Unpretentious film photography in digital age

blockend · Oct 19, 2020

miha said:
Why not albums?

Unless you're already closely acquainted with the subject, albums can be rather like slideshows, a place to put material without going through an editing process. This has gained albums a reputation as yawn stifling affairs. It depends whether the album is aimed at immediately family and friends who are invested in the photos, or it hopes to stand for posterity.

In my experience printed books make the photographer consider how the images are seen, and the viewer approach them with a different perspective.

miha · Oct 19, 2020

blockend said:
Unless you're already closely acquainted with the subject, albums can be rather like slideshows, a place to put material without going through an editing process. This has gained albums a reputation as yawn stifling affairs. It depends whether the album is aimed at immediately family and friends who are invested in the photos, or it hopes to stand for posterity.

In my experience printed books make the photographer consider how the images are seen, and the viewer approach them with a different perspective.

All right, so you are making inkjets.. not what this thread is about.

blockend · Oct 19, 2020

miha said:
All right, so you are making inkjets.. not what this thread is about.

Lithography I think, like other photobooks. I also sometimes make hand bound books of darkroom printed photographs. If the question is do I make cellophane covered photo albums of 4 x 3" snaps, the answer is not since machine developing and printing was common, and rarely even then. I do have a small collection of old (like Edwardian old) albums of other people's photographs found in junk and charity shops.

Garry Winogrand said people called his photographs snapshots, because of their informality. He said snapshots are generally some of the most formal images around, often of posed people smiling into the camera. So it's difficult to know what unpretentious means in a photo context.

miha · Oct 19, 2020

Not difficult at all, it's in my OP.

blockend · Oct 19, 2020

miha said:
Not difficult at all, it's in my OP.

Agfa used to make Portriga B&W paper in very small sizes. I used to print tiny from 35mm negs on Portriga and stick them in A5 books. I have no idea whether counts as an album by your definition.

Charles Escott-New · Oct 19, 2020

My wife and I come from families with a tradition of collecting photo albums and we continue this in the present. I did not wish to disparage the excellent artistic efforts of others, just that I know that the album content is the only work I have made which will survive for a time. My grandson may wish to keep them or not, but at least he has the choice. The albums are for the immediate family if requested, but can be a solitary pleasure, a mixture of sadness and joy. Sometimes I think that my memory is the visual trail, Charles.

miha · Oct 20, 2020

blockend said:
Agfa used to make Portriga B&W paper in very small sizes. I used to print tiny from 35mm negs on Portriga and stick them in A5 books. I have no idea whether counts as an album by your definition.

Of course it does. But this thread is more to learn if PHOTRIO members use their film cameras (and not phones) to document their ordinary lives (hence unpretentious) and then take the additional steps to develop, print and organize the photos in an old fashioned way (hence albums). The impression I got over the years is that most of the members here take photos in order to create art to be hung on the walls. Consequently I wonder if "anoraks" still exist.

cjbecker · Oct 20, 2020

Documenting my family life is the only reason I use a camera and print in the darkroom. In the last couple years i’ve taken very few pictures that were of anything else.

DeletedAcct1 · Oct 20, 2020

miha said:
With everyone using their smartphones to take the odd snap of their surrounding, I wonder, does anyone here take ordinary snaps on film, develop AND make darkroom prints on a regular basis, put prints in albums and have a look at them from time to time..., like so many amateur photographers of decades ago?
No "art", big format, etc. prints, just unpretentious, album-size prints of everyday life, and stuff/people one finds interesting and worthwhile photographing?

Not having a darkroom because of space limitations, I'm forced to develop b&w rolls as slides, with mixed results. It's fun, interesting and the outcome is much like having them printed on paper, except there's the hassle of setting up the projector and projecting screen.

blockend · Oct 20, 2020

miha said:
Consequently I wonder if "anoraks" still exist.

For me the word anorak conjures up a guy sometime in the 1970 or 80s, with a Zenit and a notebook. While serious photographers obsessed over their gear, anoraks obsessed over their obsession. A camera was simply a way of recording whatever their thing was. A lot of the most important visual fragments that have come down to us on people and place, were taken on humble gear by (extra)ordinary people. On the other hand, some people changed their camera every year to photograph the dog.

miha · Oct 20, 2020

cjbecker said:
Documenting my family life is the only reason I use a camera and print in the darkroom. In the last couple years i’ve taken very few pictures that were of anything else.

So nice to read this!

Charles Escott-New · Oct 20, 2020

Perfect Mr. Blockend, 1950s, windcheater, bobble hat, pencil, Ian Allen ABC, Tizer, egg sarnies, trying to take photos of steam engines with a Box Brownie. Anorak, someone with an obsessional interest in a niche subject not wholly understood by the wider public? None of us then! , all the best, Roy Cropper.

guangong · Oct 20, 2020

MattKing said:
One of the great things about photography is that you can easily mix artistic creation with memory recording - even on the same roll of film.

Ditto!

Cholentpot · Oct 20, 2020

guangong said:
Ditto!

Right on!

blockend · Oct 29, 2020

Charles Escott-New said:
Perfect Mr. Blockend, 1950s, windcheater, bobble hat, pencil, Ian Allen ABC, Tizer, egg sarnies, trying to take photos of steam engines with a Box Brownie.

On the other hand there's Ivo Peters who went spotting in his Bentley, and supplemented his still photography with 16mm colour movies of trains. Tizer and egg sarnies replaced by a jolly good dinner at the best hotels.

Charles Escott-New · Oct 29, 2020

Mr. Blockend, what a legacy Ivo Peters left. Thanks for stirring the memory. My second home in the late 50s was the western end of platform 4, Reading Station. Then I discovered other interests.

railwayman3 · Oct 29, 2020

jawarden said:
It's the unpretentiousness of old photo albums that I like. Yellowed pictures of Grandpa posing in front of his '53 Buick or whatever. I can't imagine anyone putting a picture of me standing next to my vehicle in an album!

.

Yes, but maybe a shot of you or I standing next to our vehicle would be of interest to grandchildren or family in 80+ years. ("Look, here's grandpa with his car....they still worked with that funny gasoline liquid then!").
Seriously, though, both my father and grandfather were keen amateur photographers and photoclub members, but I'm now finding that their most interesting and valued pictures are those of family members and events, or places which have changed. Similarly, the most interesting part of some of the ancient B&W films now being shown on TV are what you see in the backgrounds and locations,
On topic, yes I still use B&W and colour film for snapshots, with the smartphone for a quick records and notes where I'm unlikely to need to keep the image permanently.

blockend · Oct 29, 2020

railwayman3 said:
their most interesting and valued pictures are those of family members and events, or places which have changed. Similarly, the most interesting part of some of the ancient B&W films now being shown on TV are what you see in the backgrounds and locations

Yes indeed. Fortunately I took quite a lot of family and surroundings, all of which are gone, between making "art" which I wouldn't give a second glance to today. The same mistakes are being made now, neglecting what's on the doorstep for the allure of the alien and the exotic.

Charles Escott-New · Oct 29, 2020

blockend said:
Yes indeed. Fortunately I took quite a lot of family and surroundings, all of which are gone, between making "art" which I wouldn't give a second glance to today. The same mistakes are being made now, neglecting what's on the doorstep for the allure of the alien and the exotic.

Well said.

Helge · Oct 29, 2020

MattKing said:
One of the great things about photography is that you can easily mix artistic creation with memory recording - even on the same roll of film.

That there is a dichotomy between the two is historically a very recent invention.

Outside imaging with very strict scientific and data recording requirements, documenting something and making it look appealing is two sides of the same coin.

Cholentpot · Oct 29, 2020

blockend said:
Yes indeed. Fortunately I took quite a lot of family and surroundings, all of which are gone, between making "art" which I wouldn't give a second glance to today. The same mistakes are being made now, neglecting what's on the doorstep for the allure of the alien and the exotic.

Photographing what is currently mundane is a tough task. However we have what to look back on and know that it'll be worth it. Someone going out with a roll and stroll in 1950 maybe didn't have snapshots of their grandfather horsing around. They had some formal pictures. If I dig through my family archives from the 60's-90's I can see what will be interesting in a few years and see if I can capture it. I wonder if my grandkids will be upset that everything I'm taking photos of is in B&W or weird color.

Too bad, at least there are photos.

dpurdy · Oct 29, 2020

I never do digital photos and I process all my film and make darkroom prints. However it turns out that all my family and extended family so enjoy taking digital photos they no longer need me to do candid family shots. Their color images they can send around and enjoy on a computer is much more interesting to them. Fine with me, I never much liked doing that kind of photography. Now all my photography is landscapes and still life. Everything I like gets printed and matted.

Helge · Oct 29, 2020

Cholentpot said:
Photographing what is currently mundane is a tough task. However we have what to look back on and know that it'll be worth it. Someone going out with a roll and stroll in 1950 maybe didn't have snapshots of their grandfather horsing around. They had some formal pictures. If I dig through my family archives from the 60's-90's I can see what will be interesting in a few years and see if I can capture it. I wonder if my grandkids will be upset that everything I'm taking photos of is in B&W or weird color.

Too bad, at least there are photos.

I have a lot of family photos that are several decades old. Some of them a hundred years or more.
Most of the mundane ones are incredibly boring to look at even though they are old, and depict people I am genetically in line with.

There is a special art in taking good mundane photos.

Cholentpot · Oct 29, 2020

Helge said:
I have a lot of family photos that are several decades old. Some of them a hundred years or more.
Most of the mundane ones are incredibly boring to look at even though they are old, and depict people I am genetically in line with.

There is a special art in taking good mundane photos.

The special art of taking a good mundane photo is called being a competent photographer. Anything can be interesting. Then again, eye of the beholder etc and etc.

Alan Edward Klein · Oct 29, 2020

Charles Escott-New said:
My wife and I come from families with a tradition of collecting photo albums and we continue this in the present. I did not wish to disparage the excellent artistic efforts of others, just that I know that the album content is the only work I have made which will survive for a time. My grandson may wish to keep them or not, but at least he has the choice. The albums are for the immediate family if requested, but can be a solitary pleasure, a mixture of sadness and joy. Sometimes I think that my memory is the visual trail, Charles.

When you look at a picture of someone you love, you fall in love all over again.

Unpretentious film photography in digital age

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