thoughts on the announced Kodak film price increase?

[MattKing]

But if working in the dark with film is your main or only interest, you're a lab technician, not a photographer.

Or you are a true artist.
Creating a print is a continuum - it starts prior to leaving the house, continues through the act of composing and exposing using the camera, continues through development of the film, continues through the printing stage and continues through any post printing steps like toning and matting and framing.
All parts involve technical and subjective choices, and everyone has different preferences about the various parts.
Are musicians who play from a score or actors who act from a script simply technicians?
Would Henri Cartier-Bresson have been as iconic if he didn't have someone else doing his printing?
Would Jerry Uelsmann be known to any of us without his vision and artistry in the darkroom?
I love darkroom work.

 

[DMJ]

Are musicians who play from a score or actors who act from a script simply technicians?

Kind of, we call them performers and there are many people how play instruments but they aren't musicians, they are instrumentalists. Watch the film "Tous le matins du monde"; I love when the composer Marin Marais (Gerard Depardieu) yields at the young player "You'll never be a musician"...
edit: Most composers and musicians also love playing and the mechanics of the instruments. I also like darkroom work but that is a means to an end.

 

[MattKing]

Kind of, we call them performers and there are many people how play instruments but they aren't musicians, they are instrumentalists.

Are you truly saying that Yo Yo Ma isn't a musician?
And going back a bit, was Glenn Gould not a musician?
How about Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges?

 

[DMJ]

Are you truly saying that Yo Yo Ma isn't a musician?
And going back a bit, was Glenn Gould not a musician?
How about Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges?

I said "many people" not all. Of course Yo-Yo-Ma is a musician but I don't listen to him because I don't like his playing... and don't know much about Jazz, even though I studied jazz keyboard harmony with one of Miles Davies' keyboardist. I thing the idea was to compare the technical aspects of the art and the making of the art itself. I know many "musicians" who like turning knobs on synthesizers, they are always acquiring new gear but when you listen to their music, there is nothing. I think the true masters, like Ansel, are the ones that have an understanding of the technical aspects (or the craft) of photography and also have something to say with their images.

 

[removedacct1]

Digital can fuck right the fuck off

I knew it was only a matter of time before this discussion cultivated a new name to add to my ignore list.

Ivo, you may want to bear in mind that Photrio is a forum that welcomes ALL photographers, regardless of the tools they choose to work with. Its not just a film forum. But I'm guessing that you don't care who you offend with your opinions, so....

 

[BrianShaw]

I can respect that opinion. I just wish that it was expressed with a bit less vulgarity. Perhaps something went awry with the translation.

 

[pentaxuser]

Every time I think film is too expensive I look up the current price of a Monochrome and calculate that's about 40 years of film at my current usage. I could always raid the 529 because maybe my kids need one for college.

What's a Monochrome and likewise the 529? Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[removed account4]

Would Henri Cartier-Bresson have been as iconic if he didn't have someone else doing his printing?

it depends who you talk to.

some people don't even consider those who don't do their own printing or processing real photographers. same goes with "color film photographers" they aren't real photographers.. the whole thing is kind of weird.

 

[Pieter12]

Are you truly saying that Yo Yo Ma isn't a musician?
And going back a bit, was Glenn Gould not a musician?
How about Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges?

Music is quite a bit different. There are composers who only play a single instrument well (and some who don't play any well), but they know how they want their compositions to sound. There are arrangers who will take the composition and write the parts for the different instruments. And there are performers who also compose. Add the conductor to the whole process, and the producer and engineer if it is a recording. But mastering one aspect does not guarantee mastery of the rest. Just like photographers who don't or can't print as well as they would like or don't like working in the darkroom need lab technicians to print for them. I recently read a memoire of a French darkroom printer who printed for a lot of well-known photographers (Les Secrets du Tirage by Guillaume Geneste) but I don't think much of what little work of his that I have seen.

Many professional photographers rely on talented technicians to achieve their vision. Many professional photographers are delighted to be freed from the chores of the darkroom and continue to do the same quality of work in digital.

 

[MattKing]

What a Monochrome and likewise the 529? Thanks

pentaxuser

Two different types of Leica bodies - I think.

 

[Pieter12]

Two different types of Leica bodies - I think.

529 is a college savings plan.

 

[MattKing]

529 is a college savings plan.

Thanks - I guess like our RESPs.

 

[pentaxuser]

Thanks Matt and Pieter12 for answers

pentaxuser

 

[Ai Print]

Wow, my TMX and TMY in 120 is getting hella-spendy these days…and here I am pushing my self to shoot at least 5-6 rolls a day while in the North Atlantic, lol!

As for all this rather go over the rainbow bridge than shoot digital stuff, I actually get it. As long as I am able to shoot and print film, I love digital too. But if film goes, I am going to resent using digital (like I did in 1994) and take up painting.

For now, I am still living the dream, even if the price tag could start giving me nightmares…

 

[Pieter12]

I am going to resent using digital (like I did in 1994) and take up painting.

Start now. It takes a bit more work to master than photography.

 

[removed account4]

Start now. It takes a bit more work to master than photography.

what do you mean, man .. digital piixellpeeeeping isn't photography, its FAUXtography.

 

[MattKing]

Folks, no politics.
If you want to engage in that, that is what the Soap Box Group threads are for.
Enter at your own risk!

 

[Pieter12]

what do you mean, man .. digital piixellpeeeeping isn't photography, its FAUXtography.

I'm talking about painting. Not house-painting, either.

 

[BrianShaw]

I missed them; what did they say? Ha ha ha.

I missed it again. Dang… I hate having a teal life that keeps me from watching this thread all day long.

 

[Ai Print]

Start now. It takes a bit more work to master than photography.

I’m well aware, my mother is an oil painter. I doubt I will have to give up film in my lifetime though so not to worry I say.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I paid $3.9 last week which is not bad for Los Angeles so I don't complain. I also paid $8.6 for a roll of Tri-x in 120. I will start complaining when it gets above $10.

I complain when I cannot get film. The film manufacturers need to be able to stay in business.

 

[Sirius Glass]

When photography gets expensive, I will just have to eat cake rather than shoot digitally, except for remote sensing from a spacecraft.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I think it is about photography, not just images, not just processes, not just photographers, not just consumers of photography, but all of the above.
And generally in different proportions, for different participants.
So I would never say that someone is wrong if their interest centres around a different part of photography than mine does.

Yes it is also about the film experience and process. I would give up drinking coffee first. Oh, I do not drink coffee, but I will still give it up first.

 

[Sirius Glass]

But if working in the dark with film is your main or only interest, you're a lab technician, not a photographer.

No, still a photographer. Your rewriting your definition changes nothing but wasting your energy.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I said "many people" not all. Of course Yo-Yo-Ma is a musician but I don't listen to him because I don't like his playing... and don't know much about Jazz, even though I studied jazz keyboard harmony with one of Miles Davies' keyboardist. I thing the idea was to compare the technical aspects of the art and the making of the art itself. I know many "musicians" who like turning knobs on synthesizers, they are always acquiring new gear but when you listen to their music, there is nothing. I think the true masters, like Ansel, are the ones that have an understanding of the technical aspects (or the craft) of photography and also have something to say with their images.

Well we could turn the arguments around and make pompous statements that digital photography is merely twiddling knobs, at others here have done claiming that darkroom work is merely technicians' work, but I will not lower myself to such drivel.