Traditionalists and nostalgia.

[CGW]

Rant over...

Thanks!

 

[PKM-25]

You are welcome, glad you set the record straight on this thread...

I mean, this has just GOT to be you, right, LOL!!!!

Seriously, why are you targeting me again lately?....it reeks....

 

[Diapositivo]

This Zink stuff looks very interesting to me. If I were a venture investor with venture money, I would examine this stuff very closely.
If the colours are stable this can be used also for document headshots. I can imagine the reduction in maintenance for automatic machines, for instance.

The Polaroid-branded camera is also somehow very interesting, as one can easily see the appeal it can have when immediacy of results is more important than quality, as it was for old time Polaroid cameras.

It can probably even help a future resurgence of analogue photography, if it can re-acquaint people with paper copies of photographs and the idea that a photograph is something that you keep in your hands, or in your wallet, or on your desk.

I find it very interesting not just as an industrial innovation in printing, but specifically as something new in the realm of photography, broadly intended.

 

[CGW]

This Zink stuff looks very interesting to me. If I were a venture investor with venture money, I would examine this stuff very closely.
If the colours are stable this can be used also for document headshots. I can imagine the reduction in maintenance for automatic machines, for instance.

The Polaroid-branded camera is also somehow very interesting, as one can easily see the appeal it can have when immediacy of results is more important than quality, as it was for old time Polaroid cameras.

It can probably even help a future resurgence of analogue photography, if it can re-acquaint people with paper copies of photographs and the idea that a photograph is something that you keep in your hands, or in your wallet, or on your desk.

I find it very interesting not just as an industrial innovation in printing, but specifically as something new in the realm of photography, broadly intended.

Assume as a "venture investor with venture money," you'd be looking for some losses here to put against income from elsewhere. The product didn't get much traction--you fill in the blanks as to why. The vastly cheaper Fuji Instax seems to deliver the "Polaroid" experience with less fuss.

 

[batwister]

The Polaroid-branded camera is also somehow very interesting, as one can easily see the appeal it can have when immediacy of results is more important than quality, as it was for old time Polaroid cameras.

It can probably even help a future resurgence of analogue photography, if it can re-acquaint people with paper copies of photographs and the idea that a photograph is something that you keep in your hands, or in your wallet, or on your desk.

This is what I thought when I saw the preview, but it's been out months and I've not seen any adverts or heard a single person mention it. I'd truly like to have seen this take off, but it's just not affordable enough... for a piece of nostalgia.

People can't put physical images on Facebook, the targeted demographic has no place for prints. The 18-30 world depends on an efficient system of instant gratification which cannot be interupted by such repulsive concepts as images on paper. I almost feel a little sorry for them trying to recreate a market for an age bracket which, quite frankly, doesn't give a shit about anything that can't get them more friend requests. Expect riots, online movements and the hacking of major businesses if this socially disruptive nod to the past ever takes off.

That isn't to say I don't want one.

 

[Brian C. Miller]

For example, I am going to start using 4x5 in my black and white work. If I find in using it I am unable to fully connect with my vision or I bring nothing new to the table, I will pass on it even though many wax poetic about it having better tonality and sharpness, being "Better" than any digital camera ( what a load of BS if your image is boring ).

"Connection" can take some time. It also depends on your vision. I started using 4x5 because my MF "box" cameras weren't able to do what I wanted with the image, i.e, movements. So I picked up a Super Graphic years ago. I'm still using it. I'm still discovering different things to do with it, stuff I wouldn't do with a different style of camera.

Explore and enjoy!

 

[zsas]

I don't think where people are artistically is quite as mysterious or indefinable as you suggest. My problem is that this unrealised and derivative work is published and celebrated as anything other than pastiche, which is insulting to anyone who is even vaguely well-read photographically. What is strange is how otherwise switched on people continue to create what is essentially naive art.

When Picasso branched out to doing ceramics in 1947, how would you have reacted? I suspect a little like you sound above. Picasso brought to a medium (some don't even consider art) his style. Are you that person who doesn't think ceramics can be art because others already have made art in that medium and we have moved on ( eg we already have say raku, why should Picasso touch a "artistically dead medium")?

I suggest, Picasso, an accomplished artist in '47, would have been in the "transform" part of his paintings but at the same time be in the learning phase in regard to the ceramics in '47

And therefore I find it not right to judge anyone. Picasso, if he was any less famous or impressionable, could have stopped his expressions in ceramics should he have listened to someone like you.

 

[batwister]

Picasso, if he was any less famous or impressionable, could have stopped his expressions in ceramics should he have listened to someone like you.

I'm sure he would have thrown paint in my face with an ego like his and maybe taken the woman I happened to be with at the time.

I'd say there's a big difference between an already accomplished artist broadening his horizons and someone starting out getting caught up in a certain way of doing things. A novice wouldn't have the insight or creative experience to say anything new working in a medium or style that has been exhausted by more accomplished artists decades before - this is generally why movements and mediums are abandoned. It takes the courage and great objectivity of an accomplished and mature artist to say, "right, I can tackle this" and begin to say something new in a medium. A novice would be a slave to the tradition and norms while still learning their craft and developing a voice, they don't yet have the courage of their convictions. This is when you can spot them - there's a visible lack of balls. We all know Picasso had big balls.

Not that I think it's about being macho, but we are talking about one of the big boys here. He had a great sensitivity, yes, but he also didn't give a s***.

 

[Diapositivo]

The vastly cheaper Fuji Instax seems to deliver the "Polaroid" experience with less fuss.

It's a different technology. You cannot easily or sensibly use the Polaroid technology for digital colour printing.
I have no idea of the costs or colour quality or resolution of this technology but, being in its infancy, I imagine it can improve vastly.

I see a future for it in those sectors somehow straddling between digital colour printing (the kind which would be made, today, with ink-jet printers or laser printers) and photographic reproduction.

Ink-jet printing creates problems with inks, nozzles to be kept clean, alignments, and long-term image preservation. This technology might simplify the printing side while allowing a photograph to be taken fast.

Imagine you have a camping site, or a conference centre, and you make "on-the-fly" a badge for guests. Imagine accreditation for fairs, press events, sport events. You can identify somebody and instantly issue a photographic colour "badge". There are already technologies for this, I know, but this could be very competitive.

Imagine the street photographer who offers to take instant pictures of people. You can do this with an Instax camera, but this technology allows you to put a physical picture in the hand of the couple AND offer him a digital picture as well.

Imagine a ceremony photographer who goes to let's say an amateur choir concert and then sells pictures to the choir singers and the public. He would be able to immediately print the picture with a simple printer, give an hopefully quality print, and deliver a digital file or, without delivering, keeping it for further copies to be made on request.

A wedding phtographer might be able to cut the competition of the so called "scattini" (so called in Italy). They are "unofficial" wedding photographers who before the ceremony take pictures of guests outside of the church / city hall, then "fly" to the lab, print the picture, and by the end of the ceremony are back there offering the guests physical pictures (guests would buy them, and this goes to the detriment of sales by the "official" photographer). The "official" photographer might be able to immediately sell the images with an instant technology, but he would keep the digital file for further copies to be ordered, killing several birds with one instant stone.

I don't know if all this will come true. Costs, quality, evolution of this technology will tell us. I think it really is interesting for the way it "straddles" instant and digital photography. I am not aware that with Instax this can be done.

 

[batwister]

A wedding phtographer might be able to cut the competition of the so called "scattini" (so called in Italy). They are "unofficial" wedding photographers who before the ceremony take pictures of guests outside of the church / city hall, then "fly" to the lab, print the picture, and by the end of the ceremony are back there offering the guests physical pictures (guests would buy them, and this goes to the detriment of sales by the "official" photographer). The "official" photographer might be able to immediately sell the images with an instant technology, but he would keep the digital file for further copies to be ordered, killing several birds with one instant stone.

I've done this at friend's weddings!

Nevertheless, somewhat off topic?

 

[zsas]

I'd say there's a big difference between an already accomplished artist broadening his horizons and someone starting out getting caught up in a certain way of doing things. A novice wouldn't have the insight or creative experience to say anything new working in a medium or style that has been exhausted by more accomplished artists decades before - this is generally why movements and mediums are abandoned. It takes the courage and great objectivity of an accomplished and mature artist to say, "right, I can tackle this" and begin to say something new in a medium.

Agree to disagree. Wish you the best in your artistic ventures.

 

[CGW]

It's a different technology. You cannot easily or sensibly use the Polaroid technology for digital colour printing.
I have no idea of the costs or colour quality or resolution of this technology but, being in its infancy, I imagine it can improve vastly.

I see a future for it in those sectors somehow straddling between digital colour printing (the kind which would be made, today, with ink-jet printers or laser printers) and photographic reproduction.

Ink-jet printing creates problems with inks, nozzles to be kept clean, alignments, and long-term image preservation. This technology might simplify the printing side while allowing a photograph to be taken fast.

Imagine you have a camping site, or a conference centre, and you make "on-the-fly" a badge for guests. Imagine accreditation for fairs, press events, sport events. You can identify somebody and instantly issue a photographic colour "badge". There are already technologies for this, I know, but this could be very competitive.

Imagine the street photographer who offers to take instant pictures of people. You can do this with an Instax camera, but this technology allows you to put a physical picture in the hand of the couple AND offer him a digital picture as well.

Imagine a ceremony photographer who goes to let's say an amateur choir concert and then sells pictures to the choir singers and the public. He would be able to immediately print the picture with a simple printer, give an hopefully quality print, and deliver a digital file or, without delivering, keeping it for further copies to be made on request.

A wedding phtographer might be able to cut the competition of the so called "scattini" (so called in Italy). They are "unofficial" wedding photographers who before the ceremony take pictures of guests outside of the church / city hall, then "fly" to the lab, print the picture, and by the end of the ceremony are back there offering the guests physical pictures (guests would buy them, and this goes to the detriment of sales by the "official" photographer). The "official" photographer might be able to immediately sell the images with an instant technology, but he would keep the digital file for further copies to be ordered, killing several birds with one instant stone.

I don't know if all this will come true. Costs, quality, evolution of this technology will tell us. I think it really is interesting for the way it "straddles" instant and digital photography. I am not aware that with Instax this can be done.

Not holding my breath that a printer+camera combo churning out so far lousy images will fly. Could be a work-in-progress or a dead end. People don't pass around prints much--in case you've not noticed.

 

[Diapositivo]

Not holding my breath that a printer+camera combo churning out so far lousy images will fly. Could be a work-in-progress or a dead end. People don't pass around prints much--in case you've not noticed.

I noticed. But that might due to the fact that digital photography makes it practical, and cheap, to just send pictures by mail, or post them to a web site.

People don't project slides that much as we know, but I bet that if you make a slide projections (of good pictures) to some friends, many of them will tell you how nice it was to see slides projected again.

It's not that it is not feasible to make a slide from a digital image. It's that the technology doesn't entice people to project slides. Habits are changing. But they can change again.

If - hypothetically - a new technology could allow people to retain the good of digital (easy distributions, easy copying) with one aspect of the good of analogue (the "matter") and favoured the production of physical pictures, you would soon listen to people telling how nice it is, again, to pass pictures from hand to hand, or to see them on their purse.

So to make my point clearer, imagine a digital camera that allows people to instantly produce slides. At the moment, as we noticed, people don't project slides that much any more! But I think if they had a digital camera which makes "instant" slides of very good quality, that would certainly give a new impulse to the idea of slide projections. And I also think that, indirectly, that would give a new impulse to the sale of "analogue" slide film.

 

[CGW]

I noticed. But that might due to the fact that digital photography makes it practical, and cheap, to just send pictures by mail, or post them to a web site.

People don't project slides that much as we know, but I bet that if you make a slide projections (of good pictures) to some friends, many of them will tell you how nice it was to see slides projected again.

It's not that it is not feasible to make a slide from a digital image. It's that the technology doesn't entice people to project slides. Habits are changing. But they can change again.

If - hypothetically - a new technology could allow people to retain the good of digital (easy distributions, easy copying) with one aspect of the good of analogue (the "matter") and favoured the production of physical pictures, you would soon listen to people telling how nice it is, again, to pass pictures from hand to hand, or to see them on their purse.

So to make my point clearer, imagine a digital camera that allows people to instantly produce slides. At the moment, as we noticed, people don't project slides that much any more! But I think if they had a digital camera which makes "instant" slides of very good quality, that would certainly give a new impulse to the idea of slide projections. And I also think that, indirectly, that would give a new impulse to the sale of "analogue" slide film.

Sorry but the genie got out of the bottle around a decade ago and isn't heading back in. I'm shooting up my 120 E6 film over the next 6-8 months, not because I can't project it but because I'm not certain about E6 processing locally. People are too enthralled by their smartphones and tablets to be distracted by a 4x6 print and its "so what" quality.

 

[kevs]

As much as we celebrate expressive photography, we can't deny that nostalgia defines this medium and will always be the overriding power that the billions of images made in the last 180+ years hold for most people. Think of any photograph and you think of the past. That we continue to look for the past in the present is a habit developed, largely, from looking at photographs. The objects we might see in a family picture - "I wonder where that old lamp is?" - we grab the lamp from the attic and put it on display. More importantly, as photographers, is representation and the modernity we often omit from the frame deeming it 'banal', 'boring', 'clinical' and 'ugly' - words I see time and time again on this forum and words I've used myself. This is a condition that people who shoot film suffer from and digitalists, largely, do not. If there was to be some serious research carried out using images on Flickr there would undoubtedly be a massive correlation between 'film' tags and a lack of reference to modernity in the images. One of the reasons for this, other than the fact many of these shooters actively look for old cars, buildings, 70s wallpaper etc. is that a sum of the photographs will be romantic landscapes. I'm convinced the reason so many film hobbyists turn to the landscape to produce expressive work, has less to do with tonality/dynamic range/detail and more that in this environment their habitual searching for nostalgia can be switched off. That denial of the reality of encroaching modernity can feel like discipline in itself and discipline is an important part of artmaking - a subconscious connection is made. This fuels further detachment and cynicism about the modern world. Many practitioners (including myself at times) seem to be on a delusional spiritual and environmental crusade. Believe it or not, not all landscape photographers are city hating hermits! Again, I believe it's part of this condition we develop the minute we load our cameras with film. An aversion to the visual reality of the present. "Bring back Kodachrome!" really means "bring back my youth!" or at least a time they now perceive as being better, even if they weren't around!

I'm a film user and I disagree; although I do take your point that some photographers, analogue and digital, have a penchant for the past, but I don't see this as an exclusive trait of film users. Do you also think painters, sketchers and other visual artists are guilty of unhealthy nostalgia? How about iPhone users with their Instagrams?

I don't think I seek out nostalgia, although I do often omit modern or artificial elements from my images, but often that's not the point of the images I'm making. My most recent effort is about some gasometers in my home town;distinctive features of the town's landscape. Their urban context necessitates inclusion of modern elements; I'm not afraid to do this. The gasometers are over 100 years old and under threat of demolition; I'm making a pictorial and (hopefully) aesthetically interesting record of them. I've also made pictures of an abandoned and now demolished industrial estate. I want to record my town's disappearing heritage because when its gone, I won't be able to photograph these things. Tomorrow they'll be nostalgic images; today they're the visual reality of the present. They're not pretty pictures, but i hope they're interesting ones.

If we're trying to keep film alive, why do we continue to pile on the dust? We need to learn to make reference to this century just a little bit more, as I feel concern with the past, whether it's the things we photograph or the visual language/style/overuse of sepia, is going a long way (in the mind of a fatalist) to killing film. From what I've observed and from the frequent comments uttered by those who know I shoot film or see me with my camera, a concern with the past is what turns people off film. It's simply anorakia to them and basically socially questionable. Young people in particular, who have no sentiment for the smells (which are strongly linked to memory - nostalgia) are being turned off film because of its association with nostalgia anoraks. Young people are more concerned with the future and this mindset is antipathetic.

In essence, film isn't the problem, it's the unattractive curiosities of the people who shoot it.

Actually, I get the impression that film is seen as cool and hip by some young people; witness the Holga craze which represents the modern face of pictorialism and is the antithesis of the ultra-sharp, ultra-clean, airbrushed and photoshopped images that are shoved in our faces today. Some I've talked to see film as 'real' photography; done in a darkroom and a developing tank. I think you do young photographers a disservice by stereotyping them as uncaring of the past, and by stereotyping other film photographers as unremitting nostalgia freaks. Would you watch a child who's seeing, hearing and smelling a working steam train and call his/her 'nostalgia' socially questionable? Sure we can't live in the past, but a knowledge of the past helps us understand the present.

Right, I'm off to develop an unhealthily nostalgic roll of FP4+.
Cheers,
kevs