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65 Comments
- TheGreatFuzz, on 10/09/2008, -4/+28this is truly awesome!
i never thought of photography this way, but its so clear now.
i just have to ruin this romantic moment and say...
look on the wall, it looks like a motivational poster! ha ha ha - aaronirwin31, on 10/09/2008, -4/+24A romanticized look at film photography, yes... but I'll risk being the dry buzz-kill.
These are the same type of arguments made by all traditionalists and puritans caught in technological transitions. I'm sure portrait painters expressed many of the same sentiments about grainy, gray film photographs when the technology started replacing their trade and expertise - as surely as blacksmiths complained about being phased out by the industrial revolution.
I've noticed myself experiencing the same sentiments in regard to my own area of expertise. I've been using PhotoShop since it had a 2 stuffed behind it and I've found myself grumbling when newer versions are released with features that allow novice users to achieve effects at the click of a button that used to require a hell of a lot of skill and talent to pull off in older versions. It doesn't feel like they paid their dues. It seems like cheating.
Compared to digital, film photography is hard. It requires a lot of practice, knowledge and hard-won skill to get it right and constantly be any good at it. It also presents a lot of inherent limitations that requires skill to use it. Digital cameras remove a lot of that. With a digital camera, a novice, armed with just a few guidelines about light and composition, can randomly flip through automatic settings while running around snapping up a gazillion images and manage to get 10 really good ones out of the mess. The novice then deletes the other 590 horrible images, keeps the 10, shows them off to his friends and pats himself on the back like he knows what he's doing - like he's some kind of photographer now. This tends to chap the old school professional's hide. They grumble and complain. They talk about the good ol' days when film was still around.
I think it was Stephen King (I'll have to paraphrase) who wrote something about liking typewriters better than word processors.. because, he claimed, it made the craft more real. There was something satisfying, he said, about the sound of the keys, watching the letters strike the paper and pulling a tangible product out of the machine. Not too different in sentiment from the one here about film photography.
I know, I know... I'm no fun. - bawpcwpn, on 10/09/2008, -1/+20From the EXIF Data:
"Taken with a Something very very old." - inactive, on 10/09/2008, -4/+21I don't have anything against digital photography, though I get accused of that all the time because I don't exclusively use a DSLR. But this is one of the reasons I still use film. Until I was about 12 it had never really sunk in. Then one day I got a roll of slide film back from the lab and one of the slide mounts was broken. The frame of film fell out and I started thinking, "You know, that's someone's image burned into a piece of film. It was there at that moment in time." And I know the DSLR sensor was at the place where it collected light for a digital image, but somehow the way that sliver of film soaks up the image in a one-time-only exhibition of its chemical potential...I dunno, somehow it seems like more of a relic of the event to me. This is a beautiful example of why chemical photography is so special. Nice writing and nice example of photography from the days when nobody was casually snapping photos.
- inactive, on 10/09/2008, -0/+12Photographic emulsions were very slow in the early days of photography. Portrait photographers carried braces and props around to hold people's heads still for the five minutes it sometimes took to make an exposure. Though it's not the only reason, there was a need in those days to be able to maintain an expression for a very long time.
- superior1, on 10/09/2008, -2/+13over a hundred years ago....the three of them have certainly died and so will we...love life, for it is short (even though it is not always sweet)
- ksgant, on 10/09/2008, -3/+14Desperation? He has a point. I've been a photographer now for over 35 years and can still go back and find negatives I shot 35 years ago. Didn't have to transfer the negatives to different stock. Didn't have to do anything with them other than store them. I can't say the same for my digital images. With digital you have to constantly keep updating the media they're stored on because they just are not permanent enough.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE digital photography and would never go back to film. Especially now with affordable (for the most part) full frame cameras coming out from both Nikon and Canon, it's a great time. But still the question of storage of all these shots....storage that can be used and forgotten about....isn't there. The guy writing this article is right: how can we know there will even be something to read a CD or DVD 100 years from now. With the life-span of a CD only 20 years...give or take...then someone has to be diligent and transfer the RAW photos onto new media more and more.
I'm just worried that some great images will be lost in the coming years from great photographers. I'm not talking about little 640x480 web images from their photos either...but their actual RAW data. The "original" image if-you-will. Today we can find those negatives made 100 years ago and make new images from them simply because of the way they were captured. Will the way we capture digital images make the moment more fleeting? I don't know... - Monkiest, on 10/09/2008, -0/+7Too long? You should read a book sometime. Some of them have several PAGES to get through. Crazy.
- ryanonfire, on 10/09/2008, -1/+8When was it the norm to start smiling in photos?
- INTERNETMASTER, on 10/09/2008, -5/+11FTA:
"It is the physical evidence that light has left behind on this particular piece of film, or paper, or glass. Digital doesn't have that. The sensor carries no trace of that light, rather it is converted into electronic bits and bytes. A digital copy. A replica of what that light cast."
umm, the film (or glass or paper or whatever) is also just a replica of what the light cast. even an image received directly in first person by your eyeball is just a replica of what was that is converted and interpreted by your body and stored in your brain as a memory. this is also "a replica of what the light cast" - sstidman, on 10/09/2008, -3/+9Do you guys ever wonder if the constant slapping of John McCain helps or hurts Obama? There doesn't seem to be a single Digg article where someone hasn't made some negative reference to McCain.
- Farmer77, on 10/09/2008, -7/+12It was bordering on arrogant.
- mcprogrammer, on 10/09/2008, -1/+6@AchaIemoipas, except we weren't talking about McCain, so it would be like bringing up Satan in every conversation.
- CosmicJustice, on 10/09/2008, -0/+5"can randomly flip through automatic settings while running around snapping up a gazillion images and manage to get 10 really good ones out of the mess"
True to a point, but many professional photographers also take thousands of pictures and cherry pick the best ones, especially when shooting sporting events. - biggerapple3am, on 10/09/2008, -6/+10I thought it was just misguided emotion. He was reaching for something touching, but getting tremendously nostalgic simply for something that was touched by light that touched something is a stretch. The picture itself (however it's reproduced or viewed) clearly carries far more value.
- PuterPrsn, on 10/09/2008, -1/+5Digital doesn't render the detail that film does - pixels are not as small as a molecule, at least for now. Digital is great for some things, not to mention faster & cheaper, but for the subtle nuance, give me chemistry any day.
- farfromsubtl, on 10/09/2008, -9/+13Wow, the write up on Flickr smacks of desperation.
- rightlock, on 10/09/2008, -0/+3I miss using the darkroom and watching what I've captured on film take shape on paper. Digital just isn't the same. There is something about looking at a strip of negatives, it's hard to describe to anyone who hasn't done it before.
And just because you don't feel that the picture was worth printing now, doesn't mean someone else down the road will find that picture captivating for their own reasons, people find inspiration in different things. Negatives means that you can come back to pictures and change your mind on what you want to print years down the road, computers are changing so fast, that we may not be able to do the same with digital. - iVone423, on 10/09/2008, -0/+3dugg for awesomeness!
- Mossman85, on 10/09/2008, -0/+3Dugg for George Washington
- ievanssc, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2Lobs Law Bomb
- CosmicJustice, on 10/09/2008, -1/+3A 10MP image at 8x10 inches has more pixels than can be printed at 300dpi.
- aNte, on 10/09/2008, -2/+4They look badass.
- inactive, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2Telegraph machines are stupid. So old.
- RawSense2004, on 10/10/2008, -0/+2I don't know who he is, but what you said did make me giggle. I just don't understand why they gave tm13Ike a thumbs down?
- mcprogrammer, on 10/09/2008, -2/+4Lots of things are really old, but we don't bring up telegraph machines all the time. I know making fun of McCain is popular right now because he's running for president, and I'm probably taking this way too seriously, but it gets really annoying.
- CosmicJustice, on 10/09/2008, -1/+3If you print your images, the print will last as long as a negative. The ones that aren't worth printing today probably won't be missed a hundred years from now.
- chadsmith729, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2Please go sit over there.
- Mastrdebater, on 10/09/2008, -0/+2...Bob Law Blah
- vivalanation734, on 10/09/2008, -2/+4Dugg for Film!
- nunquam, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1I thought exactly the same thing! Especially as it looks like someone just slipped it under the frame above.
- bslade, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1It kind of looks like henry ford on the right.
- BobCFC, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1As the old saying goes:
To the Americans a hundred years is a long time, to the British a hundred miles is a long way - FreeTalkLIve, on 10/09/2008, -4/+5way to ruin the moment
- brodiquine, on 10/09/2008, -3/+4Is that a motivational in the background?
- NJank, on 10/09/2008, -4/+5"Do you guys ever wonder if the constant slapping of John McCain helps or hurts Obama"
No, this is digg. We just do it because it's funny. - inactive, on 10/09/2008, -1/+2The "cheating" or "dues" parts of it aren't a big deal to me. There's just something about the look of film that I can't get with digital. Not better, necessarily. Just different. I like 'em both, honestly. But sometimes I get things with film that I know wouldn't have been the same with digital:
http://flickr.com/photos/r_jackson/2144973754/
Here are three frames of film scanned together. Takes me back. ;-)
http://flickr.com/photos/r_jackson/1661485073/ - directrix13, on 10/09/2008, -1/+2That film is no less a copy of the light than digital bits. It is just bits of silver on a piece of glass that represented the light that once passed through it. Little difference from digital bits. People need to get over the film is mightier than though mentality. Film is great, but it is just another (but outdated and less flexible) replica of light passing through a focal plane just like how a CCD converts it to digital data.
- eSentrik, on 10/09/2008, -1/+2One could just as easily say that the type writer ruined the craft of hand writing.
- TheGreatFuzz, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1i hear where you are coming from... but i just like the "thought" of film being the fossilized evidence of the very light that once reflected off the subject. where digital bits are 3rd party representations. It feels comforting to be nostalgic every now and then even though it does seem silly.
- ZebAndrews, on 10/10/2008, -0/+1Close but no cigar directrix13. I am not making the holier than thou argument at all. I completely agree that digital accomplishes some things way better than film. Most of us realize this. My argument is that film is not outdated, nor obsolete, nor any of the things that digital camera manufacturers (and those selling them too) want you to believe. That it still has qualities to it that exceed those of digital. Ultimately, it is a different way of doing the same thing, that is, taking photos. Like acrylic vs watercolor paints. Longevity, in this case, is an area where film is still superior to digital. I am not saying everyone should drop their digitals and rush out and buy film cameras. Not at all. But the better educated we all are in this manner, the better the decisions we can make. And in this case, in regards to longevity, the lessons apply equally to both film and digital photographers.
- koyner, on 10/12/2008, -0/+1You know what, you're absolutely right. It was a ***** comment that does convey a lot of sourness - not sure what came over me. I have total respect for anyone that digs their job.
- Slacker1031, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1Yeah, and disco is making a comeback.
- inactive, on 10/09/2008, -0/+1What's weird is that he's still alive, and he reads digg, and he probably doesn't much care for that statement.
- inactive, on 10/09/2008, -3/+4@mc
We were talking about things that are really old, McCain's included in that category.
He's from the 1930's. - ZebAndrews, on 10/11/2008, -0/+0I have to respond to a couple of the comments on this thread. First of all farfromsubtl, no desperation at all. I have no need to be. Or rather why would I? I am pretty comfortable with whichever camera comes into my hands, film or digital. I shoot all film at the moment for personal stuff based on personal choices, but switch over to digital when the situation demands. So if you think I am a film traditionalist scared of film slipping away, you could not be more wrong. I work in the industry, with film and digital photographers all week long. I get to experience many of the different forms of photography, and as such I accrue quite a range of experience. I am trying to be helpful and pass some of that along to others who do not get to share the same experiences I do. I have very very few qualms regarding digital photography, mainly I think it is a great piece of technology, and in many ways it excites me tremendously. But the problems it embodies regarding longevity are very serious because as a habit most of us were not very good at storing our film negatives, and with digital we are being worse. If anything farfromsubtl, you should be the desperate one. I shall still have all my images in 20 years, most of them being film, but some of them will undoubtedly be digital. The lessons film has taught me will help me preserve my digital files as well. I am already dealing with tons of people already who have lost entire childhoods of their children or vacations because they were careless with their digital files. Like I said, I have no need to be desperate, I am just trying to point out a valid problem and help educate people on the care they should take.
- ZebAndrews, on 10/10/2008, -0/+0Hehe, I am sorry you find the idea of someone loving their job so offensive Koyner. For your sake I hope you are close to retiring because the 40 years of your working life you have toiled away must not be too enjoyable, judging from the bitterness your comment conveys.
- zadadka, on 10/09/2008, -1/+1Follow the link to the congress libarary.
You'll be there for ages..... -
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