Did you spend more time taking photographs/making prints before you bought a pc?

[GoodOldNorm]

Just a thought, did you spend more time taking photographs and working in a darkroom before you had a computer? I somtimes think of all the hours I have spent trawling through endless garbage on the web and wish I had spent it in the darkroom. Trouble is the web is very addictive, maybe a self imposed ban on using the computer may improve my printing.

 

[Keith]

Like television the internet can be destructive to creativity IMO and I know people who's lives seem to have condensed mainly down to these two activities ... my son is one of them unfortunately.

I see a future for myself without either occasionally ... it's all too easy here. I can imagine taking a photo that I like and having to go through a totally different process to be able to share it with others. Instead of scanning a negative or downloading a digital file and posting it on some cyber site that really only exists as a stream of data coming into my environment, I would actually have to get off my butt, print it in a darkroom and get out and about with the 'hard copy' if I want to share it/show it and possibly get confirmation that it's not a total waste of paper and resources.

I see this as my ideal and while these sorts of ideals can be total pie in the sky ... I don't dismiss the chance of it happening eventually. At the same time I would probably make the move to start growing as much of my own food as possible and trim back on what I regard as the excesses of modern living!

 

[cliffpov]

Its the same reason here in the U.S.A that over half of the school age kids are considered overweight or obese. Few get out and use the old bod's as they should be used. In our case we don't get out and use the old cameras the way they were designed as well.

Good thread and question to ask.

 

[semilog]

By the time I had my own camera, we had an Apple II...

 

[gavinlg]

Like television the internet can be destructive to creativity IMO and I know people who's lives seem to have condensed mainly down to these two activities ... my son is one of them unfortunately.

I couldn't agree more - I had this little idea a few weeks ago that part of the human condition is the need to create. Big capitalistic companies, at some point, realized that they could get humans to desire and buy things that they didn't need, and especially with TV and internet - managed to substitute mans need to create with mindless consumption.

The average american spends 3 years of his life straight watching TV ads.
The average american is exposed to 3000 ad's a day.

So instead of the creative drive we just mindlessly consume the garbage we're spoon fed.

So basically I've near stopped watching TV altogether (occasionally go to the cinema) and I've been on the internet a LOT less, and I've noticed a skyrocketing of my own creative drive.

In that respect, I wish digital photography was never invented. I wish I didn't have to sit at a computer for my job, but there's nothing I can do about it. I just try to keep it in perspective.

 

[amateriat]

I've gone back-and-forth: I've had some kind of computer since 1985 (scary thought, this...) and got hip to the Internets since about '94-95. There were periods when I took more photos in spite of this huge new distraction sitting on my desk...and periods when this thing sucked me in like the proverbial black hole.

And, it is a dilemma: I gave up TV over 30 years ago in part because of my increased involvement in photography (to paraphrase Ian Hunter, who needs TV when I've got TX?), and the feeling of liberation was so sweet, although few of my peers understood. Then came my first computer, but it was a crude C/PM box, worthy of little more than word processing, but, hey, it was cooler than my old Selectric. Then came a little Mac, then came another Mac, this time with a 9699 baud modem and a 3.5 inch "floppy" for something called America Online...

And, of course, the rabbit hole just got deeper, wider, and weirder...which leads us all here, eh?

But, on balance I'm happy the 'net is here, and Google, and RFF, and, hell, even LOLcats once in a great while. But there's still the burning need to grab the cameras, grab some film, grab the bike (or a train ticket), and get lost, leave the dasktop and laptop way, way behind for a day, maybe even two.

Of course, the BlackBerry is still hanging off my belt. But I turn that off when there's a camera in-hand. Usually.


- Barrett

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I've had a computer since I was a little kid, around the same time that I began shooting with a manual SLR at about age 8. I spend a lot more time photographing now than I did before I got a computer.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Horses for courses. Before computers I spent a LOT more time in the darkroom than I spend in front of a computer now (and I spend a lot of time at a computer because newspapers - my work - are very computer centric now). I'm not nostalgic about the good old days, though. These are the good old days. I can produce better prints faster than I ever could in the darkroom, and I was in a darkroom almost every day for 40 years.

As for computers and the Internet, while I tell everyone we would be much better off if progress had stopped in 1972 (and I really mean that), the reality is that the Internet has given photographers an outlet to share their work that is priceless! For most people, opportunities to share physical prints was extremely limited in the pre-computer, pre-Internet days. The Internet opened the door to an audience of millions. Yeah, there is a lot of crap out there, but there are the galleries here that make it all worth it.

 

[Stuart John]

Well I kind of went form spending evenings in the darkroom to sitting in front of a PC. I don't like television and could easily live without one mainly because there is usually nothing on that I am interested in watching.

 

[Keith]

Horses for courses. Before computers I spent a LOT more time in the darkroom than I spend in front of a computer now (and I spend a lot of time at a computer because newspapers - my work - are very computer centric now). I'm not nostalgic about the good old days, though. These are the good old days. I can produce better prints faster than I ever could in the darkroom, and I was in a darkroom almost every day for 40 years.

As for computers and the Internet, while I tell everyone we would be much better off if progress had stopped in 1972 (and I really mean that), the reality is that the Internet has given photographers an outlet to share their work that is priceless! For most people, opportunities to share physical prints was extremely limited in the pre-computer, pre-Internet days. The Internet opened the door to an audience of millions. Yeah, there is a lot of crap out there, but there are the galleries here that make it all worth it.

On the web it (photography) is diluted to the point where it's almost meaningless IMO ... like pouring a shot of Jaimesons into a swimming pool. A few will pretend they can taste it in the water because they need to believe it does actually exist and still has some meaning!

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Well, Keith, one thing for sure. Without the Internet, there would be far fewer photographers. Before digital cameras and the Internet, photography had grown pretty moribund. Perhaps the Internet lowered the level of photographic discourse, but it has sold lots of cameras.

 

[Arjay]

I used to spend some time in a darkroom when I was a kid, but I remember always being very frustrated of the limited possibilities for image manipulation we had back then (I'm speaking of the 1960ies and 1970ies, when I was in high school or a university student). So I resorted to shooting slides and being very selective in what I shot (slide films were bloody expensive in relation to my financial means).

I have used computers for all of my professional life, intensely from 1985 onward, and started using image editors as soon as normal PCs became powerful and usable enough around the year 2000. Finally, I can do pp the way I always wanted, and that has profoundly changed my shooting (and editing) style - even if you won't be able to see it directly in my pictures (I try to do it quite gently in a rather 'analog' way).

TV is a completely different thing altogether: Not an alternative to using the internet or doing pp. We're lucky in Germany to have very high-quality TV programs, so I use it very selectively to get the latest on arts, politics and culture in general.

So, where do I spend most of my spare time? Probably on my computer, either researching more detail about things I saw on TV, browsing RFF or doing pp. You may not be able to directly tell this in my pictures, but that's what I like about well done pp: it just looks like competently done photography - just like it did in the old analog times for people that had enough money (and time) to do it in the old way.

That would never have been possible for me using a wet lab. So, I do indeed welcome those new technologies.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

On the web it (photography) is diluted to the point where it's almost meaningless IMO ... like pouring a shot of Jaimesons into a swimming pool. A few will pretend they can taste it in the water because they need to believe it does actually exist and still has some meaning!

I disagree. The net has been a godsend to serious artists. Before, you had to go begging galleries to show your work, and they felt there were too many artists already and were simply not interested in even talking to people most of the time. Having a website has gotten my work in front of audiences who are putting money in my hand for my work. I have lived most of my life in a place where art and creativity has literally NO VALUE, so I had no audience and no income. The net has given me the ability to support myself (though it took several years of struggle to get there) and literally saved my life because I would have long ago starved in the streets here without the connections that the internet has brought me.

 

[MCTuomey]

thanks to chris for pointing out what's evident: like any tool, the value of the internet depends on how you use it.

is there value in kids spending hours using the internet's social media? i'm not sure but when i was a kid, if parents permitted it, some children spent a lot of time on the telephone. what's the difference?

if anything, the internet changes our dependency on brick-and-mortar exchanges. i stream a film and don't visit a theatre. i research photographic material on the web, not in a library. Etc.

the internet has made me a better photographer. i have a more efficient path to other's experiences and knowledge that they're willing to share. wonderful place to learn, in my view.

 

[jsrockit]

The only problem I have with the internet is that it makes me spend cash... Honestly, I have loved the move from wet darkroom work to lightroom. I don't care if I ever print in a darkroom again.

 

[muf]

Well, Keith, one thing for sure. Without the Internet, there would be far fewer photographers.

Not having that! I think the internet just provides us with more sight of the photographers. The teens and adults many years ago had camera's and took pictures just like todays teens and adults. Hell, todays adults were those same teens from years ago. I don't think digital camera's and the internet have spawned more photographers, it's just easier to see their work now and realise just how many people are 'into it'.

Paul

 

[johannielscom]

I started out in photography eight, nine years ago. I liked shooting film but had everything printed by my local shop and it sure cost me the cash.

My photography only took off after I started to shoot digital.

So quite the opposite, I started shooting more when computers came into play.