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  #21  
Old 17th May 2014, 08:32 PM
ymgandy ymgandy is offline
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Composing, exposing, developing, fixing, drying & then examining the negatives are all stages which can be ruined. The chosen negative then can be printed in a hundred different ways. Every stage has room for error but if in the end you end up with what you were trying to achieve every stage is a small measure of skill/ knowledge/ experience & every stage is a small thrill of satisfaction. There is also the pleasure in handling a camera that is almost totally mechanical, usually well made and capable of doing what it was made for years ago. It is also the tool you chose to do the job. It is total commitment and involvement in the end result which you can point to and say I made that.
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  #22  
Old 17th May 2014, 09:32 PM
big paul big paul is offline
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as I usually do when out today I went in to a charity shop and had a look through there second hand singles and LP,s with one pound exchanged I walked out with an LP,,,,, bad company , straight shooter ,,,,I can hold it I can smell it I can see it ,it exists, to store it I put it on my shelf to play it I use basic engineering and electronics a record player and a amp and speakers ,that I have owned since the 1980s ,over than the CD and MD recorder , my son buys iTunes and down loads them to his pc ,they don't exist you cannot hold them it cost money to keep them ,
film is the same in a lot of instances to records ,when I press the shutter on a digital camera ,I have to start juggling digital files here and there load then to a cd or a hard drive or memory stick ,and as soon as something goes wrong I loose my digital images ,I have my negatives in ring binders ,I have lost some negs over the years but I still have most ,from the early 1970s onward also it cost me nothing to see them ,I don't have to spend large amounts of money on computers ,remembering passwords ,upgrading new programs .I may have to spend on film chemicals paper but I end up with something that is real and tangible ,I have had 5 enlargers ,I still have three of them and I have paid about four hundred pounds for them, tanks and trays last forever and don't need upgrading every now and then... and don't think that digital is free they have to spend money as well ,if digital did not make money it would not have been invented ,digital photography makes camera company's millions of pounds a year ,so somebody is spending money on digital ...I am old fashion if I go in a shop and spend money I like to walk out with something ,but I like to work in the darkroom with chemicals and paper as apposed to computer and printer ,if other people like digital well good luck to them but I like film .all the above is my opinion , I hope that has answered you question ....



www.essexcockney.com
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  #23  
Old 18th May 2014, 12:21 AM
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Maris Maris is offline
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The question is I reckon bigger than film. Film is just the starting point for an entire system of making pictures out of light sensitive materials; this specifically as opposed to doing them some other way. Recently I had a gallery exhibition of photographs with the sub-theme "guaranteed no digital". My lectern notes form, I guess, a mini-thesis of principles. Reading them is a bit heavy so allow for the fact they were spoken with the usual rhetorical flourishes, asides, and quips.

In Defence of Light-Sensitive Materials

The word photography was invented to describe what light sensitive materials deliver: pictures that offer a different class of imaging from painting, drawing, or digital methods. True photographs are pictures made out of light sensitive materials.

The content of such pictures is the visible trace of a direct physical process. This is sharply different to painting, drawing, and digital imaging where picture content is the visible output of processed data. Apart from photography other imaging methods that do not use data processing of content include life casts, death masks, brass rubbings, wax impressions, coal peels, papier-maché moulds, and footprints.

In the world today there is a general idleness of thought that assumes any picture beginning with a camera is a photograph. Most casual references to digital pictures as photographs are motivated not by deceit but rather by the innocent and uncritical acceptance of the jargon “digital photography”; a saying which has become so banal and familiar that it largely passes unchallenged; except perhaps here, now, and by me.

I use light sensitive substances to make pictures because of the special relationship between such pictures and their subject matter. The wonder of this special relationship is also available to the aware viewer. Photography is not the only means of making realistic looking pictures. There are lots of other methods including photo-realist painting, mezzotint, gravure, offset printing, and analogue and digital electronic processes. Sometimes these pictures may resemble photographs but none of them invoke the unique one-step physical bond that binds a subject to a true photograph of it.

The physical and non-virtual genesis of pictures made from light-sensitive substances has far-reaching consequences:

Light sensitive materials are utterly powerless in depicting subject matter that does not exist. A true photograph of a thing is an absolute certificate for the existence of that thing; an existence proof at the level of physical evidence. Quite differently, data-based pictures are at best a form of witness testimony rather than forensic evidence.

Light-generated pictures require that the subject matter and the substances that will depict it have to be in each other’s presence at the same moment. True photographs cannot be fashioned to depict times past. The future is similarly inaccessible. Since true photographs can only begin their existence at the time of exposure (in the fleeting present) they constitute an absolute certificate that a particular moment in time actually existed.

Light-sensitive materials are blind to the imaginary, the topography of dreams, and the shape of hallucinatory visions. The option of making a picture from light sensitive materials is an infallible way of distinguishing delusion from reality. A true photograph authenticates the proposition that the camera really did see something.

Light-sensitive substances do not offer discretionary editing or augmentation of subject matter content. There is a one to one correspondence between points in a true photograph and places in real-world subject matter. This correspondence, also known as a transfer function, is immutable if only the subject matter changes.

The sole energy input for a true photograph comes from the subject. The internal chemical potential energy of the light-sensitive substances is already sufficient to generate all the marks of which a photograph is composed. External energy sources are not obligatory. Remember, photography was invented in, described in, and works perfectly in a world without electricity.

Pictures made from light sensitive materials are different to paintings, drawings, and digital confections in that their authority to describe subject matter comes not from resemblance but from direct physical causation.

It is these unique qualities of true photography, its limitations and its profound certainties, that keep me committed to the medium as an integral and original form.

My light-made pictures are produced one at a time, start to finish, and in full by my own hand. The work flow is mine. No part of it is down to assistants or back-room people toiling to flatter my skills so I will feel good about paying their fee. I’m committed to making pictures out of light-sensitive substances even if they cease to be commercially available. I will synthesize those substances myself if needs be.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen. You have been a patient and tolerant audience. I commend the exhibition to your critical inspection.
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The word Photography first uttered and defined by its author Sir John Herschel at Somerset House, London on the evening of March 14, 1839: quote "Photography or the application of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of pictorial representation" unquote.
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  #24  
Old 18th May 2014, 06:42 AM
Paulographic Paulographic is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by richardw View Post
I can't paint or draw very well so I make photographs...

RR
I can draw and paint well but have always liked cameras, film cameras that is and 120 rollfilm in particular despite the ease of 35mm, and consider darkroom printing another means of graphic expression. I have no problem with digital photography, I have to use it for various purposes. I will be doing so later today but there'll be several film cameras operating side by side with one digital. After editing, backing up and proof printing my digital pictures I lose interest in them but I return to my favourite negatives reprinting them and they will always look different every time.
I haven't a film camera less than twenty years old, one is pre WWII.
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  #25  
Old 18th May 2014, 09:19 AM
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MartyNL MartyNL is offline
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As many people have already referenced to analogue photography feels more involved, feels more natural and human and hence have more "soul".
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  #26  
Old 18th May 2014, 09:45 AM
MikeHeller MikeHeller is offline
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a) I have a lot of money and effort invested in my darkroom, none more so than during the flight from film to digital when film and D/R equipment became available that previously I could only dream of. Meanwhile, the digital explosion predecated on the increasingly throwaway sensibilities which for me are morally suspect on many levels and went against the grain.

b) I like film cameras particularly manual cameras, many of which are things of beauty in their own right and do the job I want of them without relying on increasingly complex, unreliable and unnecessary bells and whistles to make them 'attractive'.

c) I like the anticipation of results that the enforced delay between taking a photograph, working in the D/R and seeing the final product that come from the use of 'analogue' processses; the very antithesis to the instant nature of digital capture and processing.
Mike
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  #27  
Old 18th May 2014, 09:48 AM
paulc paulc is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Maris View Post
Light sensitive materials are utterly powerless in depicting subject matter that does not exist. A true photograph of a thing is an absolute certificate for the existence of that thing; an existence proof at the level of physical evidence.

Light-generated pictures require that the subject matter and the substances that will depict it have to be in each other’s presence at the same moment.[...] they constitute an absolute certificate that a particular moment in time actually existed.

Light-sensitive materials are blind to the imaginary, the topography of dreams, and the shape of hallucinatory visions.
Ignoring for the time being transparencies, if we assume the final print is the photograph, the work of Jerry Ulsmann and others challenges your viewpoint. Indeed, selective printing from multiple negatives to produce a print has been around since the earliest days of photography. Even with a single negative, various darkroom techniques can be utilised to change the perceived feel of a photograph, for example, burning in a sky to add "drama" or spotting out a small "blip".

With transparencies, the likes of Disney has delighted children and adults by merging live action with animation in glorious Technicolor.

Bottom line is how does one define a photograph:
  • A print resulting from a chemical process that accurately depicts a moment and place in time ?
  • A print from a chemical process that shows an interpretation of a scene ?
  • A print, utilising chemical or digital processes to represent a scene, real or imaginary ?
  • None of the above ?

Food for thought perhaps.
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  #28  
Old 18th May 2014, 10:05 AM
sbandone sbandone is offline
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I use both film and digital technologies. Whilst digital is very enabling and flexible, permitting easy correction of blemishes and unwanted people!- the resultant prints lack the luminosity and depth of blacks that a silver print can achieve. You are less likely to lose negatives than digital files, that can be lost in a second or through failure of a drive.
I only use film for Black & White work however and would not consider using film for colour work any longer, as the digital process in my view produces superior results for most purposes
Silver printing is a craft process and can be done relatively cheaply ( equipment wise). If you consider that the resolution that can be achieved using a Mamiya 7 6x7 camera with suitable film and development, roughly equates to that of a £35K Phase One Medium Format digital back, then the case for film stands!
I have no intention of selling my darkroom gear despite seductive new digital offerings appearing on the market
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  #29  
Old 18th May 2014, 11:25 AM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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Wow! I didn't expect so many replies so soon!

Each of you have given your own personal reasons as to why you use film instead of / alongside of / in preference to digital and I thank you.

All I can say is keep your views coming, they are much appreciated.

Terry S
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  #30  
Old 18th May 2014, 01:23 PM
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JamesWhinfrey JamesWhinfrey is offline
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It's a question close to people's hearts Terry :-)

For myself, I'm a returnee after a total absence from photography of about 20 years, so the digital revolution passed me by. On my return I picked up my old Pentax and started again.

I agree wholeheartedly with those who've said that it's like cooking, and an escape from working on the computer that dominates much of my time.

I shoot film because of how it, the cameras, and the whole analogue process makes me feel.

It feels like doing science. The sort that we used to do in school chemistry classes, and that the pioneers of photography did, with glassware and reagents. You have to keep your own notes as you go since the image can't tell you later, and you learn from that. I love that feeling.

It also feels like artistry. I'm using my imagination and some relatively simple tools to create something tangible. That helps me see the world around me, without the tools getting in the way by being helpful. And I love that feeling too.

There's peace in it. I approach my photography as a slow process - less is definitely more in my case - taking my time to plan out what I'm doing. Standing at the kitchen window processing monochrome film can be surprisingly relaxing, albeit less so with colour ;-) And at the end of it I've got something physical that I've made... which makes me smile, even when it's gone wrong. That never happens with my computer!

Sorry, that sounds pretty woolly reading it back, but I do think it sums up my relationship with film. I'm an amateur photographer. I don't have deadlines to meet. I do this for the love of it, so efficiency isn't a concern. I wouldn't be a photographer without film.

James
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