When did you last promote film use?

SilverGlow said:

Spain is a great place to shoot. I've got lots of shots in Pamplona, during the running of the bulls...those people know how to have a good time.

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Silver,
Spain is a Photographer's Paradise. I missed the Bull Run in Pamplona. I went there October 06'. I stayed at Tarragona (Barcelona) and had Tapas at the Ramblas. Spaniards are very nice, helpful and very polite people. I also took a train to Costa del Sol and stayed at Fuengirola in Malaga. They have this bus tour at the Apartment =) they call it, front desk that I took to travel around. I hate it caused I missed Alhambra!!! We ran out of bus seats. I don't mind living there in Spain.

ron110n said:

Silver,
Spain is a Photographer's Paradise. I missed the Bull Run in Pamplona. I went there October 06'. I stayed at Tarragona (Barcelona) and had Tapas at the Ramblas. Spaniards are very nice, helpful and very polite people. I also took a train to Costa del Sol and stayed at Fuengirola in Malaga. They have this bus tour at the Apartment =) they call it, front desk that I took to travel around. I hate it caused I missed Alhambra!!! We ran out of bus seats. I don't mind living there in Spain.

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I met my first wife in Pamplona, back in '87. Long story, but in short, I would've been better off getting gored by one of those bulls....but I'm not bitter. ;-) Got two wonderful daughters out of the deal.

Spent a few summers in Barcelona on business in the late '90s, and I try to get over there very few years. I find the people there abrupt, quasi-rude, but not in a mal-content way. Service is decent, but almost never with a smile. They have an attitude called "Viva Yo" that Michner and Hemingway wrote about. Viva Yo...(hurray for me). Great place to visit.

SilverGlow said:

I met my first wife in Pamplona, back in '87. Long story, but in short, I would've been better off getting gored by one of those bulls....but I'm not bitter. ;-) Got two wonderful daughters out of the deal.

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Been there. Done that.
I served for 24 years before I declared myself a free agent. I got full custody of the two girls and the ex got my dog. The dog was really pissed!

SilverGlow said:

Spent a few summers in Barcelona on business in the late '90s, and I try to get over there very few years. I find the people there abrupt, quasi-rude, but not in a mal-content way. Service is decent, but almost never with a smile. They have an attitude called "Viva Yo" that Michner and Hemingway wrote about. Viva Yo...(hurray for me). Great place to visit.

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Same experience in early '90s.

Steve

Getting back on track here, I just returned last month from Spain and Paris. Got some very interested looks in Spain as I saw many younger men carrying gear for younger ladies as they shot about town. I suppose I would just about stop traffic to change film. It was like they had never seen that before. Well, maybe not.

On the other hand, of the 6 people in my last photo class (digital) I have half of them now coming back for darkroom instruction. After all, I said, "We as photographers don't want to be limited by what tools and materials we use and should have a good grasp of whatever is at our disposal for making great images."

Last week I was making a few snaps of the view of Manhattan with the Noblex on a tripod from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and a woman asked me to take her picture with the skyline in the background using her digicam. She saw me advancing the film on the Noblex and exclaimed "oh, that's a film camera!" and said that her boyfriend was a photographer and he recently went all digital. She asked if it was 4x5", and I explained that it was a medium format panoramic camera with a rotating lens, and she seemed enthusiastic about seeing someone still shooting film in a serious way.

Well I wasn't personally "carrying" but yesterday, on 34th St. b/w 2nd and 3rd I saw a guy toting a Nikon F-100. I congratulated him for being a fellow "filmster". He looked at me oddly until I remembered I wasn't "carrying".

Sadly, he was m/l my age (late 50's) so I don't think he was a sign of a new wave....

If you can call it promoting film use, I stuck up for someone looking at getting an RB 67 in the discussion forums on Model Mayhem (he was getting digi-bashed for not "getting with the program").

sly said:

10 years ago the club had 30-40 members and 15-20 would show up for a meeting. Now there are well over 100 members and there were 60 attending on Tuesday this week.

Digital has made everyone into a photographer - the membership ranges from those who want to know why there are other settings besides "auto", to professionals or those who could be. I quite enjoy the digital work of one member whose passion is birds. Incredible work, and digital is the perfect medium for wildlife.

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Funny how digital's quick access may have more people thinking about images. Not a bad thing. Some of them may then come to see silver based image making has benefits.

I can't quite get into the "digital = evil" thing. That, despite the fact that I'm building a darkroom, and have been fantasizing about the return to BW processing and printing... for years now.

I'm actually thrilled Nikon has come out with a couple of real full frame DSLR cameras of late. I had felt quite abandoned by Nikon for many years, first with all the autofocus stuff, then with the teeeny sensor digital. I have a trove of old solid Nikon glass that I couldn't justify duplication had I to start again fresh with a different system. And, darn it, I know Nikon. I just don't want to sort out Canon or whoever unnecessarily.

I have been accumulating a stockpile of large format - a 5x7, a couple of 8x10 cameras, over the last few years, and darkroom equipment. It all feels more "real" than digital, though I don't quite know how I would communicate that to a digi-photog, or whether I would really want to. I'm more in tune with the idea of showing the startling quality one can get through LF film. That's where film shines most uniquely. Even 120 size. The quality is still there. I don't really want to try to match it by purchasing a $25,000.00 digital back for my MF or LF cameras and have it obsolete in a couple of years. For someone who only shoots so much, it's economic suicide to pursue ultimate quality via digital, whereas in film, it is rather doable.

I'm so looking forward to having my darkroom done. First to do 8x10 contact prints. Then, if it feels like I am getting results that justify a serious "upgrade", I want to buy/build an 8x10 horizontal enlarger. I suspect any question of what film can "really" do will come to an abrupt halt at that point.

Now, ramblingly back to the topic at hand ...

I make a point of telling people when photography comes up as a conversational topic, that while the world is heading towards digital, I am building a darkroom. My "promotional" line is that I am in love with the physicality of film and the chemical process.

That is utterly true, as far as it goes, but it only tells a part of the story. What I don't know how to communicate goes like this. There's something about the history of photography that hooks me too. Many members of my family have various connections to Kodak and photography in general. I find it absolutely fascinating to have a repository of many hundreds of developer, fix, toner, etc. recipes, gathered from all over the internet, handy to me. Too many to count, and quite some number are duplicates, but the rough order is perhaps 1,500 various formulas. (I kind of like the perverse fact that my collection of analog chemical formulae gets stored - digitally.)

I'm little interested in reduplication historical photography or in borrowing established some photographic aesthetic. I would be happy to blaze some path of my own, as much as it is possible to do something new. I suspect there's room for new work to come out of the (film based) camera. The process does matter to me, personally. I don't expect the world at large to share my peculiar enthusiasm, but it's something that matters to me. How does one convey all that?

C

Today, when i published this promoshot done on Kodak 100G: http://www.tmax100.com/images/carlsberg.jpg

kompressor said:

Today, when i published this promoshot done on Kodak 100G: http://www.tmax100.com/images/carlsberg.jpg

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1. That is an amazingly beautiful picture. What was your lighting setup?
2. You may want to warn people that that is a 35mb image.
3. Medium format?

I'm buying a Nikon N90 or N90s for my friend birthday, and lending him a 28mm until he buys a 50mm.

I promote film every day, but nobody listens.

2F/2F said:

I would be more concerned about promoting good pictures than just any pictures done in a certain media.

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What 2F/2F said. Especially if they're Dead Link Removed.
;-^

I last promoted film use with my mother. She went on vacation and I told her to shoot some HP5. I said I would develop it and scan it all for free. With the way prolabs charge people to scan a 35mm frame at 3200dpi, I thought free would be a nice alternative and thing to offer

I have promoted film twice in the past week, both times in the (digital) Color Management class I am taking (as someone who did color management/quality control at a commercial film lab once upon a time, I feel that I should know where that particular technology is these days). One of my fellow students just got a digital Nikon and I happened to have my brand-new (used) F100 with my Sigma 12-24mm. This was a golden opportunity to impress upon him the difference in the angle of view, and it worked. 12mm is VERY wide on a 35mm camera! My professor was also impressed by this lens and camera. I don't know if I "converted" either of them, but they didn't disrespect me for my choice.

I recently sold my Nikon F4 right here on APUG. When I went to "Go Postal" here in Boone to ship the camera, another customer asked what kind of camera it was... when he saw that it was not digital, he said "Oh, it's just a standard 35mm camera." I responded by showing him that the prism was removable, and how well built the camera was, and told him that the F4 was anything but standard. He was impressed (but I doubt he went out and bought one).

Every day that I shoot it, print it, hang it...

I last promoted film photography Saturday, when I taught my first student the basics of exposure, metering, and quality of light. She used my Pentax KX 35mm SLR, with the Vivitar Series I 35-80mm zoom and Tri-X film. Afterward we developed the film together in D76 that she mixed herself, and the results were fabulous.
She is asking for more lessons, and I wonder if I'll ever see that camera again!
In promoting film as something more tangible and requiring more craftsmanship, I also pointed out that digital is just as viable a medium, and that she ultimately has to make the choice; but also that regardless of medium her future holds, learning with film, doing manual metering, processing film, etc helps in understanding the 'system' of photography better. Otherwise the camera is just a 'magic box'.
Critical thinking is part of why we're here shooting film. I wanted her to think about it similarly.

I have been working with a few young models lately who have never had their likenesses fixed on anything other than pixels. When I start a session I tell them about the film process, that I will be using different kinds of film to achieve different results, what the different backs and holders are for, etc. They are polite, but bored, it's just chit-chat. Photographer-geek stuff.

As the session progresses they become ever-so-slightly more interested. There is a lot of shiny involved and I have pimped out my gear to make it more enticing and inviting. It helps that I am so devastatingly charming and debonair.

I do digital tests just to keep things going, they're used to immediate feedback. They like how it looks, I say it looks like crap - they say it's great, I say it will get better. I process the film and have it done after dinner. We look at the negatives. They get a gleam in their eye. What does all this mean? How will it turn out? There's mystery and anticipation, like a romance novel without the ripped bodices. They're hooked and waiting breathless.

Then a little while later after they can't stand it any longer we look at the prints.

The questions start to come, slowly at first but with more intensity as they look. And look. And look some more. The answers and explanations I give get more technical as they become more fascinated and involved, they pick up the terms and fling them around with reckless abandon. This is not what they're used to. This is more what they had in mind when they first started out, before becoming jaded and bored. This is an interactive process and they are participants.

So far they are all converts. Not that they'll turn their nose up at paying work done on other format (and why should they?), but they know differently. There are alternatives. Not necessarily better, but different. In a world where almost everything is same-same, different is nice. Pleasing.

And they all want to know when we will be working together again.

The other day I sent my sister a long email praising the virtues of film. I think I might get her to go back to some film photography as a back-up to her digital work.

I photograph a lot of artwork. Occasionally, a client will request a "full size" file of a large piece. I try to get them to go with a 4x5 chrome and a hi-res scan, but they usually don't want to pay the increased cost. Several of my craft clients only want film however. They can see the difference. (Yay!)

This week while having a bizarre and sometimes frustrating conversation with my insurance company trying to figure out if I should insure my cameras for loss outside the home. The summarised version of the conversation went something like this:
me: wondering if I could insure say up to $10,000 for loss of up to 2 cameras outside the house
them: what are the brands of the two cameras
me: well I have about 10 cameras but I would probably only ever take 2 out of the house at the same time
them: 10 cameras, you must be a professional
me: no, I just like photography
them: so it's a collection then
me: no, I use them to take photos outside but not all 10 at once
them: you will have to insure all of them, how much are they worth
me: not sure, maybe $25-30,000 including all the lenses and accessories
them: wow, you must be a professional
me: no, they are all different types and I use them in different situations
them: well you'll have to detail each one and insure them all
me: can't I just nominate a maximum amount to cover the one or two I may take outside the house at once
them: no we can't do that
me: well maybe I can trim it down to the five or six that might be most expensive and difficult to replace
them: can you give me the names of the cameras
me: Leica, Hasselblad, Mamiya, Shen Hao, Linhof, Nikon
them: Oh, I've never heard of any of those
me: well they are all film cameras, I like to use film not digital
them: Oh yes they still take such good pictures
me: yes they do, let me think about my options and get back to you.

Picked up a pair of EOS Elan bodies for two people who shoot with digiCanons. $12 each at KEH.

Also lent two Ricoh SLRs and a Zorki 6 to a high school student for a photo course.

I had an unusual situation today. I was picking up some prints at my local "Pro" store and overheard this other customer. He stopped in to buy a roll of slide film. The "Pro" store had not a single roll of 35mm slide film at all. He asked about another nearby store, but they are closed on Sunday... and he needed the film today.

I stepped in when I heard that, and offered to drive back to my house and sell him a roll from my little Astia stockpile. He initially said he was going to try someplace else, but returned a few seconds later to take me up on my offer. I didn't get the full details but he was some kind of artist and used projected slides as a template of some kind.

Still, I felt good, helping out an artist in need, even if photography wasn't his primary medium.

In my blog: Dead Link Removed

The image generated a lot of discussion on Flickr and I have a feeling I will have a couple of apprentices soon.