What decade are you stuck in?

Nodda Duma · May 20, 2018

I work with cutting-edge imaging systems for my day job -- stuff that isn't accessible to the consumer market, so I'm pretty much out in front of just about everybody in the world as far as imaging technology goes. So I guess I'm stuck in the upcoming decade. Analog photography provides a nice break from that. Outside of work I'm fairly set up at the turn of the 20th Century.

Prest_400 · May 20, 2018

Nodda Duma said:
I work with cutting-edge imaging systems for my day job -- stuff that isn't accessible to the consumer market, so I'm pretty much out in front of just about everybody in the world as far as imaging technology goes. So I guess I'm stuck in the upcoming decade. Analog photography provides a nice break from that. Outside of work I'm fairly set up at the turn of the 20th Century.

Tell us, tell us, what should we behold in the next decade.

Honestly, I find all the options in film photography an interesting way to time travel. When I began in 2008 with an OM-1 I would have said 1970s, due to the camera and working with slide film, ending the decade learning through some Kodachrome.

For this half of the year I'd say 2004. That exact year because I was growing up as a kid and thought to do a film project, yet I got my hands on a digicam, and it was a transitional era. Fuji GW690 + Nikon F90, which could be a pro combo of the 90s still giving service into the new millenium.
As of what Jason says about the decades, this one seems slightly plateaued. Compared to the MP and GHZ wars of past, once a threshold of sufficiency was passed most electronic products seem excellent. Instead of brute power, came minutiarization and efficiency. As a kid in 2004, I'd not quite imagine what a slab of a "phone" could do, and arguably the iPhone of a decade later surpasses quite a few devices that would be in range of a kid.

Otherwise it's all over the place, it's great how different material combinations can nod other eras. Time travel (to the past if it is) through photography. Aestethically wise I really like it. Got a semiworking Rolleicord V, which with a classic grain B&W film could be a nice trip to Midcentury. Also, 6x9 in rollfilm was an original "Brownie" format... Still have to delve deep into monochrome, so 1920 to 50s, behold...

Nodda Duma · May 20, 2018

Look up computational optics, for one. Graphene detectors for another. Plastic GRIN optics for another.

Arklatexian · May 20, 2018

avb said:
This question would probably fit better in a psychology subforum, if one existed.

Are you photographically stuck in / feel more comfortable thinking you’re in / want to be in / like cameras from a different decade?

I got into photography more seriously in 1999. I guess that makes me favour cameras like the Nikon F100 and the Nikon F5. I also prefer shooting colour negative film. And I enjoy photographers from that era, too.

Does anyone else have a similar story or are you into multiple decades of photography - art and tech?

Decade? Heck, I am in the wrong century for anything other than health. When I was a child, people worried about whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, all that good stuff. I must admit photography was simpler. You could develop your film under a red light in just three chemicals plus water. It was the Great Depression and for most people, a darkroom was made by pushing clothes out of the way in a dark closet. You will notice, I hope, that I haven't said things were better.......Regards!

Ces1um · May 20, 2018

I'm stuck in the 80's-90's- my teenage years. I miss records, film photography at it's peak, tiny cell phones that only made calls, typewriters and my nintendo entertainment system. I miss when food wasn't the enemy, when people had common sense, when shopping meant going to the mall, when all stores were closed on sundays and you knew your friends were home and when cars didn't have tablets and cameras built into your car.

Arthurwg · May 20, 2018

I'm a film guy 100% and will never move to digital as I don't like it. I've had dozens of old cameras and still have several, including three Rolleiflex TLR's, three Graflex SLR's, a Leica and a Nikon F100 AF for street and candid portraits. But my main system these days is Hasselblad, starting with an SWC that I bought in the 1990s. I also love reading about photography, including history and criticism.

In that regard I recently came across a passage by Andy Grunberg (1990) that gave me pause:
"Artists will have to stand on one side of the line or the other. They can either be bohemian 'refuseniks' , working outside the structure with vestigal materials (silver-based films and papers) and equipment (conventional cameras )or they can join the revolution at its vanguard, immersing themselves in the new technologies. In the former case they run the risk of becoming irrelevant, producing artifacts that speak of their increasingly precarious free will and tenuous independence."

Comments?

eddie · May 20, 2018

Well... time has proven that one doesn’t have to decide which side of the line to take. Hybrid has allowed people to straddle the line, both by shooting film and printing digitally, or shooting digitally and creating a negative for traditional uses.

Eric Rose · May 20, 2018

Well just over 30 posts and we have devolved into a digi vs analog mud pit once again. So sad.

mshchem · May 20, 2018

I'm alive and well in the present. Enjoying all the goodies I could never afford. I have darkroom equipment and cameras that span the last 100 years . I
Showed a young man today how to make an RA4 print. He had a old Beseler plastic drum. I have fancy color equipment . I showed him with the Beseler drum. Had him roll it around on the counter. He was absolutely giddy with joy when he pulled the print out of the old "junk" tube. I sent him home with some extra chemistry and I sold him half a box of paper. That's what I love is when you find someone who just can't get enough. I don't care if it's salt printing, RA4 or digital.Carpe freakin' Diem !

TheRook · May 21, 2018

Not any decade in particular. Which ever camera I happen to be using, that's the decade I'm in... at the moment, I'm in the late 1980's with my Minolta Maxxum 7000i.

Greg Heath · May 21, 2018

1940's and 1950's Speed Graphic and Agfa Record III Folders.

zanxion72 · May 21, 2018

70s mostly due to the music I play these days. An electric guitar learner strongly affected from what he loves doing most (these days).

P.johnson14 · May 21, 2018

I feel as though I'm in a mix of eras. I live in an Amish town, fix machinery from the 1880s through the 70s by choice, have cameras from the 1920s through 2001. I listen to records not to be cool but because that's what my parents listened to and we had as a child. Today I listen to anything interesting, the local college station is usually on in my truck.

I for a living, I work on a mix of the most current up to date cooking systems, while also keeping a family of ovens that were designed in the '30s running.

My wife and I were just talking about this as far as technology goes. Her and I are both stuck in the '01's, up to about 2009. You know, Windows XP, cell phones that you actually talked on (as opposed to write posts on APUG on), etc.

jtk · May 21, 2018

I'm era-independent...or multi-era. Just finished a 13X19 print from APS-C file that started with my astounding Samsung zoom at 200mm... and processed (NIK) with sepia tone and rough border, printed on very soft paper. Maybe it looks like glass plate, but it's far higher resolution than most glass plate I've seen. What era is that? Seems like 2018 to me...

blockend · May 21, 2018

All film photographers are stuck in the era film last had any research and development. So we're all pre-millennials, and heading further into the past with each passing year.

Camera-wise, I dislike the professional technology of the late 1980s and 1990s, but enjoy the amateur cameras of the period. So no massive battery inclusive bodies for a miniature film format, but happy to use featherweight hi-tech entry level SLRs and compacts.

Arthurwg · May 21, 2018

Eric Rose said:
Well just over 30 posts and we have devolved into a digi vs analog mud pit once again. So sad.

Seems like "which decade are you stuck in" might have something to do with analog vrs digital. Is it really so sad?

ReginaldSMith · May 21, 2018

I was a lifetime "audiophile" as well as photographer. The exact same arguments, with the same passions, rage through that community - analog vs. digital. I don't think it is a boring or tired argument at all. Rather, I think it is just the tip of an iceberg of discontent with the ubiquitous digital envelopment of our lives. The argument, which is a substitute for our sometimes unnamed and uncomfortable feelings, stretches from our loss of privacy and endless scams in the Internet Age, to a hatred of "menu trees" and endless button-fidgeting to select 1 of a million-too-many meaningless options. Everyone who participated in the digital age has a mountain of useless digital junk, wall warts, misfitting cables, obsolete software, stacks of TVs, low pixel cameras, and really not much to show for it. Sure we may also have some mechanical junk, but the mechanical junk still works and doesn't need special upgrades from the monolithic digital gatekeepers called Google, Apple and Microsoft.

None of that is to propose right from wrong choices. It's just a viewpoint about what's 'under the skin' of those who are rejecting some digital technology.

slackercrurster · May 21, 2018

OP, not really stuck, maybe with $, but that is it. In the 70's I used Nikon f, Leica M3, Toyo View and a Hassy.

As far as now, I still have an old SWC I'd like to shoot...if someone made an affordable FF back for it. But I use whatever is at hand and is affordable than allows me to get the best shot I can....Fuji, Sony, Leica (used) and Pentax.

ME Super · May 21, 2018

I don't know if you would call it stuck or not, but two of my last three camera purchases were cameras from the 1950s. One was a Super Ricohflex TLR that I've had for a couple years, the other was a Stereo Realist (Model 1042 I believe). The other one was a Pentax SF-1, definitely not 1950s.

Mind you I didn't come along until the 1970's, so these two cameras are older than I am. I was also given an old Brownie Model 2A that takes 616 film; so far this one is a shelf queen, though the shutter still works, three 110 cameras that were my grandmother's, and another TLR that takes 620 film (these are also shelf queens at the moment).

If you were to ask me about the clothes I wear, I'd say that I'm probably 2000's, with a significant amount of 1980s fashion thrown in just to keep it weird because I like it that way. I've often said that I've spent my whole life being weird, and I don't see that changing for the foreseeable future. Those of us that shoot film are all probably a little weird, otherwise we'd be out running around making pictures with the latest & greatest numerical cameras.

I spent last week editing my son's senior pictures. I did it digitally, so won't talk about it here other than to say I kept it weird by using the Free, Open Source Software (FOSS) program known as GIMP instead of using Photoshop. It did everything I needed it to, so I didn't have to spend $$$ on that other program!

MattKing · May 21, 2018

I don't know that I am stuck anywhere (anywhen?).
But I like spending time with stuff that I discovered in the decade between 1971 and 1981, which happens to coincide with the time when I went from being a teenager to a young adult (15 - 25 years of age).
I expect that that age range is important for lots of people.

Eric Rose · May 21, 2018

Arthurwg said:
Seems like "which decade are you stuck in" might have something to do with analog vrs digital. Is it really so sad?

The mud pit is sad.

Theo Sulphate · May 21, 2018

As stated earlier, cameras and other things from the 1970's appeal to me the most. However, I didn't want to be in a position where I didn't understand digital photography or didn't know how to use a digital camera. It's all photography and it's all good.

jtk · May 21, 2018

Arthurwg said:
I'm a film guy 100% and will never move to digital as I don't like it. I've had dozens of old cameras and still have several, including three Rolleiflex TLR's, three Graflex SLR's, a Leica and a Nikon F100 AF for street and candid portraits. But my main system these days is Hasselblad, starting with an SWC that I bought in the 1990s. I also love reading about photography, including history and criticism.

In that regard I recently came across a passage by Andy Grunberg (1990) that gave me pause:
"Artists will have to stand on one side of the line or the other. They can either be bohemian 'refuseniks' , working outside the structure with vestigal materials (silver-based films and papers) and equipment (conventional cameras )or they can join the revolution at its vanguard, immersing themselves in the new technologies. In the former case they run the risk of becoming irrelevant, producing artifacts that speak of their increasingly precarious free will and tenuous independence."

Comments?

Why must "artists" restrict themselves to "one side" ? I suspect that most of today's post photos (and videos) somewhere online no matter how they've shot it, making a lot of what they do digital (like everything on their websites (if they have em'..and all pros do) and everything on Photrio DIGITAL. Of necessity.

samuelphoto · May 21, 2018

Ces1um said:
I'm stuck in the 80's-90's- my teenage years. I miss records, film photography at it's peak, tiny cell phones that only made calls, typewriters and my nintendo entertainment system. I miss when food wasn't the enemy, when people had common sense, when shopping meant going to the mall, when all stores were closed on sundays and you knew your friends were home and when cars didn't have tablets and cameras built into your car.

Ces, you and I would get along well. This is an interesting question, which I have pondered in the past. I realize I'm a product of the 70's where I matured from a stupid kid to a young adult. This has nothing to do with photography, but it does have a lot to do with culture, such as the things you mentioned. Times were simpler, safer, and people treated each other with respect. Technology was something you could FEEL (and in a lot of cases fix yourself, like tuning a car or an acoustic guitar). I don't know why but I can FEEL the composition and outcome of my images better with film than I can with digital. Part of it surely has to be all the hundreds of controls that modern digicams have versus the simplicity of a OM-1/2/3/4, F3, M2, GSW690, 501cm, M7II, XPAN and so on. Once you pick your film, it just boils down to lens perspective, position, aperture and shutter speed. The simplicity is liberating! One thing I can say without a doubt, my best work has been done with film. I guess that is the bottom line.

ReginaldSMith · May 21, 2018

+1 Sam!

What decade are you stuck in?

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency