Film photography, a good business in the future ?

[Mike Anderson]

Digital information definitely has both greater permanence...

questionable in theory and practice I say.

... and greater reproducibility than non-digital information. In fact, the vastly greater permanence is due precisely to the ability for flawless reproduction.

I agree with you here except for the part about "vastly greater permanence". I do believe one of the main benefits of digital tech is how it facilitates replicating information - not flawless, but almost always flawless.

It should be noted that this is entirely separate issue from the permanence of the media. Digital media is indeed less permanent than non-digital one (keeping things in context, in reality there is no such thing as "digital" or "non-digital" media - they are all optical, magnetic, ceramic, celluloid or whatever other physical material is used as a base), but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because this is the first time in human memory that we have such a complete separation of information from its container/media.

I think the idea of information being separate from it's media is simply incorrect. It's an illusion helped by the ease and fidelity of copying enabled by digital technology, the growing inexpensiveness of media , and by pop-culture-science writers.

The real key to information permanence lies in the process rather than in material and process can be - should be! is! - adjusted along the way. Stewardship of cans of film requires physical storage and upkeep, along with actively establishing and maintaining conditions optimal for minimizing the decay of the carrying substrate. It is physically impossible to preserve it forever, simply because that's the nature of the material.

Information, on the other hand, can be preserved indefinitely - theoretically - given appropriate stewardship, which in this case includes only the replication process and, occasionally, file format conversion (which is, again, also just a process).

For most cases your probably right here, it boils down to replication and file format conversion. And a conscientious steward.

IOW, given equal amount of qualified care invested in preservation of both digital and non-digital content, there is really no contest and no question of digital information somehow "evaporating". If there is a problem with digital information, it exists between the chair and the keyboard, as the old saying goes.

Digital information is lost every day and of course it's usually human error. But what is more error prone, keeping a can of film from getting too hot for n years or stewarding digital information for n years?

...Mike

[Jack Dahlgren]

questionable in theory and practice I say.

I agree with you here except for the part about "vastly greater permanence".

Digital information is lost every day and of course it's usually human error. But what is more error prone, keeping a can of film from getting too hot for n years or stewarding digital information for n years?
...Mike

Celluloid film anyone?


Film stock is lost and tossed every day. Almost all of the color film and prints fade over time. Sure, you can slow and protect it, but that takes an effort. Digital images are easier to store, duplicate, and archive - identifying the time the photograph was taken is orders of magnitude easier with digital - everything is timestamped, and I expect location to become quite common as well. Knowing what you have and it being useful to you makes the probability of stewarding the information more likely. And pulling up images on a large computer screen is easier and faster than pulling out the loupe and looking at old negatives.

The idea that we won't be able to access digital data in the future because we no longer have the technology is a concern for some media but I think that the current generation will figure out how to deal with that.

[jnantz]

Ketchup is ketchup ...

actually jay, not all ketchup is the same
tomato ketchup is something altogether different
from the other kinds of ketchup ( fish sauce )
that have been around since before marko polo found china.

[Jim Jones]

Digital information definitely has both greater permanence and greater reproducibility than non-digital information. In fact, the vastly greater permanence is due precisely to the ability for flawless reproduction. . . .

There is certainly the potential for greater permanence of digital information. Analog information can enjoy such permanence mainly as a conversion into digital formats. Better such a preserved conversion than an analog original lost forever. Much of my appreciation of photography came from the digital conversion (halftone printing) of photographs. Large format photographers understand what I'm missing with limited access to the originals.

Digital preservation of photographs is almost as old as photography itself. Much of its present technology has been accomplished in the past very few decades. We should expect this trend to continue. Perhaps future experts will look upon today's technology as we look upon 19th century halftones. Therefore, it is important that the preservation of original analog as well as digital information be promoted. Fine analog photography should not suffer the fate of many home Kodachrome movies that are disgarded after conversion to convenient, but ephemeral, digital storage.

[BetterSense]

I freely acknowledge that my film based prints are manipulated (as it always has been) because I am an artist, but I feel like I am in a minority in being truthful about this.

The distinction between physical image making and digital imaging does not have to hinge on any ideas of "manipulation". It does not have to hinge on any ideas of "look" or "tone" or supposed "image quality". There is great overlap between the two image making techniques in all these areas; you will not find an absolute distinction between them by looking at any of these qualities. The difference between the two things is fundamental, not superficial. I agree that it's foolish to market physical photography as superior to digital imaging based on any superficial quality. I think that it should be valued because it is what it is.

I feel that even those few lay people who specifically ask for film, are not basing their desire on superficial qualities; they are asking for film because they want film. If they wanted some superficial quality of film, then surely digital masters would serve them an impeccable facsimile of that quality. In fact, if you see it the way I do, pretty much the majority of digital imaging consists of creating accurate facsimile of physical photography, although this situation is changing as more young people grow up exposed to digital imaging exclusively and begins to obtain its own 'looks' (like HDR).

[Marko]

questionable in theory and practice I say.

[...]

I agree with you here except for the part about "vastly greater permanence". I do believe one of the main benefits of digital tech is how it facilitates replicating information - not flawless, but almost always flawless.

Questionable in what way or aspect exactly? What do you mean by "almost flawless"?

When a digital file is copied, the copy is exactly the same, to the last bit, or the operation will fail. There is simply no question that an existing copy IS in fact flawless - if it weren't, it wouldn't exist.

All that needs to be done to ensure permanence of the information contained within the file is to make sufficient number of copies at reasonably spaced intervals at different physical locations. It doesn't even require persistent human attention beyond setting up an automated procedure and ensuring that the entire system is operating as it should.

The only truly "questionable" aspect in all that is the operator's competence - the human factor - but that is no different than with any other technology we use since the invention of the stone axe.

I think the idea of information being separate from it's media is simply incorrect. It's an illusion helped by the ease and fidelity of copying enabled by digital technology, the growing inexpensiveness of media , and by pop-culture-science writers.

Again, please elaborate. "Simply incorrect" how exactly?

If I take a CD (optical medium) and copy information stored on it to my hard drive (electro-magnetic medium) or my SSD (semi-conductor medium), and then FTP-it (electrical, opto-electrical and/or radio signal) to my web hosting service and to my cloud backup (another set of hard disks or SSD), I have just created three additional, fully identical, flawless copies on several different storage mediums that could easily be situated in three completely different parts of the physical world. And then each of those copies gets replicated, again flawlessly, several times over, every day or week at the least, provided that my computer, my web hosting service and my cloud storage are all set up for regular (and multiple) backups, as they should.

If that is not a complete separation of information from the containing physical media - each time it gets moved - I don't know what is.

When I loggin remotely to one of my office computers using either my laptop or my ipad or even my iphone and retrieve information, alter it in some way or the other and then send it back I know it is definitely not an illusion because all affected websites reflect the change.

Pop-culture writers have nothing to do with this, it is all just technology. The same one that is actually putting them out of business, so I would take whatever they say about it with a big bag of salt.

Digital information is lost every day and of course it's usually human error. But what is more error prone, keeping a can of film from getting too hot for n years or stewarding digital information for n years?

No, digital information is not lost every day. There is no such thing as "digital information" or "non-digital" information. Information is information, regardless of how it is stored. An image is an image and words are words. It's only the storage method that varies and even that is always physical. It's only the processing of that information that can be described as digital, chemical, physical or something else.

To answer your larger point - If I could set up an automated process to make a dozen perfect or flawless - as in "identical" - copies of that can of film every day and distribute them around the world in the same instant, there would be some merit to that question.

But I can't, nor can anybody else. It all comes down to preserving information. If that information is inseparable from the medium that contains it, then the physical properties of the medium become the limiting factor. And there is no physical medium that can last forever. Other than diamond, of course, but the cost of that medium would even more severely limit the preservation ability of the majority of currently existing information, photography included.

[Jay DeFehr]

Rory,

You misunderstand. Obviously film is important to we users of film, but that's not what this thread is about. This thread is about the viability of marketing film-made photography to the general public, and the general consensus seems to be that no one but film users care how an image is made. If you're using film instead of digital because you believe it will give you an edge in the marketplace, then you probably should chuck your kit. As your own post confirms, the people who care about film are the ones using film, whether they're new users, or long time users. If this thread was about how to get more people to use film, I think most of us would agree that demonstrating what can be done with film is as good an approach as any.

[Steve Smith]

Digital images are easier to store, duplicate, and archive

But once you stop regularly copying and updating, it will disappear quite quickly.


Steve.

[cyrus]

The idea that we won't be able to access digital data in the future because we no longer have the technology is a concern for some media but I think that the current generation will figure out how to deal with that.

Its not that we won't have the technology, its that the technology will be obsolete and therefore economically impractical to maintain/update. Heck I've got a bunch of files on 5.25" floppy disks sitting on a shelf - I haven't owned a floppy drive in more than 10 years tho & not about to find one.

As for permanence:

“Colour photography, among the fastest-growing artforms, is particularly in danger. ‘Our research shows that after 50 years colour photos deteriorate quickly and after 100 years they simply don’t exist,’ says Rolf Steiger, a Basel University scientist and technical consultant at the specialist photographic company Ilford Imaging.”

“This finding could have a huge impact on the art world, as collectors’ investments are potentially rendered worthless. ‘German artist Andreas Gursky’s photographs are selling for 1m, but they will not exist in 100 years’ time, so what value do they have?’ asks Claudio Cesar, an American collector of photographic art.”

[Marko]

Speaking of separation of content, I just noticed that the conversation has completely veered off topic again. Or maybe not. It all depends on what is the cause of all this anti-digital angst, possibly even including the original question in some way.

Is it the inability to understand and accept the new technology or simply the unwillingness to deal with the transition?

Back in my old journalistic days, one of my editors had a very simple principle for writing a good headline: write it, then write the exact, literal opposite and see if it makes sense. If it doesn't, than the original makes no sense either, so scrap it and write another one.

Extending it to photographs, a simple question to ask is: does a photograph such as any of these lose anything of its impact by being displayed in a newspaper, in a book, on a TV screen, computer screen or a billboard? Does the story it tells change with the medium?

Therein lies the answer to the OP, IMO. The real question is whether a business should be centered around the image or around the medium. There is nothing wrong with either, but they are two different crafts and two different business models.