ksmattfish
Now 100% DC - not as cool as I once was, but still
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2003
- Messages
- 7,019
- Reaction score
- 36
- Location
- Lawrence, KS
- Website
- www.henrypeach.com
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos NOT OK to edit
It is interesting how we all use the word photography to describe what we do, but we are often doing very different things. I've got several friends who I would describe as very serious photographers, but for them the gear, process, and activity are the main point. While I enjoy all that too, I am primarily concerned with the finished print. I look at photography as just like other visual arts; there are no set rules, and I'm allowed to get as creative as I can muster. Other folks want photography to be accurate to reality as possible.
My experience is the opposite. I have never had a hard drive (my 1st HD computer in 92), memory card, or disc fail. If it did it wouldn't matter; everything is backed up multiple times. I've been using digital for 4 years now, easily taking as many photos as in the previous 10 years of film photography, and I have yet to lose or damaged a digital file that I wanted to keep.
With film I could count on damaging dozens of frames every year. Whether I did the processing or took it to the pro lab mistakes were occasionally made. Sometimes damaging a little or a lot, sometimes destroying frames and entire rolls; light stuck, processing mistakes, mis-cut, fingerprints, scratches... It just happens; being careful keeps it from happening often, but if you shoot a lot, and the negs are handled a lot, it's just going to happen.
I had my own darkroom, and worked in a full service photo lab; I've seen film destroyed in a lot of different ways. It's horrifying! I have this fantastic photo taken on Kodak Royal Gold 25 of bright red and yellow construction cranes against a polarized, navy sky; I got one good 16x24 print before trying to blow some dust off, and a tiny fleck of spit landed on the emulsion in the sky effectively wrecking the neg. There was an electrical fire in the house wiring of my darkroom. The negs that were out survived the fire, but they didn't survive the firemen's hoses. 4 rolls of C41 120 of wedding formals getting light struck by lab tech mishandling is what inspired me to buy my first DSLR.
The fact is that film, files, and prints are pretty fragile, and if someone isn't taking an active interest in archiving them they will most likely be damaged, lost, or destroyed. The difference is that if you decide to properly archive your photos it's very easy to make lossless copies of digital files and store them in numerous physical locations, and other than scanning or just taking more shots of the same thing, not many easy or affordable ways to losslessly duplicate frames of film.
Yes, people find old photos in attics, basements, and thrift stores. I bet that closer analysis would show that those are not particularly effective archiving strategies; possibly with even lower survival rates than hard drives.
People will be finding lost photos on the internet. C-prints and silver gelatin prints can be made from either; high end ink jet prints are more stable than wet prints.
My experience is the opposite. I have never had a hard drive (my 1st HD computer in 92), memory card, or disc fail. If it did it wouldn't matter; everything is backed up multiple times. I've been using digital for 4 years now, easily taking as many photos as in the previous 10 years of film photography, and I have yet to lose or damaged a digital file that I wanted to keep.
With film I could count on damaging dozens of frames every year. Whether I did the processing or took it to the pro lab mistakes were occasionally made. Sometimes damaging a little or a lot, sometimes destroying frames and entire rolls; light stuck, processing mistakes, mis-cut, fingerprints, scratches... It just happens; being careful keeps it from happening often, but if you shoot a lot, and the negs are handled a lot, it's just going to happen.
I had my own darkroom, and worked in a full service photo lab; I've seen film destroyed in a lot of different ways. It's horrifying! I have this fantastic photo taken on Kodak Royal Gold 25 of bright red and yellow construction cranes against a polarized, navy sky; I got one good 16x24 print before trying to blow some dust off, and a tiny fleck of spit landed on the emulsion in the sky effectively wrecking the neg. There was an electrical fire in the house wiring of my darkroom. The negs that were out survived the fire, but they didn't survive the firemen's hoses. 4 rolls of C41 120 of wedding formals getting light struck by lab tech mishandling is what inspired me to buy my first DSLR.
The fact is that film, files, and prints are pretty fragile, and if someone isn't taking an active interest in archiving them they will most likely be damaged, lost, or destroyed. The difference is that if you decide to properly archive your photos it's very easy to make lossless copies of digital files and store them in numerous physical locations, and other than scanning or just taking more shots of the same thing, not many easy or affordable ways to losslessly duplicate frames of film.
Yes, people find old photos in attics, basements, and thrift stores. I bet that closer analysis would show that those are not particularly effective archiving strategies; possibly with even lower survival rates than hard drives.
People will be finding lost photos on the internet. C-prints and silver gelatin prints can be made from either; high end ink jet prints are more stable than wet prints.
:lmao:
