Shooting or Developing?

[PVia]

I like both equally but don't shoot that much. Even when I just grab a camera as I'm leaving the house, many times I won't shoot one frame if a picture doesn't present itself to my eye. I'm a picky self-editor - I don't shoot for the sake of it, it needs to entice me.

When I do get some frames I like, I absolutely love being in the darkroom, whether it's to make silver prints, lith, internegs/pos, pt/pd, gum...it doesn't matter, I love printing...but it has to be worth it.

 

[JPD]

I'm lazy. I enjoy looking at my prints when they are flat and dry. The rest is kind of tiresome. Printing and washing takes forever.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

I'm no longer good on my feet and find walking to be a chore. I wish that I had shot more film when I was younger so that I would have something to do in the darkroom now that I have plenty of time.

 

[Maris]

I hate subject matter, cameras, and film.

Photography, of all the expressive arts, is hostage to subject matter and the material limitations of lenses and light sensitive materials. And there is no way around the problem without ditching photography and becoming a painter or a Photoshop expert; painting by numbers in effect. A photograph, if it is aimed at doing more than showing what something looks like, if it is intended to reward intense looking, needs to have deeper levels of meaning. These deeper levels are carried by visual metaphors and similes. For example if you want to express "drama" then a gothic castle at night during a thunder storm will do fine; for "beauty" try a sunny landscape with rocks, flowers, trees, clouds, waves, and so on. It is the hardest thing to find subject matter so that your photograph will say what you want it to say. Plus it's doubly hard to have camera and film on hand at all times just in case the subject matter decides, just for a moment, to deliver. Mainly it's a litany of disappointment with rare flashes of fulfilment.

I love subject matter, cameras, and film.

Photography is the only way of making a picture that is directly and physically linked to subject matter. Cameras and film are the essential components that make that link achievable. An 8x10 sheet of film actually absorbs about 10 to the minus 25 kilograms of stuff that a moment before was part of the subject matter. The penetration of this stuff, at 300 000km/second, into a sensitive surface enables the photograph to be revealed at the site of impact. Photographs, of all picture making processes, are certificates for reality. It is a shocking thing that photography teaches us: there are real things out there that can say "truth", "beauty", "grace", "sadness", and so on. It's enough to give you goose bumps!

That is the power that subject matter, confined and captured by camera and film, confers on photography.

 

[tac]

I'm a process fan; I like both equally well, but after I make a nice print, and enjoy it for a while, I couldn't care less what happens to it- I usually give portfolios away to whomever wants it. I always find someone to take them, so I must be doing something right!

 

[michaelbsc]

Love shooting, love a lot about printing. Hate processing film.

Get a Phototherm. It processes the film, then beeps when it's done. Kinda like a microwave in my mind.

You spend some time working out the process, then it just does it from then on. I'll be washing the slot processor or something, and it goes beep, beep, beep and the film is done.

 

[cmo]

The Phototerm is a nice thing, but prices are hefty. And it doesn't even make contact sheets... ;-)

 

[michaelbsc]

Posted wirelessly.. (Logic-Joe)

The Phototerm is a nice thing, but prices are hefty. And it doesn't even make contact sheets... ;-)

Yea, they've apparently "been discovered" and aren't as common as a few years ago. I've got less in my user Photothem and several junkers I have as parts donors than many opening bids these days.

 

[photoncatcher]

Love to shoot, love to print, but developing the film is a pain. If I could afford to pay some one to just do the film, I would.

 

[Brandon D.]

I see it all as part of the same [artistic] process. Like others, I enjoy the entire process. I don't distinguish any favortism of one part of the process over another.