Slow Down

[Bill Pierce]

In the past threads we’ve been discussing film vs digital cameras. I’m more concerned about print vs the digital image on our computers. There are a lot of pictures out there. In the past, for the most part, there were only family albums and prints on the wall of your home, published pictures in newspapers, magazines and books, museums, galleries and, I suppose we shouldn’t leave out billboards and posters. The internet and the ease of posting digital images to it has added to that in extreme. We are up to our you know what’s in pictures. While the number of pictures in some venues have decreased, the number of pictures we are exposed to has increased greatly. Sadly, in many, many fields, not just photography, volume up - overall quality down. And with the internet anybody can not only post pictures, but can say, “I am exceptionally talented and I say these pictures are very good.” even when the quality is going down. If enough people say that about enough pictures, chances are some pretty mundane images are being overpraised and perhaps changing what the public thinks is a good picture.

And on the home front, the digital camera allows you to expose a lot of frames very rapidly, something you couldn’t do with film unless you were using a Hulcher. Film photographers did and do spend a little more time framing and looking for the moment. You tend to do that when it’s going to take a little time to wind the film to your next frame. But it’s also possible with a digital camera. Why, in many cases, has it been replaced by shooting a burst of digital frames without thinking - just praying that something interesting will happen while you have the shutter button pressed down. You know who does that? Me. And it scares the hell out of me.

David Vestal was a very good photographer and a very wise man. He once said, “Less is not more. Less is less and more is more.” I think this is one of the few times I disagree with David. These digital days less is more. Your thoughts?

 

[xayraa33]

David Vestal was also a very good wet darkroom printer....I think this is all a moot point now in our era, Bill...everyone has a very good camera in their pocket or purse ( cell phone) that can take many photos fast and numerous with little effort..whether they are great shots or humdrum snapshots is anyone's guess. We have to accept the era or time frame we live in now.

 

[jsrockit]

You have to find your avenue … and show your photos there. Find the audience you want if possible. At least the internet allows one to find AN audience. It’s that simple…

 

[Bill Pierce]

David Vestal was also a very good wet darkroom printer....

David was also a very good inkjet printer, too. I have some of his prints taken with a digital camera and printed on inkjet. This was one of the first things that made me realize how print quality comes from the printer, not the print material. This afternoon I was picking up the mail and a photographer acquaintance passed by walking his dog. His prime camera is a film Hasselblad. One of the things we talked about was his admiration for a well known photographer friend who shoots digital. There have always been differences in gear. There's a difference between a view camera that shoots 8x10 sheet film and a film Leica that shoots 35mm cartridges. I think you pick the camera that works for you. I think you pick the print medium that works for you. I think the critical quality factor is the photographer, not the camera or the print material.

 

[xayraa33]

David was also a very good inkjet printer, too. I have some of his prints taken with a digital camera and printed on inkjet. This was one of the first things that made me realize how print quality comes from the printer, not the print material. This afternoon I was picking up the mail and a photographer acquaintance passed by walking his dog. His prime camera is a film Hasselblad. One of the things we talked about was his admiration for a well known photographer friend who shoots digital. There have always been differences in gear. There's a difference between a view camera that shoots 8x10 sheet film and a film Leica that shoots 35mm cartridges. I think you pick the camera that works for you. I think you pick the print medium that works for you. I think the critical quality factor is the photographer, not the camera or the print material.

Very true , Bill ...in photography it matters little of the technology of the given era...as many fine photos and prints are found from 19th century photographers working with cumbersome collodion and albumen printing paper on the spot...heck even some daguerreotypists managed this feat in the 1840s where the polished silver coated copper plate is the print...the photographer/printer is the key..his/her skills trumps any new fangled gadget or latest whiz-bang technology in the photographic arts.

 

[Ronald M]

People think "fix in post." Only partially works. I have many digital cameras and expose like my Zone IV or any 35 mm film camera. Who wants to process a bunch of "bad" frames or even cull them out.

 

[Dogman]

I shoot more frames with digital than I did with film. All my cameras are set to continuous shooting but I don't "spray and pray"--I'm careful with framing and composing the elements in my photos. I don't see a downside to shooting a number of frames unless you're incapable of editing your own work and cannot decide what's good and what's not. The best tool in Lightroom is the "Delete" button.

Come to think of it, I shot motor-driven film cameras the same way. They shot fewer FPS so I exposed fewer frames, of course. Don't guess my working methods have changed all that much over the years despite the technology.

 

[Timmyjoe]

When shooting sports, the continuous setting is a huge help, otherwise, my cameras are set to single shot. I remember getting my first motor drive for an SLR, and although it could shoot an astonishing 5 frames per second, the biggest advantage I found was that I could advance the film without taking my eye away from the viewfinder.

As things were going downhill in the last couple of decades for photojournalism, I remember talking to a photo editor about why the newspaper was cutting back on paid shooters, he said that because the internet has saturated the visual environment with mediocre imagery, readers (customers) were used to mediocre images, so the newspaper figured they could save money by no longer paying experienced photojournalists, and could use images "photographers" sent in for free. Kinda sad really.

I still like taking my time and trying to make high quality images, for myself if for no one else. And film is the medium I'm most familiar with.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Saganich]

I'm not sure I agree. The images I see on the internet that are attached to professional endeavors, photojournalism, essays, etc., seem to be very high quality and there seems to be a lot more of that than say 20 - 30 years ago. This may be a generational issue, where large numbers of younger people are now using the latest tools of the trade. I see a lot of excellent work...too good sometimes. But I think the point of the OP was that slowing down doesn't have anything to do with frames per second but taking the time to think out and position yourself within situations that allow great images show up for you.

 

[jsrockit]

Why, in many cases, has it been replaced by shooting a burst of digital frames without thinking - just praying that something interesting will happen while you have the shutter button pressed down. You know who does that? Me. And it scares the hell out of me.

I'm not sure if this is one of those myths or not. Sure, the beginner might use this method, but I do not know any serious photographers who do this when not doing sports or something like that. It just makes editing ridiculous.

 

[Coldkennels]

I'll admit that I've swapped to the 8fps mode on my X-Pro 2 while shooting skateboard stuff more times than I'd like. But the reason isn't one of convenience... it's that I don't really trust it to get the "perfect shot" in single shot mode.

I can shoot skate tricks with a Contax II, a Leica III, a TLR, a Hasselblad, or even a box Brownie and know that I'm getting exactly the moment I wanted. I've never had that with a digital camera, whether SLR or mirrorless. There's always the tiniest bit of lag and uncertainty, even with manual focus. I guess I might be able to get used to it given enough time, but having to pre-empt the delay in electronic systems drives me up the wall. Continuous shooting takes that out of the equation. And I hate it.

 

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Interesting thought there Mr Pierce. I recently got myself an A9 so I could keep up with the growing grandkids. I'm finding that the shear volume of shots when on 'medium' is almost over whelming, both for me and my computer. I guess I'll have to try going back to 'single shot' mode and see what I get.
As for printing, I can still remember the pleasure I got a long time ago when I was able to print some photo's I'd taken on my home printer. When they turned out as good as what I would have expected from a photo lab I was quite pleased with them. I thought then that I might just be able to get this photography thing after all.

 

[Erik van Straten]

With a film M-Leica or a Leica LTM it is not hard to get exactly the right moment, see the earliest shots by Cartier-Bresson.

gelatin silver print (summaron 35mm f3.6) leica m5

Erik.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Martin Par is teaching young photographers to take a lot pf exposers. You can't learn without trial and error.
https://erickimphotography.com/blog...-parr-can-teach-you-about-street-photography/
One of Inspired Eye editors is telling to take warm up pictures.
Makes sense to me.
I was clueless on film, not sufficient to learn. Got DSLR and learned by taking 50K pictures in couple of years. Even won international contest prize and been published.

Another known, French American photos introduced "dross" word to me. I don't mind technical photos at all. To show how lens renders, film grain, high ISO examples and so on. As many as we want.
But.
Dross comes then we supposed to have some shared image thread. Yet, it turns to one man dross show just because he can't hold it. We have threads like this here and I have seen them at another forums. Dudes, just slow it down, if you can't, leave this threads and open your own. My best, as I see it, sin city and so on.

 

[Axel]

Slowing down in digital photography is easy an I did it years ago. One nice aspect of digital is that I can shoot one or two pictures and I
don´t have to wait until I shot an entire film to see the results.
We are around 8 billions of people on this planet actually, using phones, cameras and the web to show and share pictures.
A lot of pictures that doesn´t scare me.
We have the best technical performance ever in photography and very much very good photographers.
For me it´s a joy to see all that good pictures 🙂
Maybe it is a bit harder to find my favorites because of the sheer amount. But hey, I mean this is a "luxury problem" 😉 isn´t it?

 

[kbb]

Why, in many cases, has it been replaced by shooting a burst of digital frames without thinking - just praying that something interesting will happen while you have the shutter button pressed down. You know who does that? Me. And it scares the hell out of me.

There is a big difference between a photographer intuitively (and judiciously) using high frame rates vs. an instrumentation camera setup that records whatever it is pointed at. We all know that some worthwhile photos have been created by photographers NOT looking at/through a finder as they shoot; not "thinking" while spraying at 10 FPS might be a path to something interesting. Personally, I wouldn't want to wade through all those files.
There is a shooting technique that I call 'Statistical Shooting', where you shoot multiple frames (3 or 4, maybe 6 frames for me) in order to decrease the chance that camera shake/subject movement will spoil the shot. Digital makes this possible at zero cost, unlike film.

 

[mapgraphs]

A design instructor, speaking to the motley collection of ultra talented and/or self motivated kids who made the ten percent cut for admissions put it this way, to paraphrase: it's not what you make, it's what you show. I spent the next five years starting to learn what not to show...

 

[Evergreen States]

I started out with film as a teenager because I couldn't afford a digital camera. I was unsophisticated and did not appreciate the experience. The lion's share of my growth as a photographer came when I was able to transition to digital. Being able to take lots of pictures and evaluate them allowed me to learn faster than I would if I stuck with film. Experimentation is cheap with digital, expensive on film. I have since gotten back into film and shoot it alongside my digital cameras. I shoot my Fujifilm X-Pro cameras single shot and mostly use 2GB SD cards to restrict myself from wasting shots. If I'm away from home, I will use larger capacity cards. Most of my pictures are still awful.

 

[Dogman]

A design instructor, speaking to the motley collection of ultra talented and/or self motivated kids who made the ten percent cut for admissions put it this way, to paraphrase: it's not what you make, it's what you show. I spent the next five years starting to learn what not to show...

That right there is an example of good sense. Everything else doesn't matter.

 

[Bill Pierce]

A design instructor, speaking to the motley collection of ultra talented and/or self motivated kids who made the ten percent cut for admissions put it this way, to paraphrase: it's not what you make, it's what you show. I spent the next five years starting to learn what not to show...

I got a chance once to look at some Bresson contact sheets. I think some have also been posted to the web. He shot a lot of film and made few selects. It’s hard to say, “Nice try, but it didn’t work.” But he did it. With continuous burst shooting replacing the thumb wind, Bresson’s discipline has probably become an imperative for a lot of us.