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Thread: It's the experience, not the resolution

  1. #1

    Join Date
    Aug 2004
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    13

    It's the experience, not the resolution

    I realtively new to LF, but already I constantly get asked whether I shoot digital or not. (I don't) I'm not a professional, but I take my hobby seriously and get irritated by the popular assumption in society that digital is automatically better. In this forum as well there are lots of questions and concerns about whether or not digital will surpass film in resolution, if it hasn't already.

    I think many out there are missing the point.

    The primary joy I get from photgraphy is the thrill of the hunt, the searching and taking of pictures in the field, in the wild, OUTDOORS. Exploration.

    With film - I compose, tilt, shift, focus, and click. And the image is DONE, for better or worse. Take it to the lab, process it, and see what happens. Each creative decision is made out there in the wind, the heat, the rain, the light. These become part of the fabric of that image for all time - not raw data to be manipulated later.

    The experience of the image is what I savor, not the end product.

    The LAST thing I want to do is sit at home and micromanage my image on a PC for hours, staring at a screen, inventing things that did not exist in the field. That is no fun. Maybe I'm too much of a purist, but something that happened in the field always trumps something that happened in the PC.

    As long as film provides the great clarity and resolution it offers today - I'll keep buying it and encouraging others to do so. Digital might appeal to some - but for me, it's a claustrophobic medium.

    Just thought I'd shout this out from my soapbox....

  2. #2

    Join Date
    Feb 2000
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    273

    It's the experience, not the resolution

    My day job is high tech, in front of a computer all day. My photography is mostly very low tech. Wooden cameras, b&w, wet darkroom. I also shoot colour and I use a scanner and printer, mostly to "proof" my work. I get very large colour scans and prints done professionally since I could never afford to keep up with the equipment necessary. However, I do VERY little Photoshop manipulation, in fact, almost none. I am not a technophobe but I consider time spent on my ass in front of the computer to be nothing but stress, with the exception of the little bit of time on spend scanning/printing colour (not much, believe me).

    I'm with Jack on this and can see a day when I shoot only monochrome.

  3. #3

    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    White Lake, Ontario.
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    345

    It's the experience, not the resolution

    BRAVO! (Hands clapping in cyberspace).

  4. #4

    Join Date
    Feb 2005
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    37

    It's the experience, not the resolution

    To each his own. I personally get joy out of shooting and darkroom work.

  5. #5

    It's the experience, not the resolution

    I think there are two issues in your post that are getting mixed: film vs digital, and manipulated vs unmanipulated. 'Every creative decision is made out there in the wind, the heat, the rain, the light' - are you that rare breed of photographer who makes a completely 'straight' print? You've never heard of photographers spending hours in the darkroom darkening the sky a bit, lightening those rocks a bit - ignoring the extreme element who in the darkroom also swap skies. The piece of film is the data with which film photographers start working towards a print; a digital file is the data with which digital photographers start working towards a print. There's nothing morally superior or more 'purist' in darkening a sky in the darkroom over doing it on a PC. Both groups get the same joy in finding a scene - both groups have their extreme element.

  6. #6

    Join Date
    Mar 1998
    Location
    Seattle
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    133

    It's the experience, not the resolution

    I'm another tech person who uses the camera to get away from the computer. There are still people who paint and draw... even after the invention of photography! I wonder what will eventually replace digital photography?

  7. #7

    Join Date
    Mar 2001
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    Seattle
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    It's the experience, not the resolution

    Jack, according to your standard I am definitely missing the point. For me, photography is all about the end result-- making a photograph that stands on its own, that people can "get" independently of whether I had fun making it. Most of the time I don't even like photographing; it is slow, tiring, uncomfortable and stressful, but I do it because that's the only way to make the images that I want to make. So maybe the point after all is that there is no one right approach; it is not about getting "the point"; each person's experience while photographing, and reasons for doing it, are as different as the people themselves.

  8. #8

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    Sep 2003
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    Hudson Valley, NY
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    It's the experience, not the resolution

    I wonder if there aren't 2 basic camps here: B&W vs. Color. B&W photographers have long had relatively easy tools to create prints that look the way the photographer wanted. Color photographers have largely had to rely on non-customized prints that look awful or expenive custom prints that look better but still not 100% what the photogrpher wanted.

    As someone who primarily works in color, I was terribly motivated by the digial darkroom concept. I now have the tools to do the same thing B&W photgraphers have had all along. I can adjust contrast, bringout localized shadow detail,...

    I am technical by trade as well (and spend many hours in front of a computer and have for 2 decades) but I enjoy working in Photoshop because I can make low cost prints in my home that actually look the way I intended.

  9. #9

    It's the experience, not the resolution

    I have freinds who make BEAUTIFUL contact prints. And I know that digital printing has not yet been perfected.

    However, I think if you shoot LF negatives or transparencies, and then print digitally, you have double the fun and double the satisfaction. You make creative decisions out there in the wind, heat, rain and light (as previously noted) and then you make even more of them at night on the computer. The "digital darkroom" offers real advantages when color printing, too, compared with "analog" techniques.

    I have often enjoyed taking "old" image files from scans, and completely revisiting them - different cropping/rotation, may some perspective adjustment, different contrast, different treatment of the color - and getting a whole new image when I print, from the one I came up with the first time. Double the satisfaction - or maybe the original analog print was a dud but new newly-discovered digital version is compelling and beautiful after the second go-around.

  10. #10
    Resident Heretic Bruce Watson's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
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    USA, North Carolina
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    3,362

    It's the experience, not the resolution

    Take a number. You aren't the first person to soap-box this point. Far from it. This tired old rant in the digital/traditional war is just that - yet another tired old rant.

    Really, ask your self: What do you care what other people think? Why are you wasting your time and energy getting irritated? Their opinions only count -- if you count them!

    So stop it. Go out and make photographs instead.

    Bruce Watson

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