The one industry truly killed off by digital photography.

Garbz · Apr 13, 2010

So many industries are struggling but still there. People still use film, there are still black and white chemical labs around, and even some discontinued films are now being reverse engineered by hobby chemists. But there's one thing you will never see again. We now live in a world of quick snaps, photoshop edits. Where now anyone and not just darkroom gurus can do basically anything.

Who will ever again believe someone when they post a picture of a UFO online! If someone showed you a picture now of bigfoot, what would you think? What would you have thought 30 years ago?

Just got this thought after watching an ancient episode of X-Files.

Village Idiot · Apr 13, 2010

It could be faked with film as well.

pbelarge · Apr 13, 2010

Over the years technology even in it's basic form has changed the way we live.

From walking to the horse, to the wagon, to the car, to the plane, to space....what does the future hold?

Sometimes I hate to see the 'old way' die, but I am always looking forward to the unknown.

skieur · Apr 13, 2010

Anyone who has done a lot of photo manipulation knows what to look for in a "suspicious" photo and can find the evidence of manipulation, if that has been done.
After all, perfect manipulation on a pixel by pixel level is next to impossible.

skieur

Dykstra · Apr 13, 2010

I am absolutely glad that it's come to this. To be honest, too many people have been sucked into the frame of mind that photography is a frame of reality. Not even close! It's barely a representation of reality! You can't pass a biased two-dimensional frame excluding 99% of the story as truth nor reality. In my point of view, anything a person takes a picture of and says it's what it is, is in essence, "faked".

c.cloudwalker · Apr 13, 2010

A valid thought but what is the difference between a darkroom guru and a PS one?

As VI said, it was done with film. Not only that but 1/ study magic a little bit and you will find out that deception is very easy and 2/ deception in photography can be as simple as re-framing an image. As a former PJ I always laugh about "a photograph doesn't lie." Re-framing is a wonderful way of totally changing the meaning of an image.

Big · Apr 13, 2010

Everything has it's time and usually makes a comeback. Look at muscle cars for example. Manufacturers are making them to look like the old ones because they know it will draw a large crowd.

maris · Apr 13, 2010

Photographs on film can't be faked.

For a film photograph to happen a physical sample of the subject matter has to travel to the film, burrow into it, and occasion chemical changes that result in marks you can see.

What can be faked is subject matter. How many Loch Ness monsters are distant floating logs? How many UFO's are Frisbees? Photographs do not lie, film photographs that is, but liars may photograph.

skieur · Apr 14, 2010

maris said:
Photographs on film can't be faked. .

Sure, they can. My mother and I were successfully playing with faking photographs in the 70s. At the time, we were inspired by others who were having fun with landing planes on the Niagara River above the falls etc.

skieur

LaFoto · Apr 14, 2010

I think, what Garbz is actually trying to say is that with the broad knowledge that digital photos can (easily!) be changed, with things copied into them from other photos and so on, fewer and fewer people can still be sucked into the belief that there actually has been a UFO. When photo manipulation was still done by few who had the knowledge and the access to a darkroom, many MORE people could still be tricked. Today, you may even present a 1:1 image of what was, no photoshop whatsoever applied, and have people blame you of having inserted things via Photoshop, so things seem to be reversing themselves in the perception of the masses.

skieur · Apr 14, 2010

LaFoto said:
I think, what Garbz is actually trying to say is that with the broad knowledge that digital photos can (easily!) be changed, with things copied into them from other photos and so on, fewer and fewer people can still be sucked into the belief that there actually has been a UFO. When photo manipulation was still done by few who had the knowledge and the access to a darkroom, many MORE people could still be tricked. Today, you may even present a 1:1 image of what was, no photoshop whatsoever applied, and have people blame you of having inserted things via Photoshop, so things seem to be reversing themselves in the perception of the masses.

I think that given the overall poor quality of UFO photos in the days of film that faking was easier. Currently with magnification on a pixel level and the need for the sharpness of the UFO to equal overall digital picture quality, faking is easier to spot and more difficult to hide.

skieur

D-B-J · Apr 14, 2010

But, one who spent hours in the darkroom, is now spending hours working in photoshop, and other editing programs. Either way, the process is still the same.

Photograph
Develop (upload)
Edit

That hasnt changed. Digital photography has simply allowed for more creativity. It hasn't made it any easier. Buy a 5000 dollar 4x5 setup, and take crappy pictures cause you don't know what youre doing. Buy a 5000 dollar nikon d3s and a 2000 dollar lens, and you still take garbage pics cause you dont know what your are doing.

Photography is just evolving. Thats all.

usayit · Apr 14, 2010

Photo-manipulation in the darkroom is a bit more difficult... heck... prior to digital a very smalll percentage of photographers had the ability to develop/print. This leads to the idea that traditional chemical photography is much more difficult to fake. (IT IS!)

After digital, I'd say the number of digital photographers with the ability to "develop" "print", and manipulate is far greater. Hence... photos are no longer considered proof.

Digital and film can both be fake... just how many people are willing and able to fake film?

Remember the Cottingley "Fairy" Hoax in 1917.... there were always people who believed in them until the 80s. How many "hoaxes" would last that long these days....

c.cloudwalker · Apr 14, 2010

My apologies to Garbz for going a off topic here.

D-B-J said:
Digital photography has simply allowed for more creativity.

No it has not. How could it when it is all based on what was done in film photography. For digital to allow more creativity, the software writers would need to be more creative than the photographers from yesterday. There probably are some software writers who are also photographers and/or artists but, considering the way most companies are run, they are probably working on a word processing software

I don't know how old you are but I've noticed that a whole lot of younger people seems to think they've invented things that have existed for years. A very easy example of that is HDR. Lots of people here on TPF talk about it as if it was invented yesterday. Unfortunately, it was invented long before digital. It does help to know some history before making sweeping statements.

I'll grant you that eventually, we have to hope, it will become true but, right now, I don't think we are anywhere near that point.

usayit said:
Photo-manipulation in the darkroom is a bit more difficult... heck... prior to digital a very smalll percentage of photographers had the ability to develop/print.

No it's not. At least not to those of us who know how to use a darkroom. To me, it's a lot more difficult with PS. :lol:

Yes, I'm an old fart. But that doesn't matter much. You are most probably right that a lot more people are doing their own printing today. But what results are they getting for the most part?

From what I see here on TPF, those are divided into two groups: the ones who do work worthy of the local drugstore and which I don't want for myself; and then you have the ones who push button (or sliders) left and right and sometimes get something really nice but they would have no idea how to replicate it.

PS is as hard to learn as darkroom work and, the number of people using it versus a darkroom doesn't matter one bit. What does matter are the results. And from what I see here there are no more people using PS who know what they are doing than there were people using a darkroom who did.

Let me put it this way. When I lived in the boonies, I convinced my wife to take a job as a photo-finisher with a drugstore. Because of seeing me work in the darkroom, she was scared to hell. But she took the job. Training: 2 1/2 days. She did just fine though as far as family and vacation shots were concerned but if I'd given her one of my film and put her in my darkroom, we'd still be waiting to see some photos.

Since you are in Jersey, I'll use another example. Ever been to DC and visited the National Cathedral? Because of today's technology this is the fastest cathedral ever built. Now, put a photo of it next to a photo of the one in Chartres or Paris. See any difference? With their primitive tools the guys who built Chartres did a 1000% better job.

Please don't use my own line about being an old fart against me. I'm embracing today's technology in my new studio. What I'm saying is that if you can't learn how to use the technology, it won't get you any better results.

usayit · Apr 14, 2010

c.cloudwalker said:
No it's not. At least not to those of us who know how to use a darkroom. To me, it's a lot more difficult with PS.

Isn't that my point? Access to a darkroom now and before is more limited than those with photoshop. Now take those with access to darkroom.. even less of those know how to do even more than simple burn, dodge, and print.

Stop it.... its getting tiresome.