hepcat
Former PH, USN
I have had an epiphany of sorts.
I am not a purist, nor am I particularly opinionated in the film-digital debates. After almost fifteen years with digital, I am returning to film. Not exclusively; I'll still shoot digital as is necessary commercially (and personally when I'm being lazy,) but I've bought some film gear back to use actively. Let me explain.
I am kind of an old timer. I got interested in photography in high school in 1969. Like many here, I shot for the school paper and yearbook. My first job was selling photo-related goods in a retail store in 1970.
To give a little perspective, here's what photography looked like in 1970: I remember when Kodachrome was ASA 12 and if you really wanted fine-grained black and white, you shot Panatomic-X at ASA 32. I sold a TON of Verichrome Pan in my early days, and we stocked it in 127 and 620. Plus-X was King, and Tri-X was rated at ASA 320 on the box. Kodachrome 64 was pretty fast, but High Speed Ektachrome was smokin' at ASA 160. When I started selling cameras, the Leica M4 had only been out for about three years, the Nikon F with the Photomic Ftn finder was hot, and the Canon F1 had just been introduced. The Pentax Spotmatic, Minolta SRT101 and Konica Autoreflex T were flying off the shelves. We ordered stock from Ponder & Best and EPOI (Ehrenreich Photo Optical Inc.) Kodachrome was processed in K12, Ektachrome in E-4, Kodacolor was C22, and B&W polycontrast RC printing papers were beginning to come into their own. Shutterbug Magazine was just taking off, and PopPhoto was in its heyday. Heady times in photography. Things have changed some since then.
I've muddled along as a "working pro" off and on for some 4 decades now (I turned 59 this month.) I've done most things there are to do in photography from which one can derive income. I've sold equipment retail. I've shot for the Navy. I've done advertising, aerial, architectural, fine arts, forensics, portraiture, product illustration and weddings. I've shot commercially and owned my own studio. I ran a crime scene unit for about seven years. I've climbed the learning curve with different film camera systems in various formats. I've climbed the learning curve with digital. I've read extensively how to tweak files to get the maximum impact for what I want. I've taken PS classes. I've learned to appreciate Lightroom for what it can do, and through it all this past fifteen years, my darkroom has sat idle... waiting. I've returned to shooting commercially, albeit in a very different business climate today. My neighbor (a young woman) who lives across the street bought a Canon Rebel digicam and began doing portrait sessions for $30 and for that gives the client the finished files on a DVD (I used to charge a $30 sitting fee!) She does digital weddings for $250 (a tenth of what weddings used to bring.) She just opened a studio storefront up town... and there's already an established storefront studio in town that has been struggling for years (not mine.)
I use Flickr as cheap warehousing for images. We've seen social networking grow... Facebook, Instagram, and others. And we've seen the common small-town commercial photo opportunities shrink as "regular folks" have bought automated cameras that can now capture photographs themselves that are technically well exposed. Many of the staples of the market we expected to gain income from, portraits and weddings, have collapsed under the onslaught of competent entry-level DSLRs and high end P&S cameras in inexperienced hands, leaving us reeling to find a market for our skills.
How do we compete in a saturated market where inexpensive (and I'll say it... largely poor quality) imaging is ubiquitous?
There is a perception among the public, and even among some of us here, that film is superior to digital. Whether or not that is true is a matter of taste, of course, but the idea is beginning to gain ground in the public consciousness. There's been the seed of discontent planted that they're missing "something" with digital imaging; and fortunately that "something" is intangible.
I perceive that a differentiation of skills among "pros" will be the final fall-out from the film-digital transition. As film products become more and more rare among the general population, I think that practitioners of image making with film products will find a way to differentiate their work and make a market because of the medium they use. Let's face it, very few of us who have the skills to do wet-prints even have a darkroom any more! Darkroom skills are quickly becoming a lost art.
I'm gambling that advertising a return to film imaging will appeal to a smaller but affluent market segment who want to differentiate themselves with the images they have of their families and events.
I am semi-retired now and do not have to support a brick and mortar shop, I am also not seeing any business... nothing like there was just a few years ago! And I'm really not interested in doing $30 complete portrait sessions or $250 weddings. I'm not that hungry. So... I've decided that to differentiate myself in my local market, I'm going to advertise that I shoot film weddings... and anything else that clients wants on film, and do custom B&W hand-processing and custom darkroom wet-prints and charge appropriate up-scale fees. I have a couple of excellent local custom labs who still do C41 P&P. Pro film gear is the cheapest I've ever seen it. I've gotten a nearly new, two-body, seven lens, six back Hassy system for a LOT less than the cost of an M-E body alone. I'll continue to offer digital too, but to quote Paul McCarney:
"What does it matter to ya
When you got a job to do
You gotta do it well
You gotta give the other fellow hell"
Maybe I'm nuts, but I've got the skills to provide a product that few today still can... and I'm going to take advantage of it. Film, here I come!
I am not a purist, nor am I particularly opinionated in the film-digital debates. After almost fifteen years with digital, I am returning to film. Not exclusively; I'll still shoot digital as is necessary commercially (and personally when I'm being lazy,) but I've bought some film gear back to use actively. Let me explain.
I am kind of an old timer. I got interested in photography in high school in 1969. Like many here, I shot for the school paper and yearbook. My first job was selling photo-related goods in a retail store in 1970.
To give a little perspective, here's what photography looked like in 1970: I remember when Kodachrome was ASA 12 and if you really wanted fine-grained black and white, you shot Panatomic-X at ASA 32. I sold a TON of Verichrome Pan in my early days, and we stocked it in 127 and 620. Plus-X was King, and Tri-X was rated at ASA 320 on the box. Kodachrome 64 was pretty fast, but High Speed Ektachrome was smokin' at ASA 160. When I started selling cameras, the Leica M4 had only been out for about three years, the Nikon F with the Photomic Ftn finder was hot, and the Canon F1 had just been introduced. The Pentax Spotmatic, Minolta SRT101 and Konica Autoreflex T were flying off the shelves. We ordered stock from Ponder & Best and EPOI (Ehrenreich Photo Optical Inc.) Kodachrome was processed in K12, Ektachrome in E-4, Kodacolor was C22, and B&W polycontrast RC printing papers were beginning to come into their own. Shutterbug Magazine was just taking off, and PopPhoto was in its heyday. Heady times in photography. Things have changed some since then.
I've muddled along as a "working pro" off and on for some 4 decades now (I turned 59 this month.) I've done most things there are to do in photography from which one can derive income. I've sold equipment retail. I've shot for the Navy. I've done advertising, aerial, architectural, fine arts, forensics, portraiture, product illustration and weddings. I've shot commercially and owned my own studio. I ran a crime scene unit for about seven years. I've climbed the learning curve with different film camera systems in various formats. I've climbed the learning curve with digital. I've read extensively how to tweak files to get the maximum impact for what I want. I've taken PS classes. I've learned to appreciate Lightroom for what it can do, and through it all this past fifteen years, my darkroom has sat idle... waiting. I've returned to shooting commercially, albeit in a very different business climate today. My neighbor (a young woman) who lives across the street bought a Canon Rebel digicam and began doing portrait sessions for $30 and for that gives the client the finished files on a DVD (I used to charge a $30 sitting fee!) She does digital weddings for $250 (a tenth of what weddings used to bring.) She just opened a studio storefront up town... and there's already an established storefront studio in town that has been struggling for years (not mine.)
I use Flickr as cheap warehousing for images. We've seen social networking grow... Facebook, Instagram, and others. And we've seen the common small-town commercial photo opportunities shrink as "regular folks" have bought automated cameras that can now capture photographs themselves that are technically well exposed. Many of the staples of the market we expected to gain income from, portraits and weddings, have collapsed under the onslaught of competent entry-level DSLRs and high end P&S cameras in inexperienced hands, leaving us reeling to find a market for our skills.
How do we compete in a saturated market where inexpensive (and I'll say it... largely poor quality) imaging is ubiquitous?
There is a perception among the public, and even among some of us here, that film is superior to digital. Whether or not that is true is a matter of taste, of course, but the idea is beginning to gain ground in the public consciousness. There's been the seed of discontent planted that they're missing "something" with digital imaging; and fortunately that "something" is intangible.
I perceive that a differentiation of skills among "pros" will be the final fall-out from the film-digital transition. As film products become more and more rare among the general population, I think that practitioners of image making with film products will find a way to differentiate their work and make a market because of the medium they use. Let's face it, very few of us who have the skills to do wet-prints even have a darkroom any more! Darkroom skills are quickly becoming a lost art.
I'm gambling that advertising a return to film imaging will appeal to a smaller but affluent market segment who want to differentiate themselves with the images they have of their families and events.
I am semi-retired now and do not have to support a brick and mortar shop, I am also not seeing any business... nothing like there was just a few years ago! And I'm really not interested in doing $30 complete portrait sessions or $250 weddings. I'm not that hungry. So... I've decided that to differentiate myself in my local market, I'm going to advertise that I shoot film weddings... and anything else that clients wants on film, and do custom B&W hand-processing and custom darkroom wet-prints and charge appropriate up-scale fees. I have a couple of excellent local custom labs who still do C41 P&P. Pro film gear is the cheapest I've ever seen it. I've gotten a nearly new, two-body, seven lens, six back Hassy system for a LOT less than the cost of an M-E body alone. I'll continue to offer digital too, but to quote Paul McCarney:
"What does it matter to ya
When you got a job to do
You gotta do it well
You gotta give the other fellow hell"
Maybe I'm nuts, but I've got the skills to provide a product that few today still can... and I'm going to take advantage of it. Film, here I come!
btgc
Veteran
What's the deal with film? If I shoot rarely enough I can load a 36exp roll, burn through it, develop and work on images. Costs are negligible unless you live in AU or country with similar crazy local pricing.
Digital with fast wide, normal and tele lenses will cost more over time and require to maintain batteries in shape instead of grabbing some common cells.
If I shoot lots then digital makes sense day and night, if I cut through and establish my workflow. I hate situation when modern expensive cameras often require third party RAW developers to get optimum results.
There are pluses and minuses both ways. We live in fantastic times having access to both routes and freedom to choose from.
Digital with fast wide, normal and tele lenses will cost more over time and require to maintain batteries in shape instead of grabbing some common cells.
If I shoot lots then digital makes sense day and night, if I cut through and establish my workflow. I hate situation when modern expensive cameras often require third party RAW developers to get optimum results.
There are pluses and minuses both ways. We live in fantastic times having access to both routes and freedom to choose from.
airfrogusmc
Veteran
I could see myself returning to 8X10, large format, zone system, landscape work after I retire. I do miss the darkroom a lot.
VertovSvilova
Well-known
I feel that you're maybe getting too caught up in the materials and the tools themselves. And what it's really about is facing the challenge of rapidly changing paradigms (which is happening all the time and in everything; read what musicians are saying about current music production technologies and what it means to be a musician today. Or what seasoned writers are saying about bloggers and what they've done to the printed word. The same goes for film makers, too.)
And if one studies the history of the medium, this is something that has been going on with photography from the very beginning. Leave 'digital' out of the equation and it's '35mm' or 'snapshots' or 'small cheap cameras' or 'ubiquitous drugstore 4x6 prints' etc., etc.. In other words, the medium has gone this direction (a visual language for the masses) from the very beginning (Delaroche: "from today, painting is dead!") btw, a good read on this is the late Pierre Bourdieu's "Photography, a Middle-Brow Art." (http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=2477) And indeed, there has always been a landfill of mediocre production throughout history, whether it's painting, photography, writing, music, etc..
As with any medium of representation, technologies change and practitioners adapt. This is nothing new. Yet what often tends to get left behind in the glare of rapid technological change, is the image itself. What is still paramount is the content and context of the images themselves, not the method in which they might be produced. Choose your materials and methodologies in respect to the desired end result, and concentrate on why you are even making images in the first place. That is the only 'answer' to ever-changing technologies and a ubiquity of images (both good and bad) in the world today. And that was always the answer in the past, too.
Whether you use film or use digital, it's not going to really make a difference or change anything in respect to what's happening in photography. Try to divorce yourself from your past. e.g., imagine yourself as just coming out of photography school. What would you do if you were just starting out and didn't have all that early photography experience and its emotional baggage. What would you do to set your images apart? How are newcomers to the medium finding their place? The same goes for new musicians, writers, film makers, etc.. They are all facing the same issues, but without the burden of 'what was.' They can only jump in head first and make a go at it, irrespective of the past.
.......as a postscript, we know the industries that have provided the tools for photography are profit-driven. It's in their interests to make photography easier and to harvest more consumers for their products (and this has been a common history of photography.) And it's really the same with most things in life: cooking, driving cars, even building a house, etc., etc.. Products need to be consumed and when everyone can feel like an 'overnight expert' thanks to cost, availability, ease and simplicity, then those industries thrive. One should expect that digital photography will be made easy, and that we will see technically better images produced by those with less experience.
And if one studies the history of the medium, this is something that has been going on with photography from the very beginning. Leave 'digital' out of the equation and it's '35mm' or 'snapshots' or 'small cheap cameras' or 'ubiquitous drugstore 4x6 prints' etc., etc.. In other words, the medium has gone this direction (a visual language for the masses) from the very beginning (Delaroche: "from today, painting is dead!") btw, a good read on this is the late Pierre Bourdieu's "Photography, a Middle-Brow Art." (http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=2477) And indeed, there has always been a landfill of mediocre production throughout history, whether it's painting, photography, writing, music, etc..
As with any medium of representation, technologies change and practitioners adapt. This is nothing new. Yet what often tends to get left behind in the glare of rapid technological change, is the image itself. What is still paramount is the content and context of the images themselves, not the method in which they might be produced. Choose your materials and methodologies in respect to the desired end result, and concentrate on why you are even making images in the first place. That is the only 'answer' to ever-changing technologies and a ubiquity of images (both good and bad) in the world today. And that was always the answer in the past, too.
Whether you use film or use digital, it's not going to really make a difference or change anything in respect to what's happening in photography. Try to divorce yourself from your past. e.g., imagine yourself as just coming out of photography school. What would you do if you were just starting out and didn't have all that early photography experience and its emotional baggage. What would you do to set your images apart? How are newcomers to the medium finding their place? The same goes for new musicians, writers, film makers, etc.. They are all facing the same issues, but without the burden of 'what was.' They can only jump in head first and make a go at it, irrespective of the past.
.......as a postscript, we know the industries that have provided the tools for photography are profit-driven. It's in their interests to make photography easier and to harvest more consumers for their products (and this has been a common history of photography.) And it's really the same with most things in life: cooking, driving cars, even building a house, etc., etc.. Products need to be consumed and when everyone can feel like an 'overnight expert' thanks to cost, availability, ease and simplicity, then those industries thrive. One should expect that digital photography will be made easy, and that we will see technically better images produced by those with less experience.
airfrogusmc
Veteran
There is still great music being created with violins that are hundreds of years old. Some of the greatest landscape photographers are still using large format and the zone system to create great images. New doesn't always = better.
And its in the photo industries best interest to leak out technology so as to keep selling the masses the latest and greatest every couple of years. And that works for a while but once the technology reaches a point where the latest and greatest isn't a real step forward the market gets saturated and sales fall off. The big two are seeing that now. When are the MPs enough and when do people start realizing that the more automated things become the more separated they get from the process.
And its in the photo industries best interest to leak out technology so as to keep selling the masses the latest and greatest every couple of years. And that works for a while but once the technology reaches a point where the latest and greatest isn't a real step forward the market gets saturated and sales fall off. The big two are seeing that now. When are the MPs enough and when do people start realizing that the more automated things become the more separated they get from the process.
hepcat
Former PH, USN
I appreciate your perspective, but I think you missed my point. I'm equally conversant in film and digital, and I've been pretty much completely digital for about 15 years... but the market is saturated with "guys with cameras" who think they're photographers, and consumers who are only buying price. Professional photographers saw the same kind of market declines in the '70s when cheap SLRs hit the market and everyone fancied themselves a "pro." Unfortunately, you still had to know how to drive the gear to get "pro" results Frankly, with today's amateur gear making "perfect" exposures, and the ability to shotgun a bazillion frames in a few minutes, the odds of them getting sale-able images is pretty high, so for $30 for a portrait session and $250 for a wedding, complete, they're competing. They're "pros" in that they're earning part of their income from photography, but how many of them can pull off a wedding if the officiant (a judge in my case) doesn't show up? Or how to manage 150 guests when the groom has gone to the ER for a heart attack (been there done that one too,) or how to keep the wedding on track when the father of the bride and the groom nearly get into a fistfight (yep, another wedding saved between the pastor's and my intervention.) THAT kind of experience is what hiring a "pro" photographer should buy you. Old "pro" wedding photographers can tell stories about pulling rabbits out of their camera bags and saving the day over and over and over... and still getting the couple their albums and helping make the event a day to remember.
What I'm doing is differentiating my product in the market place for those folks who appreciate high-quality hand-produced work and are willing to pay for it. I may not get much business, but that's ok. I have skills and the equipment to use those skills that not many photographers in the marketplace today still have. Working 10 weddings a year at $5,000 each for discriminating clients is a much better plan for me than working 200 weddings to make that same amount for folks who have no appreciation for what you do. I'm not "caught up" in the materials and tools. The process and materials are how I am going differentiate my product. I may be all wet, and this may not fly at all, but I think there's an undercurrent of digital backlash in some quarters, and I'm poised to exploit that backlash with quality archival materials, and good old fashioned customer service that harkens back to a time when customer service was king.
Pioneer
Veteran
This entire subject certainly comes up frequently but this is actually a great question. There really are two sides to it. Though connected I don't think they have the same answer.
As proposed by the OP the question relates to professional use. Can film be successfully used in a professional setting and how. I suspect the answer is yes but your work better be terrific, awesome enough that word of mouth is electric. And you had better be prepared to use it in ways that you may have never imagined. If you think your market will be happy with the same old, same old that went on before digital, I am afraid you may not be as successful as you could be.
I think that maybe your question should be amended. You should be asking; "What can I do with film that cannot easily be done with digital?" It isn't just about image quality, though that should go without saying, it is about that special something that sets you and your film workflow apart.
If you cannot figure that one out than maybe you should stay with digital. Moving back to film in this day and age is not turning the clock back to the 70s, 80s and 90s. Nice as some of those memories are they are memories. If film has a chance to survive in this digital age it has to evolve. It has to provide something digital does not, at least not easily.
As proposed by the OP the question relates to professional use. Can film be successfully used in a professional setting and how. I suspect the answer is yes but your work better be terrific, awesome enough that word of mouth is electric. And you had better be prepared to use it in ways that you may have never imagined. If you think your market will be happy with the same old, same old that went on before digital, I am afraid you may not be as successful as you could be.
I think that maybe your question should be amended. You should be asking; "What can I do with film that cannot easily be done with digital?" It isn't just about image quality, though that should go without saying, it is about that special something that sets you and your film workflow apart.
If you cannot figure that one out than maybe you should stay with digital. Moving back to film in this day and age is not turning the clock back to the 70s, 80s and 90s. Nice as some of those memories are they are memories. If film has a chance to survive in this digital age it has to evolve. It has to provide something digital does not, at least not easily.
VertovSvilova
Well-known
Hepcat, I didn't miss your point at all. And what you are proposing is being attempted by others already. And you are facing what every one else in your business is facing. The paradigm has shifted long ago, and it was always in flux from the very beginning. Go out and make better images, regardless of the materials you chose to employ. If the "handcrafted film" approach sells, then fine. However, that is about sales and marketing and not really about photography and the historical changing of media (i.e., film vs digital in the context of photography as visual representation.) But there is a sub-forum here on RFF called "Making Photo Bucks $$$."
hepcat
Former PH, USN
I agree... obviously the images are what its all about regardless of the medium... and I agree that the work has to be stellar, or at least better than what else is being sold out there. And in my market at least, the bar isn't very high right now. But I think that, once again, the times they are a changin' and the public is growing weary of what Pioneer called "the same ol' same ol'. Everything old is new again.
I may end up doing a hybrid product, some digital, some traditional materials, and even maybe some Polaroid... and who knows how long this trend may last. I think its going to be a good time tho... and I don't see this as much as a matter of "Making Photo Bucks $$$" as I see it as a renaissance of more traditional methods in the mainstream as people look for alternatives to the "same ol' same ol'" of the digital paradigm.
VertovSvilova
Well-known
I'm in Los Angeles and there are hundreds of 'top of their game' wedding photographers who offer traditional film materials (including Polaroid, Super 8mm and 16mm.) They are very high end, and are highly skilled and seasoned photographers. There are even labs that specialize in wedding work done with film (and offering analog prints), e.g., http://photoimpactimaging.com/pricing
I didn't want to imply that your post was only about "Making Photo Bucks $$$" but meant that it might get better responses which will be more direct about using film in commercial venues, rather than in this forum which can be more philosophical (and emotional) in respect to 'film vs digital.'
I didn't want to imply that your post was only about "Making Photo Bucks $$$" but meant that it might get better responses which will be more direct about using film in commercial venues, rather than in this forum which can be more philosophical (and emotional) in respect to 'film vs digital.'
hepcat
Former PH, USN
The "big cities" can be tough markets for sure. And it is much easier to differentiate oneself in a smaller market like the one I'm in... although I live in the center of a million people within 50 miles... it's not all that small. Actually, my initial post was intended to be about the emotional and philosophical aspect of what's happening in the greater "photo sphere" with a return to film products for certain applications.
airfrogusmc
Veteran
I draw a big line between what I create for $$$$/clients and what I create for me. I don't shoot weddings or family portraits, only commercial/advertising. In the fine art world in galleries silver gelatin and platinum prints fetch 10 times more $$$$ than ink jet. I do think that many in that exhibit in the gallery world never stopped shooting film. For the type of work I do the only market is the big market (Chicago and suburbs). Sure the competition is stiff but I have several dozen steady clients that keep the family feed, the mortgage paid and the equipment paid for. I wouldn't have that large pool of clients in a smaller market.
VertovSvilova
Well-known
Juts out of curiosity, I Googled 'film photography + weddings' and was surprised. There are lots of wedding photographers using film these days, from big urban centers to small towns. That was nice to see.
fwiw, I have the MFA degree in photography and was in school just as digital was making its appearance. I grew up on film and I use film along with digital. I'm not a commercial photographer and I teach at a university art department for my income. Exhibitions are expected of me, however they are not always income generating as the venues are normally museums and institutions (except for private galleries, and normally you only have one gallery representing your work.) Students use all sorts of media (it's an art program and not a tech school), and film is very popular. We don't require any specific media with the photo students and the content/context of their work is what's important (although the materials can of course, inform the work.) However, they are required to take a certain number of hours in courses using film and darkroom processes before they can advance to the BFA status. Graduate students (MFA) from programs outside the university need to demonstrate that they have a working knowledge in film processes (and also in the history of the medium.)
Nathan King
Established
There are a ton of wedding photographers shooting film. Have you heard of Jose Villa? He is perhaps the most successful of them and his prices are not cheap. The Contax 645 50mm f/2.0 combination with Fuji Pro 400H seems to be quite popular.. Very pastel and romantic colors when you overexpose with that film stock and lens, though I tend to prefer Portra 400.
noisycheese
Normal(ish) Human
we compete by offering superior quality imagery.
A trained chimpanzee can pick up a digital camera and press the shutter button and produce an image; that's the easy part.
Regardless of the genre - wedding, portrait, documentary, travel, nature, landscape - images that have visual impact and arresting composition do not just happen. It takes years of relentless work to hone the eye to the point where producing such images begins to happen. It takes many more years of work for the eye to evolve to the point where a photographer is able to create arresting images even on a semi-regular basis.
Henri Cartier-Bresson once said, "Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." He was right. God knows my first 10,000 images were crap!
It takes a LOT of time, work, sacrifice, sweat, frustration and commitment to get to the point where a photographer will be able to produce superior images with visual impact - and that is a fact that people do not want to hear. There are no shortcuts.
The good news is this, though: Photography is like anything else in life - you will get out of it as much as you put in to it.
NY_Dan
Well-known
Shot this with Tri X, Leica M3, Summilux 50 1.4, Yellow Filter on 3/22/2014 in Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY. The experience with this set up and film, for me, makes it mo'special. 43.5 mb, 300 dpi, 19.5 x 13 -- beautiful grain at full size.
hepcat
Former PH, USN
I'm with you completely... my concern is that the general public consumer is SO bombarded by (what I think is) awful work, that awful work is now becoming the standard that they demand, or at least that they tolerate at the price they're willing to pay.
Shot this with Tri X, Leica M3, Summilux 50 1.4, Yellow Filter on 3/22/2014 in Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY. The experience with this set up and film, for me, makes it mo'special. 43.5 mb, 300 dpi, 19.5 x 13 -- beautiful grain at full size.
You know, Dan, the chain-link almost gives that shot a "half-tone art" feel. Well done!
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Hi Roger,
I don't think there is any 'big deal' about film. It is what it is, it does what it does. If you like using it, if you and/or your clients perceive it to have some special value, then if you feel you want to exploit that perception go for it.
I also don't think there is any 'big deal' about digital capture. Again, it is what it is, it does what it does. There's nothing special about it anymore in the eyes of the vast majority of the photo buying world, but you can do things with it that are often difficult to do with film. If that's useful to you, if you want to exploit that, go for it.
We're about the same age. I changed careers again at the end of 2010, closed my photo business, and am quite happy with the (sometimes extreme) challenge of being a paid writer. It certainly provides a better and more stable income than the years of running my photo business did. It gives me the resources to pursue my photography as my avocation again, to do what I want with it, and to explore/exploit it as I see fit.
I like film. I like digital capture. I use both, they both have value to me for what they are and for how they capture the world in light. I use Hasselblad, Polaroid, 35mm, and Minox format film. I use FF and FourThirds format digital. I work with everything from gorgeous Leica R lenses to pinholes. It's all good, I don't need to make a living from it. And when I get a few minutes of time away from earning my keep to fund my eventual retirement, I work on my photos and plan the books I'll produce with them.
That's good enough for me right now. Both film and digital are special, and neither are as well. I don't care about the market, the competition, the horrendous flood of mediocre photos swirling through the ether anymore—I have the liberty of enjoying my photography again. The only thing that gets in the way sometimes now is simply the amount of time I have to spend on it.
You've reminded me that I haven't taken a Hasselblad out for a walk recently. Time to correct that ...
G
I don't think there is any 'big deal' about film. It is what it is, it does what it does. If you like using it, if you and/or your clients perceive it to have some special value, then if you feel you want to exploit that perception go for it.
I also don't think there is any 'big deal' about digital capture. Again, it is what it is, it does what it does. There's nothing special about it anymore in the eyes of the vast majority of the photo buying world, but you can do things with it that are often difficult to do with film. If that's useful to you, if you want to exploit that, go for it.
We're about the same age. I changed careers again at the end of 2010, closed my photo business, and am quite happy with the (sometimes extreme) challenge of being a paid writer. It certainly provides a better and more stable income than the years of running my photo business did. It gives me the resources to pursue my photography as my avocation again, to do what I want with it, and to explore/exploit it as I see fit.
I like film. I like digital capture. I use both, they both have value to me for what they are and for how they capture the world in light. I use Hasselblad, Polaroid, 35mm, and Minox format film. I use FF and FourThirds format digital. I work with everything from gorgeous Leica R lenses to pinholes. It's all good, I don't need to make a living from it. And when I get a few minutes of time away from earning my keep to fund my eventual retirement, I work on my photos and plan the books I'll produce with them.
That's good enough for me right now. Both film and digital are special, and neither are as well. I don't care about the market, the competition, the horrendous flood of mediocre photos swirling through the ether anymore—I have the liberty of enjoying my photography again. The only thing that gets in the way sometimes now is simply the amount of time I have to spend on it.
You've reminded me that I haven't taken a Hasselblad out for a walk recently. Time to correct that ...
G
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Shot this with Tri X, Leica M3, Summilux 50 1.4, Yellow Filter on 3/22/2014 in Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY. The experience with this set up and film, for me, makes it mo'special. 43.5 mb, 300 dpi, 19.5 x 13 -- beautiful grain at full size.
I like it too.
I do wish you'd have been dead-on to the fence, which is the way I'd want to shoot it, but I realize in saying that that I'm thinking about the photo I'd have made, not you.
And it's your photo ... and darn nice just as it is. ;-)
G
noisycheese
Normal(ish) Human
There is some truth in your concern. I think the answer is to leave the general public consumer to others and aim higher in selecting your clients. Hunt higher up the food chain, so to speak. Hunt for elk, not squirrels. One elk will provide food for many meals; one meal requires many squirrels.
If someone is looking for a $400 wedding photographer who is willing to spew out the photographic print equivalent of a tray full of White Castle hamburgers, leave that market segment to others.
Your target clients are people with more evolved taste, a more discerning eye and an appreciation of fine print quality. Aim for the clients who want filet mignon, not White Castle hamburgers. Aim for the clients who will pay $4000 for a wedding photographer, not the $400 crowd.
That would be my approach, anyway. I would have fewer clients, but I would also have to work less to generate the same amount of income. And the work itself as well as the final product (the prints) would be much more satisfying to everyone involved in the equation.