What's been gained in the analog age?

[jp]

Deal with it. People are going to call non-digital photography analog.


OP: What can you do with analog tools/ materials that's fundamental different from what you can do with digital ones? What discoveries have been made in the last 15 years?

I like the old tech and history. Timeless lenses, equipment, themes. Just as spiritual things can be timeless, so can artistic things. We lose track of that more often with digital.

[bob carnie]

Well if young workers start making silver neg's from digital files from any and all capture, analog printmakers like myself may have interesting allies that may keep the manufactures keen to make the materials that I and others cherish.
I see the ability to get these negatives and make simple contacts on many traditional materials, a liberating factor for many not willing to learn enlargers and the setups required .

[Brian C. Miller]

Well, let's see.
First, there was making marks in the dirt,
then making marks on the wall,
then making marks on wood,
then making marks on canvas,
and then photography happened.

What has been gained in the age of optical-chemical photographic image production? (Because otherwise it would be the age of analog electronics)

What has been gained is precise and faithful recording of an image in an instant.
Another thing is that just about anybody can carry out the basic task, if not the entire basic process.

That's basically it. All else derives from those two things.

[Drew Wiley]

I figured it out. When blokes shoot 10X8 and 5X4 film, it's termed analogue photography. When dudes shoot 8X10 and 4X5,
it's analog.

[PViapiano]

My friend Anne McDonald provides one example. She's moved from traditional photography to wild an unpredictable mural making technique, that employs elements of photogram, light painting, and selective development, bleaching, and toning. She works with out-of-date mural paper and with chemicals from the darkroom, the kitchen, and the medicine cabinet. Her method requires a kind of improvised dialog with the materials that is entirely dependent on their chemical nature.

This is brilliant work, just about the freshest and most beautiful abstract photo-work I've seen in years...thank you so much for sharing this.

[Jac@stafford.net]

It is always 'analog' as and adjective, but either for the noun, so it is correct to write 'analog photography'. When will these Brits learn to spel?

[paulr]

I like the old tech and history. Timeless lenses, equipment, themes. Just as spiritual things can be timeless, so can artistic things. We lose track of that more often with digital.

Yeah, yeah, sure, but I'm talking about kinds of work that are fundamentally different. Not just nostalgia, or a different approach to similar ends.

[jp]

Yeah, yeah, sure, but I'm talking about kinds of work that are fundamentally different. Not just nostalgia, or a different approach to similar ends.

But I'm not old enough to be nostalgic.

I consider myself age-neutral or age-agnostic when it comes to themes and objects of my hobbies.

Photography/Art in general might not gain from timeless themes, but individuals certainly do.

[Steve Smith]

Oxford Dictionary of American English

An oxymoron!!!


Steve.

[Lachlan 717]

An oxymoron!!!


Steve.

Wonder when this will be dumbed down to "oximoron"?