Reminiscing About View Camera's Past.

[Bernice Loui]

We recently moved. As the boxes of books and magazines were unpacked, happened upon a stack of Steve Simmonds View Camera Magazine from the mid-1980's to about 2000. Started reading and looking at what view camera and image art was. In many ways, it was depressing for me to see what once was a truly creative art form of film centric expression be reduced to millions of e-Phone imaged up loaded each hour of each day around the world.

There is no question humanity is swimming in an ocean of electronic images and it appears this ocean of images has drowned out those very few images that are special.



Bernice

[scheinfluger_77]

I actually think AA and such would have embraced the digital work. Maybe not at first, but since his ethos was about “seeing”, digital can still be a valid medium. Granted most of it is not, but not all. Those of us still working in film can continue to practice our “seeing” in the medium. Cream does rise to the top.

[Dan Fromm]

Bernice, the only change since cameras at relatively affordable prices were introduced is that snapshots are more easily shared than ever before. Cheap digital cameras didn't push large format to the margins, for amateur photographers its been there all along. The same is true of good images.

[Jim Noel]

We recently moved. As the boxes of books and magazines were unpacked, happened upon a stack of Steve Simmonds View Camera Magazine from the mid-1908's to about 2000. Started reading and looking at what view camera and image art was. In many ways, it was depressing for me to see what once was a truly creative art form of film centric expression be reduced to millions of e-Phone imaged up loaded each hour of each day around the world.

There is no question humanity is swimming in an ocean of electronic images and it appears this ocean of images has drowned out those very few images that are special.



Bernice

I totally agree with the last sentence!

[Mark Sawyer]

I actually think AA and such would have embraced the digital work...

I think Vincent Van Gogh would have embraced Microsoft Paint...

But it wouldn't have been the same...

[Two23]

There will always be a group of "outliers" like us. Large format gives us the path for us to wander away from the herd.


Kent in SD

[Nodda Duma]

Bernice,

If you talk to Mark Osterman who’s as tapped into the alternative process large format world as anyone, he sees a bright future and steadily increasing interest in analog media. I can attest to that as well... even after the “novelty period” for my dry plates ended and I found I could get more than 3 hrs’ sleep a night, demand has been slowly but steadily increasing. Adox built a new factory to meet the demand for their film. While they don’t make large format stuff, large format is a pseudo-niche of analog photography in general which has seen a steady increase in popularity.

So take heart... Kodak and Fuji may not be able to cope well with the smaller market, but the interest and demand is out there and increasing... driven by consumer interest in “the unique” and hand-crafted products.

[faberryman]

There is no question humanity is swimming in an ocean of electronic images and it appears this ocean of images has drowned out those very few images that are special.

Most LF images are not swimming in the ocean you mention, so they are hardly being drowned out.

[LabRat]

Not replaced... Even in it's heyday, LF was vastly outnumbered by amateur formats... (Think Instamatics, disposables, polaroids, home movies, etc...) LF was for pros and serious workers, but not the masses...

At the turn of the last century, photographers were getting nervous about the vast #'s of box cameras with the slogan "You push the button, we do the rest"...

Steve K

[docw]

I think Vincent Van Gogh would have embraced Microsoft Paint...

But it wouldn't have been the same...

Maybe... but wasn't he nuts?