Topic: "7 Vanishing Technologies Making a Comeback through Art"

[Ed Wenn]

We seem to be slowly building up a head of steam again. Nice!!

https://www.artsy.net/artsyeditorial3786

"According to a 2015 article in TIME, the volume of film produced for the U.S. market has decreased by 98% in the past decade. For the average consumer, the convenience and economy of digital photography put the nail in film’s coffin, and the popularity of smartphones with high-resolution cameras buried it. However, analog photography’s ability to capture detail, as well as its authenticity, has kept it popular among dedicated amateurs and artists. (Take a spin through the popular I Still Shoot Film photography blog, and you’ll see for yourself.) Young people represent film’s potentially fastest-growing market, with a recent survey showing that 30% of film users are reportedly under the age of 35. Film offers structure (a limited number of exposures per roll), but even still you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get out of any given set of shots. Light leaks, optical distortion, unintentional double exposures, chemical stains—there are endless possibilities for happy accidents that often yield unexpected but desirable outcomes."

[Late Developer]

Ed, agreed - but all that tripe about coffins and burials makes us film users sound like the living dead 

It'd be a lot more constructive if journalists would just stick to the point that whilst digital can offer a lot of things - primarily immediacy and convenience, film has never gone away and remains as credible as ever, if people care to use it.  Moreover, there's no law to say that photographers are only allowed to use one medium to the absolute exclusion of the other. 

[AJShepherd]

Moreover, there's no law to say that photographers are only allowed to use one medium to the absolute exclusion of the other.

Reading comments on film-related stories on other websites you often see people who seem to find it a personal insult that anyone should want to use film. You could imagine them going "Hey, we have cars now. Let's kill all the horses!"

[chris667]

I've recently joined a photography club.

Everyone is really friendly, but some of them take every opportunity to tell me how much more sophisticated their digital cameras are than my film ones, and question why I should take such a backwards step. Last time I went, one of them told me I was "misguided", as film cameras were "functionally better in every respect". He didn't mean to cause offence, but seemed genuinely mystified.

Thing is, you still can't repair images that are bad to begin with. When computers can fix bad composition, or out of focus images, then I will consider film dead.

And if you do go out taking photographs with them, they all frame their photo, take their photo, then spend the next five minutes staring at it on the back of a their cameras. It's like those families who go out to dinner but spend all their time at the  who spend all their time at the restaurant Facebooking each other. Each to their own, I guess, but if your head is somewhere other than where you are at that moment, what is the point in being there?

For me, film photography is much more of a mindful process. And in a world where everything is vying to get your attention, that's a real asset. Perhaps others are feeling that too.

[Late Developer]

I've recently joined a photography club.

Everyone is really friendly, but some of them take every opportunity to tell me how much more sophisticated their digital cameras are than my film ones, and question why I should take such a backwards step. Last time I went, one of them told me I was "misguided", as film cameras were "functionally better in every respect". He didn't mean to cause offence, but seemed genuinely mystified.

Thing is, you still can't repair images that are bad to begin with. When computers can fix bad composition, or out of focus images, then I will consider film dead.

And if you do go out taking photographs with them, they all frame their photo, take their photo, then spend the next five minutes staring at it on the back of a their cameras. It's like those families who go out to dinner but spend all their time at the  who spend all their time at the restaurant Facebooking each other. Each to their own, I guess, but if your head is somewhere other than where you are at that moment, what is the point in being there?

For me, film photography is much more of a mindful process. And in a world where everything is vying to get your attention, that's a real asset. Perhaps others are feeling that too.

I couldn't agree more, Chris. 

The staring at the back of a camera thing is generally referred to as "chimping" - e.g. everyone standing around going "oooh, oooh, oooh, aaah, ahhh, aaah".  Usually very funny to watch.  My digicam's screen is left "off".

I joined a local camera club a few years ago but left after a couple of months as the place was just crammed with digital "evangelists".  They'd even gone as far as insisting that all competition entries were to be digital files, projected through a digital projector - which, at the time, wasn't very good when it came to colour rendition and highlight / shadow detail.

They were decent photographers - they even won a £3,000 first prize as part of a national competition through some digital photography magazine - but I've never been one to follow a herd unless I think it's the right thing to do.  They refused, point-blank, to accept that film had anything to offer which just made me all the more determined to stick with film.  I 'll never understand why some people have such closed minds.

[Chalky]

a good friend of mine is in PR etc and gets notified of upcoming articles/features that need input from experts in certain areas, I wrote some text for her this week on a call for an article on the 'resurgence of film photography' (although I'm far from an expert and I don't think they are using it)  - but there is going to be an article on that in a free daily UK newspaper soon, not sure which one.

[Francois]

The thing with these Digi evangelists is that their opinion is based on their ignorance of the other option and the fear of maybe not being absolutely right. So they comfort themselves by preaching.
One thing I've seen that I thought was rather funny is a video on YouTube in which they took a digital only photographer and has her use an old praktica! It was something to see!

[Late Developer]

The thing with these Digi evangelists is that their opinion is based on their ignorance of the other option and the fear of maybe not being absolutely right. So they comfort themselves by preaching.
One thing I've seen that I thought was rather funny is a video on YouTube in which they took a digital only photographer and has her use an old praktica! It was something to see!

In some cases, yes - but the crowd at the camera club I joined were in roughly the same age group as myself at the time (40- 55) and all had owned and used film extensively before "going digital". This was 10 years ago when digital photography was very much in the ascendant but the sheep-like following of new technology was almost cult-like and I felt very unwelcome.

[Francois]

I don't blame you.
The only camera club I've ever been to a meeting of would assign the scores based on the value of your camera and the number of digits on your income tax form...

[John Robison]

I have a OM-1 with a big bright easy to focus 1-10 matte w/grid screen. When I can unclip the film back and clip on a digital back........then I'll try digital,......for a bit,......maybe.
Because you see, my OM-1 has a lot of good things that you can't even get on most DSLR's, like a metal body, a shutter speed ring, aperture ring, real manual focus (not fly by wire). My lenses have DoF scales and focus distance scales, amazing things not found on many modern lenses. Most amazing of all, it's over 40 years old and is still not outdated or inoperative. And, for $5 l can buy a small metal can with 36 brand new sensors!

[cs1]

Fortunately, film photography sort of promotes itself. I used to exclusively work with digital cameras before watching ManuelL doing his "film thing". The whole process (carefully taking the photo because you can't pixel peep and simply keep on snapping before you get it right, enjoying the development process because it gives you a childish satisfaction when images show up on the negatives) has its charm and allure. And there're obviously quite a large number of people who fall for film photography. Otherwise there wouldn't be any good reason why new films show up on the market and old films get revived.

The only thing that I find utterly annoying is the process of digitising the results. Negative scanners are either rubbish or they're really expensive. And it takes ages to scan and post process the photos. I really hope that, due to the new film photography trend, some company will come up with a great new scanning technique that is affordable and yields nice results. Sure, one could simply stick to developing the negatives and making paper prints - but the digital age is here and I think scanning the negatives is more or less unavoidable. But that's just my personal opinion.

[rpmdrd]

I am apart of a local group here that are film enthusiasts their knowledge is extensive and sometimes a troll comes to the group to take pot shots of the group of them being better as they were using digital gear. although the group recognizes the advances of technology they believe that the end result is important than the gear used and film is just the tool of the trade they have chosen to create such results. I do have the same sentiments and not a hypocrite by using digital gear, in the end it is all about respect of process and tools that makes  photography worthwhile.