Another Editorial note

mysteryscribe · Aug 11, 2006

My wife for years worked in child support enforcement for the county where we live. During that time she daily tried to negotiate settlements between husbands and wives.

When we recently had a discussion about several things that were being negotiated in politics she reminded me of a saying they had. There is no negotiation when one side wants to kill the other.

I know that the digital and film camps aren't that bad, but we should face facts. It is like a twenty year old art institute photographer trying to talk with a 55 year old self taught photographer with many years practical experience.

Most of the time they aren't even speaking the same language. So sometimes I wonder if it isn't more about new vs old, rather than digital vs film. Most likely nothing much is going to change.

They will convert a few of us, a few of them will go back to film, and the newest ones don't know that there is anything but digital. One day film will die just because nobody will be left who knows how to use it. At least not enough to make it profitable for even the chinese to make film. Till then lets have another drink and then go shoot a camera we can afford to drop when we are drunk. One you can spill a drink on and be reasonably certain won't catch fire.

terri · Aug 11, 2006

Film isn't dead....yer silly. :razz:

You're reading the wrong rags if you buy into that nonsense. Even some college arts programs that closed their wet darkrooms with confidence a few years back are scrambling to re-build them, at student demand. It's still being taught, it will continue to be taught, and its value as a medium cannot be disputed.

I don't want to kill digital users, I simply don't care about digital cameras. There can't be a war if there's only one side screaming that the other is dead, even as that side goes about its business.
Now, whatever, go shoot a pinhole or something. :cheers:

mysteryscribe · Aug 11, 2006

We shall see, but I plan to have it around as long as I live. I just can't see film being more than an artist's tool in the future. It has, for the most part, been inched out of even the professional photographer's tool kit. If there is a place for film in the commercial market place, I just fail to see it. It has as much to do with the watering down of the publics expectations as the introduction of the digital camera. More glitz please sir.

Film photographers will become the oil painters of their circle. The arrogant snobs.... Which is fine I have always been that, even when I was selling photos on the show circutt, or rahter not selling photos./

Bring on the plastic cameras and their plastic pictures, us oddballs will still be here, a thorn in their side until we can no longer buy film. even then some of us will probably buy a chicken ranch so we dont have to quit. But the film as a every day tool will be finished it will be an oddity. remember i said one day soon film photography would be considered an alternate process lol. That has already come to pass.

markc · Aug 11, 2006

Sorry, but this kind of thing irks me probably as much as your impression of digital irks you. My attitude is the same as terri's, but from the other side. I have nothing against others using film, and learned on it myself, but I just don't like the workflow. I hate being stuck in the dark with chemicals, but that's me and has nothing to do with anyone else.

The way you seem to keep refering to digital as "plastic" and those that stay with film as if they knew better is, in my mind, very short sighted. They are simply tools. It's the mindset and experience that makes the image, not the camera. If someone is going to promote the idea that you can take a good image with a homemade camera, then I think the same has to go for one that just happens to have some extra electronics in it.

Most everything that's being said now about digital cheapening the photo world was being said about 35mm when it was introduced.

terri · Aug 12, 2006

I have nothing against others using film, and learned on it myself, but I just don't like the workflow. I hate being stuck in the dark with chemicals, but that's me and has nothing to do with anyone else.

And I shoot film because I need the transparency to move on with the various alt techniques I like to do.

It's that simple. And sure, I'm a freak who also likes working in a darkroom and appreciates the special awakening of the senses so entwined in the wet process: the careful touch, the smells, the feelings involved with the wet process. ....but that's me and has nothing to do with anything else. :razz:

No more doom-mongering, Charlie, about film as a dying art/medium/what-have-you. Go visit the good folks over on APUG if you want validation for anything I've been saying. :thumbup: You can get smothered with digi-talk at areas in this forum, sure, and most photo forums these days, but APUG is a steadfast digi-free zone - and it's growing rapidly in membership! And I insist this section of TPF remain digi-free, as well. I wish for us to collectively promote, demonstrate, and celebrate all the fantastic, beautiful imagery that can be had through analog photography here - not use it as a place to bash digital users and their cams in comfort.

/end rant. :mrgreen:

Torus34 · Aug 12, 2006

While photographers can endlessly discuss the fine points of medium, equipment and technique non-photographers, looking at the final print from an appropriate viewing distance, wonder what all the fuss is about.

mysteryscribe · Aug 12, 2006

Apug, graflex, and f295 I have been to joined and contributed (not money) to all of them. A few (comparatively) of us die hard film users saying 'invest in buggy whips' isn't going to change the inevitable. It's a disposable world.
Time will tell but this is my predictions.
1) the first to become a novelty will be large format cameras. Most likely the next film to be discontinued will be 2x3 cut film.
2) 4x5 will follow within 10 years.
3) Medium format will be gone shortly there after. It might actually last twenty years longer. Which is a just a drop in the bucket time wise.
4) Thirty five millimeter might be around till the middle of the next century but I have my doubts.
How it will go most likely is this... Just plain close plants first, the number of companies making film will shrink till there is one making say 4x5 black and white. The price will become ridiculous then there will be a fire or something like it requiring a mass outlay of capital and the owners will just say no. Goodbye 4x5.
Digital photography is like when Kodak would change film formats. What was Land's motto "We don't build cameras to last a lifetime." Well they have the ultimate now.
Kodak had no problem discontinuing 116 leaving thousands of fairly high quality 116 camera owners screwed to the wall. Why do we think any of the manufacturers will be concerned for film shooters. It's all economics. When we die and if there is no larger number of daily shooters of film to replace us film is outta here.
But hey it's just my opinion.
Mark how long have you been shooting all digital cameras. My son in law went to the dark side about five years ago with a Nikon d100 and he was damn good it. Even he would admit that he made better quality pictures with the old mamiya 645 but the money and control put him into digital photography not a higher quality image.
I have seen things coming form his new D200 and they are better than before and certainly rival things I shot inside my studio on 35mm with low speed film. My medium format from years ago, I'm not so sure but it is way closer than any customer could see without them being side by side.
So let me say this, I have seen his pictures on paper in my hand, I have been to shows with him that have pictures of both medium format photographers and digital photographers on paper not monitors. If I view a digital print by itself, it looks just fine and I can't see a customer making a distinction. Can I tell, not always. Unless it was printed on an inkjet printer then yes I can tell.
Titanium still looks like plastic to me. LOL Trust me you are more than welcome to be upset when you hear someone denigrate your position I would be as well.
I wasn't happy when someone told me it was time to buy a new camera either.
Ps anybody want to buy some buggy whip stock...

mysteryscribe · Aug 12, 2006

Im not arguing which is better... Im saying what is going to happen. There will be no mass market for film and it will become an artist tool if you can get it at all.

JamesD · Aug 12, 2006

terri said:
Now, whatever, go shoot a pinhole or something. :cheers:

See, there's a reason why I picked that as the quote of the year. Sometimes, I do know what I'm doing....

-wanders to the closet--err... darkroom--mumbling and tapping his nose-

JamesD · Aug 12, 2006

terri said:
And I insist this section of TPF remain digi-free, as well. I wish for us to collectively promote, demonstrate, and celebrate all the fantastic, beautiful imagery that can be had through analog photography here - not use it as a place to bash digital users and their cams in comfort.

/end rant. :mrgreen:

I do have a serious question for you, Terri. What part of the process must be analog here? I've seen examples of traditional media used to produce a negative, then that negative being scanned and inverted to produce the final image. I've also seen digital files that were printed, then printed through traditional means, then scanned and uploaded. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I've done it... though I'd have to check. Then, there are negatives that are printed with traditional techniques, then scanned and adjusted to produce a final image. Then, there are negatives that are printed tratitionally, then scanned and not adjusted.
EDIT:
There are also images which are entirely digital. I had completely forgotten about this thread, but it's been bumpped up: http://thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48659
/EDIT

So, what part or parts of the workflow are not allowed to be digital? Is it a focus on the technique used to produce an image, or is it a focus on the workflow? Or the type of image? Or something completely different? Disallowing any one of these would for sure exclude someone from this portion of the forum... and I know I don't want that. I mean, we're almost like a group in and of ourselfs... the Alt-geeks. :mrgreen:

terri · Aug 12, 2006

The main point of the alt forum is what it says under the title out there:what is typically viewed as an "alternative photographic process". I appreciate that term has become sullied over the years, as what is considered alt even by the alt crowd is often little more than darkroom trickery: ie, the sabattier effect.

Polaroid transfers, bromoils, lith print making, pinhole cam imagery, paper negas - to me all fall under this realm. Don't they to you, as well? I don't mind a bit of compromise when combining techinques is a means to what is basically an analog end product.

The one gray area has been infrared, and that fits into the post you just mentioned, James. IR film is not really an alt process, it's just another film type, but there is special handling and filters and lovely effects unique to the film, so there is is. However, digital IR as described in that other thread doesn't fit here and I was being tolerant. :razz: I usually move those threads over to graphics, since the posters are generally describing something they've learned how to do in PS. I'll say it again: PS is NOT an alternative photographic process!

Bottom line is:there are no digital/film debates tolerated at TPF (read the FAQ's!), and when seemingly innocuous threads like this get started, someone inevitably chimes in to defend their POV and before you know it, people are annoyed.

Personally, I get tired of reading anyone's Chicken Little assessment of the future of film, here or other forums. It's a pretty narrow view. In addition, there is a film Q&A forum here for anyone who feels they must be the gloom & doom-monger at TPF. Why post it in the Alt forum? It does not belong here.