Tossing Negatives After They've Been Scanned

[Hassasin]

When I made that original statement : "All that being said, I don't really see the point in shooting film, if you're just going to scan it and show it on a screen. I suppose people are seeking something "different" by spending money needlessly.", I wasn't referring to myself, or others here who actually do value negatives. I can understand why many people don't value negatives, and are happy to throw them out, but what I don't understand is why someone who doesn't value negatives would even bother shooting with film in the first place.

100% agree

 

[mtnbkr]

I guess that makes me a "nobody'! LOL

I was referring to local shops.

Chris

 

[mtnbkr]

What's this scanning of which they speak RR ? View attachment 410005

It's what ones does when they don't have space for a proper darkroom.

Chris

 

[Vaughn]

Talking to a photo professor who told a story of the student presenting their assignment, which was excessively sharpened. The prof suggested re-doing it with reduced sharpness and the student replied that they could not. After making the final print, he erased all the files (just like tossing the negatives).

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

When kids handed in digital assignments, they had to include the file containing the original exposure, otherwise they got an incomplete mark. The same with film-based projects. I spent a good part of class time teaching them how to be organised.

 

[gbroadbridge]

what I don't understand is why someone who doesn't value negatives would even bother shooting with film in the first place.

Because the final image is king, it does not matter how you got there.

Same as the film/digital argument.
A camera is just a tool to record a moment. How it does that is irrelevant.

 

[koraks]

I spent a good part of class time teaching them how to be organised.

Well, ultimately, that's what a lot of teaching is about, if you get down to it. It just turns out there are so many ways in which you can organize so many different kinds of things!

 

[loccdor]

Talking to a photo professor who told a story of the student presenting their assignment, which was excessively sharpened. The prof suggested re-doing it with reduced sharpness and the student replied that they could not. After making the final print, he erased all the files (just like tossing the negatives).

My math classes always reduced credit for not "showing your work". And if you did show you work, they'd see the exact spot where you went wrong and could give you partial credit accordingly.

 

[Prest_400]

The average time a viewer is willing to look at your photos is 4 seconds per image with a maximum of 15 images. Choose wisely what you want to show. Kill your precious darlings.

Over the years those not so great negatives that you propose killing might begin to show history. It could take 5 years or 20 years or more. “Oh look there’s the old store they tore down.” Or “that’s the intersection before they put the traffic light up.” At the time these photos were taken these negatives may have been tossed by your rule of only keeping the best. But to some in the future they still have some history to show (if only local history, which I love). Just a thought…

It's again up to the medium. Digital has that infinite replication but non physicality whereas film has the physical negatives. IMO, and as I wrote earlier, having the negs by default in film just allows having this physical backup. Which may end up lasting or not in one way or other.
Personally am an outlier, I had a fascination for the family archive early on due to late relatives which were documented in very few pictures. Again slides are the most interesting but the negatives are just folded in the classical minilab envelopes and are there... It was nice that I could go back to a couple of dad's old BW negs and print photos from 1972 which were very appreciated to be seen as larger prints. Also, I had a fascination for archival keeping early on, but nowadays am not so well organized...

One possible strength of film is that it goes against the short attention span and attention economy trend. I have met people that explicitely appreciate the slower workflow.
Funnily I am currently sitting on a batch of unscanned negatives. Also, I usually had been very selective on shooting due to the film expense as some mention, so my negatives are usually already very select. Been a happier shooter the last years so have generated more.

 

[DevStopFix]

It’s one thing to digitize a decades-old catalog of work amassed over decades on a medium of the time. It’s entirely another to shoot film today just to toss it in the can after essentially taking a picture of a picture (whether literally with a digital camera or with a scanner). Seems analogous to someone digitizing old out of print 45s to ensure they can continue to enjoy such recordings vs. someone going well out of their way to make an mp3 out of a vinyl record they’ve just brought home from Barnes and Noble.

I’m grateful these folks help keep film going, but I’ll never see it as anything other than absurd. Just my opinion.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

The teacher (who had zero photo background going into this) who took over the photo program of a colleague of mine, a few years ago, does 99.9% digital. One project is film based, and they do make tiny 5x7 prints at the end of the unit. I was talking with him the other day, and he told me that he is saving a heap of money not having to buy negative sleeves for the students... instead, he has instructed them to just toss the negatives. I was speechless!

Heresy!

 

[Guy S]

I’m grateful these folks help keep film going, but I’ll never see it as anything other than absurd. Just my opinion.

I don't really understand it myself even as I do it. I think if I had a digital camera exactly the same as my favourite film cameras in shape and controls, I have no idea if I would find it as pleasing as using film. Maybe I just haven't found the right digicam.

 

[chuckroast]

Because the final image is king, it does not matter how you got there.

Same as the film/digital argument.
A camera is just a tool to record a moment. How it does that is irrelevant.

Yes, but how you get there matters ... a lot. The path to the final image using negative and silver/platinum/palladium/carbon/cyanotype print is very different than the path from digital capture to screen. Moreover, it is essentially impossible to duplicate one with the other.

The two paths should be understood for what they are: Two entirely different artists' methods joined only by common heritage. This was much the same case with, say, pianos and synthesizers when the latter first arose - entirely different kinds of music emerged.

 

[gbroadbridge]

after essentially taking a picture of a picture (whether literally with a digital camera or with a scanner).

Photographically enlarging a negative is simply taking a picture of a picture using photo paper.

 

[AnselMortensen]

Photographically enlarging a negative is simply taking a picture of a picture using photo paper.

Ha!
A paper negative of a film negative!

 

[DevStopFix]

Photographically enlarging a negative is simply taking a picture of a picture using photo paper.

With the key difference that one is then unlikely to toss his/her negative in the bin.

 

[Kilgallb]

Why would you want the negatives after they’ve been scanned??? What’s the scandal. After 40 years of shooting film I start going back, scanning them, and then pitching them. Still have a few thousand to go. Now when I develop film I give the negs a very brief wash, scan and pitch.

Film is more archival than digits. Just ask me, MS cloud storage lost some of my data.

Tomorrow’s more advanced scanner will have more dynamic range and a rescan may improve or change the captured image.

 

[Kino]

I highly doubt anyone who shoots raw discards that file after editing it in Darkroom.

It doesn't pass the smell test...

 

[Tel]

Film is more archival than digits. Just ask me, MS cloud storage lost some of my data.

I just spent some time sorting through slides I shot (on Ektachrome) of some design work I did 50 years ago. I put the slides on my scanner and came up with some images that look as good as they did when I shot them (without photoshopping). That's archival.

 

[djdister]

The teacher (who had zero photo background going into this) who took over the photo program of a colleague of mine, a few years ago, does 99.9% digital. One project is film based, and they do make tiny 5x7 prints at the end of the unit. I was talking with him the other day, and he told me that he is saving a heap of money not having to buy negative sleeves for the students... instead, he has instructed them to just toss the negatives. I was speechless!

Someone like that should not be teaching photography. Besides, any really "good" teacher would require the students to buy their own negative sleeves -- problem solved at no cost (to the teacher)...

 

[gary mulder]

Somehow this thread has become bogged down in an analogue versus digital thread.

 

[gary mulder]

I highly doubt anyone who shoots raw discards that file after editing it in Darkroom.

It doesn't pass the smell test...

Darkroom is non destructive editing software.

 

[lecarp]

I tossed all my scans years ago. After a lifetime in analog photography I find digital with all its necessary
baggage and planned obsolescence inconvenient and annoying.
I say this only as personal preference, if digital works for you excellent.

 

[gary mulder]

I tossed all my scans years ago. After a lifetime in analog photography I find digital with all its necessary
baggage and planned obsolescence inconvenient and annoying.
I say this only as personal preference, if digital works for you excellent.

I would like to be so rich. Metaphorically speaking, that is. The harsh reality is, that's not me.

 

[MattKing]

I have no problem with people making the decision to discard negatives, if the user has a good idea about the value of, and possibilities inherent in, a saved negative.
I am concerned when people who are relatively uninformed about that value, and those possibilities, are encouraged to discard them, on the grounds of economy and convenience.
From a scan I made of an early Kodachrome slide of my father's - the earliest photo I have of my mother. The slide would be nearly 80 years old. You can see more colour in the scan then you can see in the slide itself: