It's the experience, not the resolution

[Jack Davis]

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....

[Don Wallace]

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.

[Daniel Grenier]

BRAVO! (Hands clapping in cyberspace).

[RJ Hicks]

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

[Richard Fenner]

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.

[Doug Herta]

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?

[chris jordan]

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.

[Greg Miller]

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.

[Paul Butler]

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.

[Bruce Watson]

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.

[Al Seyle]

Sorry... I don't have time to join in your rant. I have to grab some charcoal from the fire pit and finish my tracing in the camera obscura. Bye.

[Edward (Halifax,NS)]

I don't enjoy the experience of printing in a wet darkroom. I am curious to see how I feel about scanning my negs/trannies and printing them on an inkjet. I bought a scanner about 3 hours ago and until this time, the lab did all of my printing and I didn't care how they did it as long as it looked good and the prints lasted (didn't fade).

[Guy Tal]

When I "compose, tilt, shift, focus, and click", my image is just beginning. It is done when I print it to my satisfaction, and lives on until I am tired of looking at it.
For the "thrill of the hunt" I don't need a camera at all. I just need to be there and capture the images in my memory.

Guy
Scenic Wild Photography (http://www.scenicwild.com)

[CXC]

High tech-er at work, I'm a retro-geek at home. When I am not riding my track bike, playing my harpsichord, or painting in oils, I like to shoot film in LF, or even in pinhole. As an amateur with limited vision, there are zillions of other guys who can produce much better prints than I, with any tools, chem or digital. Not my problem. I chose low-tech activities for my hobbies, doing my best with the delightful old tools of yesteryear. That's my idea of fun. As long as some of my prints are occasionally nice enough to put up on the wall, I'm satisified.

[Jim Galli]

If you haven't already found it you would find lots of kindred spirits at apug.org.

[Ellen Stoune Duralia]

What Bruce said...

Seriously, what IS the deal with the whole debate anyway? And why (oh why!) do some people feel like they have the right to tell someone else what tools to use? (Not saying anyone here has done that but we've all seen it.) Digital... Analog... a combination of both... who cares as long it gets the job done and you enjoy the process :-)

[David R Munson]

CXC wrote: High tech-er at work, I'm a retro-geek at home. When I am not riding my track bike...



I spent all day scanning documents at work, stopped and shot something on 8x10 on my way home, am currently doing work on an image in Photoshop, and after supper am going to go the bike shop to pick up a 45 tooth FSA track chainring for my Basso fixie (http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/2004/g/munson.htm).



Good to know I'm not the only fixer shooting sheet film around here.



Regarding the thread itself, I maintain that it doesn't matter. This soapbox is falling apart.../p>

[Scott Fleming]

I have some understanding for Jack's feelings. I get them too even though I continually ask myself, as has been raised here on this thred, WTF do I care what the 'scions of digital' say about my film proclivities? Well, thinking about it, there are two aspects to my pique. 1. I think I'm bugged by anyone who is wholly digital and eschews film just because that is a stupid position to take for anyone interested in fine art photography ... in fact I strongly suspect fine art is not what truly motivates these digital-only "fine art" shooters. 2. Digital bugs me because it is coming on way too fast and destroying wonderful camera companies like Sherman cut through Georgia. Soon we will all be paying much more for a very limited spectrum of film products than we will want or like to pay as well.

On the other hand I can see that digital is a great advancment in photography. As soon as a stand-alone 22 MP back for my Contax comes in under $6k or so (that's used, shutterbugs) I may be spending a bit less time on the 50 mi. loop between here and the lab. Digital is fantastic and fantasticly perturbing.

[John D Gerndt]

Scott hit the mark in my heart. I hate to see what digital has done to peoples expectations. I hate being left out and disrespected, but hey, it is a time-honored situation. Beautiful arts die out and are replaced by moneymakers. Remember engravers, the profession photography destroyed?

I miss engravings, I miss record albums, I miss the handshake replaced by email. All one can do is appreciate what is left and try to make use of the new as we are going to pay the price anyway. I will take the copy lens glut and derth of camera shops in the same breath, the same sweep of technology.

It is change. There is not sense in fighting it. I don't have to like all it comes with. Right now I actively dislike most of what comes with it, but then again, here I am using the technology to make contacts and learn about the stuff I do love. sigh*

Cheers,

[John Flavell]

I just shot two regional tournament basketball games and sent the images back to my newspaper over a high-speed wireless network I set up in two minutes. The images were shot with the use of stobes mounted in the ceiling of the arena. With the digital cameras, I can do that and send 10 images for editors to look over. I'll repeat that process for the next nine evenings.

In the morning, I'm taking the 4x5 out to a little waterfall I've found and shoot Tri-X, then experiment a bit with Polaroid Type 55 exposing for the negative. It's a quiet place. Peaceful. When I previsualize, I can smell the fixer as well as the good green earth.

It's all good to me.

[Kirk Keyes]

Dave - If you really want to have fun on a fixed gear bike, take the brake off!

By the way, I have a circa 1955 Legnano (Italian) track bike with Columbus tubing that has been waiting to be put back together for several years now...

[Kirk Keyes]

Oh yeah, I forgot to add, as with fixed gear bikes, it's the experience that is important.

[CXC]

David,

What Kirk said! I've never understood the point of a fixed-gear bike with brakes. Way too easy on your knees, too safe.

[Ellis Vener]

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 a "straw man" position to argue. No says or forces you to do that with digital photography anymore than you are forced to do that with film based photography.

I have a better argument:"I like the way things look when I use large format film and that's why I use it."

[David R Munson]

The brake is no longer there, actually. If I ever ride hills much again, I'll put it back on, but otherwise I haven't used it in months anyway. The lower gearing is also good - riding brakeless just wouldn't work as well if I was still going 48x15 (at least not so long as I'm so out of shape and my legs are so soft). The higher cadence at 45x18 means a nicer spin, too. As long as I'm jacking the thread, I might as well plug this forum (http://www.bikeforums.net/forumdisplay.php?f=178), of interest to other fixxers here. Also, this Lucas Brunelle video (http://digave.com/videos/red-web.mpg) so people think we're insane.



End thread-jacking. Well, almost. Kirk - if you don't put that Legnano back together, I'm taking it and putting it back together for you! :-)



Anyway, Ellis has, I think, made the best argument yet in this thread. Use what you like because it's what you like.

[d burdeny]

"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."

Interesting….Isn’t that what painters do for the most part?

[Paul Butzi]

"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."

I once saw an excellent TV program that had one segment that was about Connie Imboden - a photographer whose work I find fascinating, horrifying, disturbing, haunting, always interesting and never, ever boring.

In it, she commented ""I do all my own processing and printing. I don't manipulate my images in the darkroom, but I do articulate them in the darkroom."

The segment, part of "EGG, the arts show", is apparently available online at her website - look at the section titled 'video intvws', at www.connieimboden.com

Her artist statement, which you can find on the 'introduction' page of her website, strikes me as one of the most lucid and articulate such statements I've ever read. Most artists statements are psychobabble gobblteygook intended to impress or intimidate without actually being understood, and hers is really impressively clear.

I'm not sure whether I like her work or not, but it impresses me regardless. If she's content to draw a distinction between 'manipulation' and 'articulation', I'm inclined to grant her point of view a lot of merit.

[Jonathan Brewer]

How can you do one without doing the other.......................it's a distintion without a difference.

'Most artists statements are psychobabble gobblteygook intended to impress or intimidate without actually being understood'..............................This is 100% true, I've lucked out w/shots with an effect I hadn't even imagined, and didn't know I captured it until I got the proofs back, then again the idea of getting lucky and finding something new is a legitimate part of art.

I remember some time back somebody saying something to the effect that a picture should stand or fall exactly as they originally framed the image and that a image should never be cropped, reverse that, if you can find a better image by cropping it, then it tells you your framing was off.

Only one counts in the artistic process, does it works, if it works, it's right.

[Richard Fenner]

" if you can find a better image by cropping it, then it tells you your framing was off". Maybe. Or perhaps it tells you that you couldn't afford a longer/shorter lens, or didn't want to have to carry 4 lenses a long distance and made do with two lenses. Is it really so different to crop, rather than to change lenses?

Or maybe I had my 8x10 camera with me and realised this was really a panoramic and wanted to shoot it as 4x10, so I use the 8x10 and crop - is it again a corruption of the process, as some seem to think it is?

[Jonathan Brewer]

I agree with that totally, I was susggesting(to me) the rigidity of a certain way of thinking. Suppose for the sake of argument that you submit an image to somebody, they say they don't like the way it was cropped, also they declare ' if you'll crop the image an inch on all sides it'll be a masterpiece', they'll pay you $50,000 for the rights to the image.

If it's me, I'm in my car on my way to the bank with the money, looking at the picture while I'm stopped at the intersection to see they're right.

As you've touched on above, it could simply be a matter of shooting 8x10, and finding a dynamite crop along panoramic dimensions, if you dig up some gold, it doesn't make one bit of difference what the size of your shovel was.

[Richard Fenner]

I had a feeling that's what you were saying, but was a bit confused - a bit like this thread!

[Jonathan Brewer]

That's because I did too much manipulating and not enough articulating.

[Ellis Vener]

Has anybody tried artipulating?

[David R Munson]

Has anybody tried artipulating?



Yeah....wound up with a nasty rash, though

[Kirk Keyes]

"Has anybody tried artipulating?"

"Yeah....wound up with a nasty rash, though"

Yea - not a good thing to do on any bike, let alone a fixed gear one!

Dave- I always rode in 42x18 as there are a few hills around here (Portland, OR). I have checked out the bike forum - some good stuff there. I enjoy the vinatge section.

The Legnano was running, but then I had a ca. 1975 Frejus track bike as well - it was like a 57 cm and too big for me (I need a 54 cm frame). But I figured I could get more for the Frejus if it had a headset and bb, so I pulled the Campagnolo Pista headset I had gotten for the Legnano and stuck it and a Campy BB in it and sold it. That was a big mistake...

Anyway, I've been watching ebay for a pista headset for the Legnano. I still have a set of Campy wheels, a Gipiemme Pista crankest and some Cinelli bars I cut off to make cowhorns right after Francesco Moser set the hour record, so I still have most of the parts I need.

The Legnano frame is pretty standard in design, except for the trademark Legnano seat post binder bolt location - it's on the inside of the main tube trangle - where the seat and top tube come together.

OK - here's the tie in to photography, cyclists are every bit as much hardware geeks as photographers.

[Calamity Jane]

If the objective was to create the best sharpness, detail, ideal contrast, perfect balance of light and shadow, I wouldn't be spending my time trying to learn tintype.

Anybody can fly to the moon if they have an Apallo rocket and the support of all of NASA's high-tech goodies. Somehow that hasn't lessened the joy of flying in a light plane, gliding, etc.

I do electronics for a living, data networks and microprocessor based devices. Although it is nice to see a machine do what was intended, it is no more so than building a brick wall that is straight and even.

However, there is something inherently satisfying about a "craft", something created by one's own hands from material vastly different than the end result; it's almost a spiritual satisfaction. The more mechanized the process, the less it remains a "craft" IMHO