RANT: The Sky was not Green....

[Ysarex]

The sky was not green when I was growing up. I got my first camera in 1961. For the past 40 years I've been either an enthusiast or made my living from photography in one form or another. Today in 2017 I am vintage. I have a lot of vintage photographs that I took 25, 30 and 40 years ago. In those photographs the sky is blue. And this you're going to find hard to believe but every time I loaded a roll of film in my camera I did not stoop down and pick up a handful of dirt to throw inside the camera.

I used to make prints in the darkroom. Here's another fact that might astonish you. Before I put a negative in the enlarger I would meticulously clean it. The prints I made didn't have dust spots and pieces of lint all over them. And believe it or not I didn't walk all over my negatives before I printed them. I've also continued to take good care of them.

When I bought a new camera and it didn't have a light leak I didn't return it and demand one that leaked light badly. And I know this is hard to believe but 35 years ago we had films that did a pretty good job of faithfully reproducing color.

This may be jolting but here's a vintage photo from a 35 year old 35mm color negative:

Yep I know it's hard to believe but the sky really was blue back then. Now just for the h*ll of it here's a similarly lit modern photo with a blue sky and green foliage taken with a digital camera:

So I added a little simulated grain to the digital one. I don't see a huge difference between the two otherwise.

RANT: So I have been bombarded this past week with "that vintage film look" and all I can make out from what I see is that the vintage film look means you used a 1970 Instamatic with a light leak. You stored the film in the car glove compartment all summer the year it went out of date before you exposed it and you tied the negatives to the dog's collar for a week before you had them printed. Then you aged the prints under a high intensity UV lamp.

I am vintage and I never did any of that to my film. None of my vintage photos have the "vintage film look"! I must have lived in a parallel universe or something for the last 40 years.

Joe

 

[limr]

Or you were just a lot more careful than most, who used crappy cameras and crappy film and kept their crappy Foto-Hut prints in the attic for 40 years.

 

[Derrel]

A MUCH better term than "vintage film look" would be...wait for it, waaaaaaait fooooor it......."vintage color print look". What so many people are looking for these days is not the look of vintage film, but of badly faded prints,or mistreated prints!

 

[Vtec44]

The grass greener on the other side...

 

[zombiesniper]

I think you screwed both shots up and the sky was green.

Seriously though it is funny that a lot of people think that all film shots have to be of poor quality. Even though they access to the internet where you can easily search photo's taken prior to 2000 which the majority would have been done on film and have perfectly acceptable IQ and colour.

 

[limr]

A MUCH better term than "vintage film look" would be...wait for it, waaaaaaait fooooor it......."vintage color print look". What so many people are looking for these days is not the look of vintage film, but of badly faded prints,or mistreated prints!

Or the cross-processed film look.

 

[Overread]

You know I always feel that film treats blacks in photos better than digital does. Sure digital can recover more detail from darker areas; but the way that film renders blacks generally appears more pleasing to my eye (granted in digital you can get similar effects by adjusting sliders but its not the default view it gives).



And yes a lot of people have a strong nostalgic feeling toward older, rubbishier, film. A lot of it is nostalgia because those were the kind of prints that they used to make or got back from the printing shop. In those days I feel as if the divide between good and "point and shooty" was far greater - likely because to get good you had to structure your shooting (take notes, record conditions and settings etc... and wait days/weeks for results from the film) in order to see what did and didn't work. Back in them-days the pros were using godly machines that were unaffordable and unfathomable by your mortal common person. *

Also don't forget a lot of "vintage filter - $5!" ads kind of define what people see. They might not be anywhere near accurate, but they are a product; a fad and a thing that defines a certain type of look.


* yes yes I know that's not true unless one gets into the medium/large format grounds where costs are more serious.

 

[smoke665]

You stored the film in the car glove compartment all summer the year it went out of date before you exposed it

Or you left it in bag on the dash of the vehicle. Now that you reminded me, this happened a lot.

 

[Designer]

RANT: So I have been bombarded this past week with "that vintage film look" ..

If you check my "vintage" posts on here you will find one wherein I said the same thing.

 

[Ysarex]

Or you were just a lot more careful than most, who used crappy cameras and crappy film and kept their crappy Foto-Hut prints in the attic for 40 years.

A MUCH better term than "vintage film look" would be...wait for it, waaaaaaait fooooor it......."vintage color print look". What so many people are looking for these days is not the look of vintage film, but of badly faded prints,or mistreated prints!

OK, but why look for it at all? Yep, faded and mistreated -- that's for sure. Topaz's filter will even put dust spots, abrasions and fake pieces of lint into your photos. Why do they like it? We worked hard to prevent all that.

Joe

 

[alexis.alvarez]

Or you were just a lot more careful than most, who used crappy cameras and crappy film and kept their crappy Foto-Hut prints in the attic for 40 years.

A MUCH better term than "vintage film look" would be...wait for it, waaaaaaait fooooor it......."vintage color print look". What so many people are looking for these days is not the look of vintage film, but of badly faded prints,or mistreated prints!

OK, but why look for it at all? Yep, faded and mistreated -- that's for sure. Topaz's filter will even put dust spots, abrasions and fake pieces of lint into your photos. Why do they like it? We worked hard to prevent all that.

Joe

Joe, I think it's all part of the "anti-craft" approach to photography. Living in the NYC area, I get the opportunity to check out the photography scene quite a bit, and what I see are all too many exhibits and BFA/MFA shows in which the photographs seem more slapdash than thought-out. I suppose it's meant to convey spontaneity? Or else they're (overly) conceptualized, to the point where the images either don't work unless they're "explained" or, more often than not, are simply no good.

 

[Ysarex]

I think you screwed both shots up and the sky was green.

Seriously though it is funny that a lot of people think that all film shots have to be of poor quality. Even though they access to the internet where you can easily search photo's taken prior to 2000 which the majority would have been done on film and have perfectly acceptable IQ and colour.

What's really funny (weird and a little irritating) to me is that poor quality is a desirable trait they want in their photos. Some people still like to work with film. You can do good work with film. With a long history as a film photographer, and if I were a film photographer today, I have to say I resent the implication that film photos looked or now look like the "vintage film look" portrays them.

Joe

 

[Ysarex]

Or you were just a lot more careful than most, who used crappy cameras and crappy film and kept their crappy Foto-Hut prints in the attic for 40 years.

A MUCH better term than "vintage film look" would be...wait for it, waaaaaaait fooooor it......."vintage color print look". What so many people are looking for these days is not the look of vintage film, but of badly faded prints,or mistreated prints!

OK, but why look for it at all? Yep, faded and mistreated -- that's for sure. Topaz's filter will even put dust spots, abrasions and fake pieces of lint into your photos. Why do they like it? We worked hard to prevent all that.

Joe

Joe, I think it's all part of the "anti-craft" approach to photography. Living in the NYC area, I get the opportunity to check out the photography scene quite a bit, and what I see are all too many exhibits and BFA/MFA shows in which the photographs seem more slapdash than thought-out. I suppose it's meant to convey spontaneity? Or else they're (overly) conceptualized, to the point where the images either don't work unless they're "explained" or, more often than not, are simply no good.

Yeah, I read "anti-craft" approach as "I tried but it was too difficult for me to learn" approach.

Joe

 

[Designer]

.. the images either don't work unless they're "explained" or, more often than not, are simply no good.

Right. Now if you're up to it, try explaining that here:

What is art? Volume 261

I predict that you won't change any minds.

 

[limr]

Or you were just a lot more careful than most, who used crappy cameras and crappy film and kept their crappy Foto-Hut prints in the attic for 40 years.

A MUCH better term than "vintage film look" would be...wait for it, waaaaaaait fooooor it......."vintage color print look". What so many people are looking for these days is not the look of vintage film, but of badly faded prints,or mistreated prints!

OK, but why look for it at all? Yep, faded and mistreated -- that's for sure. Topaz's filter will even put dust spots, abrasions and fake pieces of lint into your photos. Why do they like it? We worked hard to prevent all that.

Joe

Here's what I think: it's a lazy way to artificially inject nostalgia and feeling into a photo that might not have it otherwise.

Many years ago, after college but before grad school, I was staying with my parents and my two parakeets were with me. I came home one afternoon to find them sitting at the table, eating lunch, each one with a parakeet in their heads. They were all just casually hanging out this way. I happened to have a camera with me and I snapped a shot before the birds could fly off. I love this picture. It's underexposed, the print is all beaten up, and I couldn't care any kind of a rat's ass about fading or color shift or scratches. My parents are both looking at me with big silly smiles with birds on their heads. It's a crappy picture that is filled with emotion for me.

So, you see a picture that seems all roughed up, and you might think, "That picture must mean something to someone if they're still hanging onto it in that kind of shape." Okay, YOU don't think that, but others might - those same folks who don't care about the condition of the photo itself and store them in hot attics or damp basements. They only care about the memory that the photo captures.

I think these filters are trying to capture that sense of, "I don't care about the condition of the photo, but only the emotion or memory it captures" and forces a feeling of nostalgia by making it look old and worn. I think it's silly and lazy. You want to capture emotion? Then work harder at learning how to do that properly without a stupid filter.

Of course, this doesn't count all the dumbasses who just think it's 'cool' and who wouldn't even know a film camera if it bit them in the ass, but that's a whole different story