BTW, my red labrador Queen Roxy, seen in an attached .jpeg, is not expectant as with puppies, but expectant as in wanting her daily pig ear!Originally Posted by sanking
Sandy
BTW, my red labrador Queen Roxy, seen in an attached .jpeg, is not expectant as with puppies, but expectant as in wanting her daily pig ear!
Sandy
For discussion and information about carbon transfer please visit the carbon group at groups.io
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With digital I can sit in our living-room with my wife as she reads her books and watches TV. I edit and post process and in the end produce, for better or worse, images. There is some kind of 'schmooze' she likes about our being in the same space doing our thing. I love this lady ( 17 years together) and we recognize differences. One day 'above ground' in the living room earns me uncountable days in the basement darkroom. In the very end, placing my silver prints in the living room and inviting contrast and comparison of digital vs silver reveals that she could care less.
... And she is 64 years old. I am close to 70. I tell ya, she's a friggin modernist, a hippie! 😁
Just saying, as they say.
It was actually the constant loss of papers that pushed me out of the analog world. The rise of digital accelerated this trend, but didn't start it. The history of photography, like any technological medium, has been one of constant flux. You get attached to something, and it abandons you. I'm sure my favorite inkjet papers will likewise get discontinued or "new and improved," but with a technology on the upswing this will sometimes actually mean an improvement. And switching from one material to another is much less of a disruption when you have tools like color management. The range of choices in digital materials right now looks closer to the analog world of the 50s and 60s, when every manufacturer had several premium papers, each available in many surfaces.
I had my darkroom set up to make that kind of thing possible. I printed only at night, and illuminated my loft with red chili pepper lights, so I could keep the darkroom door open and wander in and out. My cat could wander in and out. The music filled the whole place. Not quite the freedom of the computer, but a step in that direction. I sometimes miss those nights.
Thanks for your response Terry. If I'm the "Brian " at whom this is directed, I understood that you weren't starting a "dump on digital" thread and I didn't mean to suggest that you were. My point was simply that most of the things you described as having been present in the film age and lost in the digital age in fact were either lost before digital came along (e.g. automation in cameras) or if they existed in the film age they existed only with respect to a relatively small number of film photographers (e.g. knowledge of darkroom chemicals).
As I said before, it seems to me that you were - consciously or not - comparing "film" as used by serious, knowledgeable, mostly large and medium format photographers who did their own darkroom work vs. digital as used by snap-shooters. Many of the comments in this thread seem to me to reflect this same sort of thinking. To take just one example, benrains said that "with film you don't have the luxury of just being able to hold the shutter button down to produce an almost continuous stream of shots . . . " That's true if "film" is limited to large and medium format but motor drives allowed the same thing to be done with 35mm film (I don't mean to pick on ben who made several excellent points in his message, his message just happened to be right below mine as I was typing this). Maybe automated rapid-fire shooting is more prevalent today, I don't know. But I know it isn't something that just started with "digital."
When I asked whether you planned to talk only about things lost with digital I wasn't being sarcastic or facetious, I was really curious. If the question came across the wrong way, my apologies.
Brian Ellis
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
I use both digital and film. I use my digital camera as an electronic polaroid camera. I like getting the instant results and having the option to delete and try again at no cost. Print quality is great. But my film cameras, especially my large format,is what I really love. And that will never die. When people come to my home and see the big black and white portraits on the wall, they ask how I do it. They move in close and almost touch the glass. I know it sounds strange, but they know there is something special and unique about the image. Especially the 8X10 work. When I show them the cameras, most of time, they request a portrait of themselves or their children using the old camera and film. I personally feel, and many people agree with me, that the digital age is becoming a bit overwhelming. Not just cameras, but everything else, as well. I go to the bank, there are video screens on the wall pumping out news, news, news. I go to the gas station, pump my gas, I have look at a video screen on the pump. Maybe I'm a little old fashioned, but I think there are a lot of people that would enjoy using their hands to create something they can call their own.I have a young nephew, he lives in the city. He has the whole boat load of tech toys; iphone , ipad, itoothbrush etc. He spent a week with my wife and I up in the mountains at our cottage. During that trip I had him help me cut down a tree and split firewood, introduced him to archery, help me service my tractor( get dirty and grimy) and we went out and made 4X5 images of farms, barns, and old rusty cars. He was fascinated. All he talks about is going back to the country. Some things need to be preserved.
Brian (Ellis) - no problem - I actually was concerned that this thread would turn into some sort of digital vs analog flame fest.
Fortunately that wasn't the case.
Yes, I was referring (at one point ) to those of us that tend to delve into the deeper part of our art, and not paying enough attention to the
happy/snappy sorts that have always been around. To quote Seinfeld on another subject "not that there's anything wrong with that"...
All of the comments here have been quite helpful in honing my approach to this talk - I can take criticisms and correction, so do feel free to offer them.
Regards,
Terry
BW looks too flat and plastic looking with digital. Wish they would make it more film like.
Haha.
Sandy
For discussion and information about carbon transfer please visit the carbon group at groups.io
[url]https://groups.io/g/carbon
That is up to you to do and frankly with a little practice it can be done.
Thanks,
Kirk
at age 73:
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep"
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