digital Detox

joe bosak said:
Wow, I thought that was supposed to be impossible. Bad choice of words there, maybe "not possible" is less ambiguous.
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If you click on the "One Instant" link in my post you will see that each pack only contains one shot. The complex machines used for packaging the ten shot packs are gone, Polaroid and Fuji probably sold them off as scrap metal.
 
Retro-Grouch said:
In about 20 years, when cutting-edge pros and wanna-be amateurs have all shifted to "photography" created with AI, there will be articles about doing AI detox and returning to that quaint, retro, old-school digital. You know, where the photographer actually had to go out and point his or her camera at actual subject matter!
I call BS on all these film vs. digital arguments. Shoot whichever you like, make no apologies, and don't feel that there's the need to justify your position. Celebrate all of your fellow photographers, whatever their choice of tools, and appreciate all the wonderful work being done by both film and digital shooters. Go out and make images and stop squabbling.
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This.
I wonder if there’s anyone here reading the squabble (😂) and realising “shoot! What you’re saying is so true and I’ve always been wrong, I’ll immediately switch”
 
Disclosure: I shoot digital in Canon and Fuji. Film in 6x7, 4x5 and 8x10. I haven't shot anything in the the 6x7 or 4x5 for years. The 8x10 is more convenient, paradoxically. I am far too mobile to shoot anything but digital on the road or most other places. As a friend said, "Full-frame and 24 mp - it's not a bad place to be!"

It's interesting. There seems to be a thread (cough) of "Look, I do what I want and you should too." Healthy. I tend not to see whether something is analogue or digital. I just see the print - or the screen image, which is how a lot of my output is ultimately used. But hey, if you feel digital is toxic, that's fine too. I've got a wall of photo books! Where is the line between digital and its de-tox? paa-by-shane-adams.JPEG
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XOXO
 
boojum said:
I would not discourage you at all from pursuing your romantic photographic fantasies in any manner. Whatever floats your boat. And I have listened to folks limning the merits of film and exotic printing techniques. Some are adept at this. And their presented work is very nice. But, alas, in too many cases it is putting lipstick on a pig. But not always.

I can get the same enjoyment with digital without the delay, chemicals and fuss. I started playing with cameras when it meant I would spend all of Saturday in a large dark room lighted with a single bare red lightbulb. Bulk loaders with Plus-X were the thing. Tri-X came later. Color meant waiting weeks for Kodak to receive, process and return what had been shot. So "I have been there, done that, got the T-shirt, joined the fan club, etc., etc.,etc."

So we can both pursue our pleasures with cameras and do it in different ways.
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And I have friends who must have vinyl albums to play on stereos that cost more than a Ferrari (yes, seriously) and my army damaged ears will never tell the difference between that and a low bit rate mp3.

For what was 35mm, I far prefer my M 240 & my K5.

For MF, nothing yet beats my Rolleis or Super Ikonta.

Right tool for the right job.
 
Here we're all into cameras, so we're focusing on the film vs. digital discussion, but I think this goes beyond just that.

It's also about doing everything on a single device, creating content (stills and videos), streaming music, watching clips, social media, all on a single small screen that's becoming the center of your universe.

With analog, by its very nature, you have a single device per function; a camera, a turn table, a radio, a telephone. But even if the innards are not gears and springs but digital instead, an optimized device per function is conceptually similar. There's a bigger rift between a smartphone and an M240 than between an M240 and an M4.

That's what unites us here, no matter whether we chimp on the LCD after every shot or we have to wait a week for process and prints; the joy of consciously using the right tool for the right job.
 
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pvdhaar said:
Here we're all into cameras, so we're focusing on the film vs. digital discussion, but I think this goes beyond just that.

It's also about doing everything on a single device, creating content (stills and videos), streaming music, watching clips, social media, all on a single small screen that's becoming the center of your universe.

With analog, by its very nature, you have a single device per function; a camera, a turn table, a radio, a telephone. But even if the innards are not gears and springs but digital instead, an optimized device per function is conceptually similar. There's a bigger rift between a smartphone and an M240 than between an M240 and an M4.

That's what unites us here, no matter whether we chimp on the LCD after every shot or we have to wait a week for process and prints; the joy of consciously using the right tool for the right job.
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Queue in the roar of Apple's advertisement of crunching in all those single function devices into one...

The battlefield of Film vs Digital is not that relevant anymore, photographers are a minority, it's Computational Phone photography vs. the previous media. Film now has it's multiple niches per format and form factors. Sometimes I enjoy some schadenfreude sitting on the sidelines of the "AI vs real photography" discussions.
Upon reflecting, being of a "bridge generation" that has had presence in both analog and digital eras has been interesting and brings a perspective missing by the digitally native generation that came after. At 30 I consider myself more practical and pragmatic to the use of media, and it somehow makes sense to me.

However, Photography wise I might be a bit not so sound with the practicality as I have two Medium format Rangefinders plus a box with 3kg of 120 film that I am bringing for a month's travel. Romantic Foolishness is fun and silly!

However, the digital detox, tech sabbath, etc. is quite relevant regarding networks, social media and algorithm based interaction. In a decade, it's been a different landscape community wise yet forums such as RFF are part of the "Old web".
I ran into a thread about "where did the 2005-10 flickr community go?" and the conclusion is that the web and community ecosystem has just changed.
 
Prest_400 said:
I ran into a thread about "where did the 2005-10 flickr community go?" and the conclusion is that the web and community ecosystem has just changed.
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Not changed - destroyed.

Companies like Facebook/Meta and Twitter/X gave us convenience, but in doing so, they herded us into small gated communities where they control the medium and the message. Everything became a lot more ephemeral; one community I've been involved with since 2001 closed its web forum and moved to a Facebook group sometime around 2008. As a result, it's basically impossible to find anything of value within that community any more - posts just get pushed further and further down, and the built-in search functions are atrocious. Now, with the ease of which people can post videos on these platforms, there's a lot less discussion, too. People don't want to talk about things - they just want to drop their latest clip and walk away. That doesn't foster community, it only boosts egos - but it works for Meta, because video views are a metric they can use to sell advertising.

Outside of these ecosystems, in the internet at large, there's similar problems. I went to a vintage motorbike show at the weekend; on the way there, my friend was telling me about an early triple-exhaust Triumph that only came in orange and he couldn't remember the name of. No variation on those keywords in DuckDuckGo or Google would give me anything other than modern Triumphs and ecommerce listings. Same problem with Leica stuff, half the time; looking for information on a niche 1930s Leica accessory? Almost all of the top results will just be dealers and ecommerce sites. I normally have to go to the l-camera-forum wiki directly now.

The internet now is just adverts, bots, and AI-generated slop. It's depressing. I'm glad folks like Mike Eckman still have RSS feeds and a modern version of the old "blogroll". I didn't think we'd have to go back to such ancient ideas in the 2020s, but it's basically the only way to find any good-quality content on the internet now.

Now if you don't mind, I'm off to go and yell at clouds.
 
Flickr is very much the old internet. Built around communities of shared interest. Pre-algorithm, pre-influencer. When the internet moved into the world of infinite scrolling feeds, the old internet died. The people running the sites and apps knew they could maximize clicks (and thus ad revenue) by taking control of the feed and throwing away the community. They pretty quickly learned that they could get even more interaction by constantly showing us things we don't want or like than if they just let us see what our friends were posting. There's quite a few in tech who think that following friends is pointless, that we should just be spoon fed content that giant corporations want us to see and forget about everything else.
 
Coldkennels said:
Not changed - destroyed.
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And not merely community, but in a decade there are some quite impactful society and human relationship changes due to these and other platforms. You brought in good examples.
Coldkennels said:
The internet now is just adverts, bots, and AI-generated slop. It's depressing. I'm glad folks like Mike Eckman still have RSS feeds and a modern version of the old "blogroll". I didn't think we'd have to go back to such ancient ideas in the 2020s, but it's basically the only way to find any good-quality content on the internet now.

Now if you don't mind, I'm off to go and yell at clouds.
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I am almost 30 but also old, had to Google the term: Sludge content. Hyperspeed vertical video reel/short with some videogame occupying half the screen to capture your attention.
Instagram, under the scope of Meta, had a time where I enjoyed (2015-17) as it was photo friends' contacts and I could "prune the algorithm" resulting in quite a good feed of (film) photography plus a bit of other interests. Well, I long lost that, ditto:
Mos6502 said:
They pretty quickly learned that they could get even more interaction by constantly showing us things we don't want or like than if they just let us see what our friends were posting. There's quite a few in tech who think that following friends is pointless, that we should just be spoon fed content that giant corporations want us to see and forget about everything else.
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I hope Coldkennels continues to yell at the clouds, as want to avoid monsoon rains. Meanwhile I will bring those medium formats, shoot through the brought film and send postcards to friends at the end of the journey!
Back to the photography aspect and tied to the printed medium, I have always gotten very positive and appreciative reactions to sharing physical copies of photos. And all in all, I never liked posting my work online and have all but done it. I have always had a very introverted, private and reserved display of my photography.

And about the disconnect, I have two stories:
When I was a bank teller (2017), there was this elder gentleman that came a few times. We pitched the ATM to which he responded "But that machine is so cold, I want to interact with people". I have explained this one a couple times, with funny laughter reactions but, honestly to me, it is rather disturbing in its depth and meaning.

And another, with a then (2020) 20 so year old acquaintance: "I want a box to put away my phone for the nights". I thought that was a joke, but it was not.

Oh well, went a bit far away the branches... or not. At the end of the day isn't it the nature of humanity and its imperfections at the core?
 
I'm skeptical about any detoxes which involve consuming someone's product or service.

But maybe the biggest culprit of the General En$h!ttification of Things stares at us from the mirror: We may resent changes that are imposed on us, yet wind up devoting more of our money and our attention to these things, so our "No" is actually a "Yes".
 
The 'romantification' of film photography is just as absurd as the notion that 'digital is better and cheaper' means it is what we should do.

I use film, and I use digital. My goal is to make photographs, to engage in Photography, and each of these recording mediums has its plusses and minuses, each sees the world in a somewhat different way. Both cost a lot of money ... photography always did.

People want to descry the ruination of Art and Life with digital means, and rejuvenation with film? And people want to sing their hallelujahs for the cost effectiveness and capability of digital? And some want to make long videos expressing these viewpoints?

Good luck to all of them; I don't care. I'm doing my photography however it works for me.

G
 
Prest_400 said:
And not merely community, but in a decade there are some quite impactful society and human relationship changes due to these and other platforms. You brought in good examples.


When I was a bank teller (2017), there was this elder gentleman that came a few times. We pitched the ATM to which he responded "But that machine is so cold, I want to interact with people". I have explained this one a couple times, with funny laughter reactions but, honestly to me, it is rather disturbing in its depth and meaning.
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Not the only reason to insist, whenever possible, on the human interaction. A few years ago, our local market in the small rural town where I live initiated self-checkout lines and eliminated all but two staffed checkout registers. A number of jobs were eliminated, jobs that were much needed in that poor community and which kept the wages circulating in the local economy.
I insist on going to the staffed checkout. I want those jobs to remain, and I value the friendly smiles, the moments of chitchat, and the bits of local gossip that I exchange with the folks at the register. Those sorts of interactions are what bind a community together, and their existence is rapidly being eroded. The result? My news feed serves up stories bemoaning the "epidemic of loneliness" in America.
 
Digital has its uses especially for shooting street when 1/4000 shutter speed and high iso were useful. I shot b/w film for 30 years but between a digital image and no image I prefer the former. I did sell off my Q2M because I didn’t like the look. At least with the M10M I can tailor the look with vintage lenses. Anyway I still have most of my film cameras before my digital fling.
 
I do not discount digital photography. The world does not discount digital photography. There has to be a reason so many digital cameras are sold and so few film cameras are sold. While I understand that some folks enjoy the ritual and commotion of film I do not. I do not have a camera for the ritual and commotion. I just try to take a good picture. One that I enjoy as I am doing this for myself. It is if I were playing the piano. I do not have to be Paderewski or Rubinstein to enjoy playing the piano. And I am not trying to be a great maestro, or entertain audiences, I am trying to have fun, with a digital camera: instant gratification.

To extend the analogy of the piano further, it would be like playing a piece and waiting a week or more for the applause, my own or others. And with digital I can have all the fuss and bother with extensive image edits and the extensive wet darkroom work. With digital I get to choose. With analog(ue) I am stuck with the sodden baby, like it or not. And if I really want to exercise my artistic talents, shallow that they are, I can spend hours creating film profiles in the digital editors. With digital I get to choose. With analog(ue) WYSIWYG. I am not sure that color film negatives, or mono, can be corrected in post. Someone tell me if I am wrong.
 
Hi everyone,

I appreciate all the diverse perspectives shared here. Personally, I enjoy both digital and film, but the constant screen time makes me long for a digital detox. Has anyone here tried stepping away from all screens for a while? How did it feel?

Best,
Jasmine 💅
 
I take photos daily and I'm not wealthy. I can't afford to step away from digital photography.
 
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