. They will certainly need to distinguish their work from that supplied by AI.

RalphLambrecht · Jun 28, 2018

BradS said:
Yup. On this, I agree with Mr Rockwell.

I do too; new process-new name; leave the old name alone!

faberryman · Jun 28, 2018

RalphLambrecht said:
I do too; new process-new name; leave the old name alone!

That ship sailed decades ago. The "old process" now falls in the rubric of an alternative or historic process.

eddie · Jun 28, 2018

eddie said:
... You then questioned the veracity of digital imagery ...Then, somehow, it became how using digital tools can be a portal to being surveilled. After that, it was how AI will be taking all of our photos for us.

It's easier to quote myself than restate the number of turns you've made in this thread. We can add as you swerve, again, trying to make your case. Are we to assume now that pros not making what they used to is why "photography IS film"?

BrianShaw · Jun 28, 2018

faberryman said:
If amateurs working for a byline can replace professionals, then the professionals need to up their game or change professions. Competency is no longer enough. They will certainly need to distinguish their work from that supplied by AI.

where I work the still team was replaced by a video team.

faberryman · Jun 28, 2018

BrianShaw said:
where I work the still team was replaced by a video team.

Yes, photographers are increasing being asked to do video. Our local community college has just added a video course to the list of requirements for a photography degree. And I think they are late to the game.

ReginaldSMith · Jun 28, 2018

eddie said:
It's easier to quote myself than restate the number of turns you've made in this thread. We can add as you swerve, again, trying to make your case. Are we to assume now that pros not making what they used to is why "photography IS film"?

There are numerous facets to the changes in photography. There's no simple expression of it. It touches on the technical, the social, the economic, the political, the art, the changes in privacy and freedom, and that can't be summed up in a title, or a simple statement. I have pointed out certain numbered posts which mark my switch to a new question, but when many people are responding, it's harder to keep the ideas neat and orderly.

eddie · Jun 28, 2018

ReginaldSMith said:
There are numerous facets to the changes in photography. There's no simple expression of it. It touches on the technical, the social, the economic, the political, the art, the changes in privacy and freedom...

I agree ( and why I wondered why you were asking for an essence).

MattKing · Jun 28, 2018

Professional photographers don't get paid as much as they used to because photographs can be transmitted from place to place around the word at essentially no cost. And multiple copies of the same photograph can be used simultaneously by multiple users, in multiple locations.
Possession of a slide, print or negative no longer gives control over use or additional use of an image.
Naturally, this has decimated the prices paid for stock photography, as well as increased immensely the use of cheap stock photography where in the past custom photography would have been commissioned, but that only affects professional photography - a relatively tiny portion of photography in general.
Photography as a whole is much more vibrant, much more widely practiced, much more likely to be seen. Yes, the environment around it has changed but, at its core it is still energized.

ReginaldSMith · Jun 28, 2018

eddie said:
I agree ( and why I wondered why you were asking for an essence).

That was, as you might refer to it, a swerve. I'm always interested in people's individual pursuit of photography. As you know, I was pretty disappointed in the responses to that question. I had to laugh a bit because at 70, I've been asked no less than a hundred times to distill the essence of something. I assumed it was a normal aspect of conversation.

Berkeley Mike · Jun 28, 2018

faberryman said:
Yes, photographers are increasing being asked to do video. Our local community college has just added a video course to the list of requirements for a photography degree. And I think they are late to the game.

At our vocational program we took film out of the main degree in favor of more emphasis on digital entry-level. We also brought our HDSLR Video course out of the Electives and into the main degree. Basic Film is now an elective and a part of a new Certificate which includes Intermediate Darkroom and Alternative processes.

Berkeley Mike · Jun 28, 2018

ReginaldSMith said:
That was, as you might refer to it, a swerve. I'm always interested in people's individual pursuit of photography. As you know, I was pretty disappointed in the responses to that question. I had to laugh a bit because at 70, I've been asked no less than a hundred times to distill the essence of something. I assumed it was a normal aspect of conversation.

It is a very different thing online with dozens of photographers. Facilitating gets conflated with Moderating/Policing. Few people are good at either: it's the rare person who can do both.

blockend · Jun 29, 2018

BrianShaw said:
where I work the still team was replaced by a video team.

Yes, photography has become imaging supply. The top bods will always do fine, I know someone who makes an extremely good living in the game. If you want a BMW hanging in mid-air surrounded by hungry lions, he can do it for you. The best hair and make up people at hand, designers, concept people, stills and moving images. That's the deal now. A far cry from a guy with a Mamiya and a Mecablitz.

FujiLove · Jun 29, 2018

BrianShaw said:
Read the Constitution... they don’t have rights to what is not publicly accessible. They can ask but a demand is beyond the law. They can coerce by not offering employment but that too may be beyond the law.

If someone voluntarily complied with an illegal request then the have voluntarily given you their rights. It’s like when a cop asks, “do you know why I stopped you?” They aren’t legally entitled to an answer.

What constitution? I live in the UK.

FujiLove · Jun 29, 2018

blockend said:
That's not a flaw in your digital imaging tool, your DSLR camera. I have a book on alternative photographic processes, and they almost all require digital intervention at some point.

No they don't. Digital just makes them easier and sometimes cheaper.

blockend · Jun 29, 2018

FujiLove said:
No they don't. Digital just makes them easier and sometimes cheaper.

A lot of analogue processes were tedious in the extreme. There's nothing creative about spending your working life in a dark room making internegs or three colour separations for print. The point is you can use digital photography straight from the "bottle" or as a starting point for wet and dry analogue processes.

removedacct1 · Jun 29, 2018

blockend said:
A lot of analogue processes were tedious in the extreme. There's nothing creative about spending your working life in a dark room making internegs or three colour separations for print. The point is you can use digital photography straight from the "bottle" or as a starting point for wet and dry analogue processes.

OK, fair enough. Let me state instead that I no longer find "hybrid" print making practices as satisfying as those that can be completed without the use of any modern digital tools (including an inkjet printer). I wasn't talking about "straight from the bottle" DSLR-to-inkjet workflow. I'm not making prints that require some form of an internegative - if I were, I would probably resign myself to working with inkjet-on-Pictorico negs.

FujiLove · Jun 29, 2018

blockend said:
A lot of analogue processes were tedious in the extreme. There's nothing creative about spending your working life in a dark room making internegs or three colour separations for print. The point is you can use digital photography straight from the "bottle" or as a starting point for wet and dry analogue processes.

Or in other words: I was absolutely right.

removedacct1 · Jun 29, 2018

FujiLove said:
Or in other words: I was absolutely right.

Yup!

blockend · Jun 29, 2018

FujiLove said:
Or in other words: I was absolutely right.

That's not the conclusion I drew from the exchange, and I can elaborate why with examples if necessary, but if you gain pleasure from saying you were right, who am I to deny you of it?

Berkeley Mike · Jun 29, 2018

Essence should include:

Human perception/anticipation/vision

light and sensitive medium

processing the capture

consequent image production

anything after that is in experiencing the image by a self as a part of the creative process or self and other exgaged in the final image.

blockend · Jun 29, 2018

paulbarden said:
Yup!

Nope. Jill Enfield's Guide to Photographic Alternative Processes - Popular Historical and Contemporary Techniques. Chapter 3: The Digital Negative Process. That's just for starters.

"Photography IS Film"

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