Students and film

Darthfeeble said:
It's the 21st century now, if no one has noticed. I would like to see a camera that you couldn't teach the basics on, everything I have except the point and shoots and the phone all have M on the camera and M on the lens. I agree that this is the way to start someone but to dredge up old cameras and chemicals when they are harder and harder to come by and more and more expensive is silly.
Click to expand...

Hi,

But, how can you teach photography without mentioning film, chemicals etc? How to use a digital camera is a small part of it. Or am I thinking the wrong way and that where we came from isn't part of it.

I guess the answer is a de luxe course about photography and a cheap course about digital but I feel sorry for the instructor because I doubt if everyone will have the same camera and so how could he/she help them when things get weird?

We have enough examples of it on these forums and each time an expert in that camera has to step forward with the answer. I can't imagine one person dealing with all the queries, nor can I see the job of teaching being easy when everyone has a different tool for the job.

Regards, David

PS, Of course, the first couple of hours would be spent making everyone RTFM...
 
This is an interesting thread.
I'm a poor teacher, but I got my 20 y-o son started in "real" photography with a Pentax Spotmatic, while I was next to him shooting a Zorki-1, explaining the options & choices of exposure settings. Up until then he had been insta-gramming with his cell phone, and it was obvious that he "had the eye."
I stayed entirely out of the art of composing, giving him freedom of creativity, and just talking about technical aspects when each new set of scans arrived. We have no darkroom and use a quick & dirty mail order lab.
After 6 months he bought a Olympus digital "semi-pro" kit.
Now at 1 year in he has earned a bit of gas money with some band sessions, a few individuals who wanted photos, and a local public event taking group photos, gathering contact information, editing his shots and delivering by email.
He's still shooting film, instant photos with a Polaroid SX-70, and digital.
BTW, he is a Junior marketing major at the local University.
There are a lot of paths to get there. We could have started with wet glass plates.
 
I think the high cost of film is way overstated. We have a fleet of 65 Pentax K1000's at my school and it costs between $400 and $600 to keep them in tip top shape each year. The students bang them around in backpacks and take them home on breaks. How much does your digital camera ofr phone cost? you are tempted to upgrade after year one, and threatened by planned obsalescence in 3, by 5 years, the cost of repair makes many of them unrepairable, sonce there is little resale value. We can buy a replacement K100, for less than $100 and it will last for decades into the future. I've been a digital artist since 1995. When it comes to B&W, usong my ZoneSimple technique with film and then scanning gives greater highlight and shadow detail without the artificiality of HDR. Andreas Gursky whose large print (not a fan) sold for 4.3 million dollars a few years ago. He uses film and scans it. Unless you are looking for a film effect, I perspnally see no adantage to shooting color film over digital. Since 2003 I have owned six digital cameras, all over $1000 each as well as a few others just to get new features. There are nany hidden costs to going digital that aren't being considered, because people would have a computer anyway. Even media storage keeps changing and the cost of moving an enormous number of digital image files, as software and storage become obselete, should also be considered. I have every negative and slide I have ever made, wich costs me pennies to store in comparison. If you are passionate about photography, it is not a cheap hobby. The future of photography isn't machines, it's each photographer's unique personal vision.
 
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But.........

David Hughes said:
Hi,

But, how can you teach photography without mentioning film, chemicals etc? How to use a digital camera is a small part of it. Or am I thinking the wrong way and that where we came from isn't part of it.

I guess the answer is a de luxe course about photography and a cheap course about digital but I feel sorry for the instructor because I doubt if everyone will have the same camera and so how could he/she help them when things get weird?

We have enough examples of it on these forums and each time an expert in that camera has to step forward with the answer. I can't imagine one person dealing with all the queries, nor can I see the job of teaching being easy when everyone has a different tool for the job.

Regards, David

PS, Of course, the first couple of hours would be spent making everyone RTFM...
Click to expand...

Are the tools that different? As long as it is a reasonably sophisticated digital, it will have a full manual mode and in that is everything the student would need. Did you have to learn Daguerotype, or Colodian (sp, I know) process to learn your craft? I certainly didn't in the classes I took in the 60s and the ones in the late 70s. We used the tools that were current then and were relevant to us.
 
At the college level, the programs are generally geared towards sending graduates out into the workforce, at least that is the case here in Canada. As such, most of the programs focus on the tools of the trade today, digital cameras.

Teaching this sort of stuff myself, it would take up a lot of valuable time to teach the students film based photography, time that should be used to make them proficient with the tools most clients expect the pro to be using.

The idea that starting with film, or basing the program on film, somehow ensures a more competent photographer is based solely in sentiment.
 
Another thought: Isn't it the picture that is supposed to count? I am enough of a luddite to think that it's not photography until it is up on the wall. How to operate the tool is a relatively easy teach, craft a good picture is much more difficult I would think.
 
I never learned anything with film. S16 amd later auto. By the time you press the shutter and have film developed, scanned, printed you don't remember what you were doing with camera.
Only after I purchased DSLR and switched it to M with manual ISO, I finally learned about aperture, shutter speed and ISO. Only then I understood exposure, DoF and so on.

The only thing you could learn with film is how to take pictures for months on one roll.
I think teachers are just lazy to go through hundreds of pictures instead of few per student, this is why they still pushing for film.
 
My issue isn't so much the film-vs-digital aspect of it. I'm more concerned about a simple, manual camera with straightforward controls: A shutter speed dial, an aperture ring, a focusing collar, and a DOF (depth of field) scale on the lens barrel. No such cameras are made for digital.

Whether film is actually ever used in a photography class, having some old manual cameras as teaching aids to help illustrate the basic controls of image-creation might be helpful, with exercises designed to facilitate such understanding. If the students got the basic concepts from handling and familiarizing themselves with these old cameras, it might help them to realize how simple the basic controls are that underlie all the multi-mode complexity of modern cameras.

- Murray
 
As much as I love film and my experience w/it in the 1970's and beyond..and yes the film reality is so much fun on a deep level..waiting for the results and wet printing etc..not reproducible nowadays..as there is digital now ..as the hub of everything..
I just cant see how film would remain a valuable teaching resource except for a special film class or similar..
Generally too slow and too much trouble..dangerous chemicals..ruined film..
I just cant see film as relevant for beginning students anymore..
 
The bulk of the students that go through our program can expose manually, use handheld meters, Arris, LED panels, print and so forth. They can fire up the dslr and shoot manually with the best of em.

It's not my preference but there is no clear advantage to the old manual debate. They need to be proficient on current professional tools.

CMur12 said:
My issue isn't so much the film-vs-digital aspect of it. I'm more concerned about a simple, manual camera with straightforward controls: A shutter speed dial, an aperture ring, a focusing collar, and a DOF (depth of field) scale on the lens barrel. No such cameras are made for digital.

Whether film is actually ever used in a photography class, having some old manual cameras as teaching aids to help illustrate the basic controls of image-creation might be helpful, with exercises designed to facilitate such understanding. If the students got the basic concepts from handling and familiarizing themselves with these old cameras, it might help them to realize how simple the basic controls are that underlie all the multi-mode complexity of modern cameras.

- Murray
Click to expand...
 
Hi,

If we are going to talk about photography as it is practised these days then we don't really have to mention prints do we? But should teaching be about what people do? Imagine teaching spelling based on what students do for spelling...

Anyway, as it is done means no prints and a smart phone. I've noticed at large events that smart phones seem to the the most used, there's one or two with dSLR's a few with smaller digitals and a few waving tablets about. At posher events lots waving tablets and a lot more dSLR's. About once a year I see someone with a film camera.

Teaching photography in this country, UK & England specifically, means a 2 or 3 year course leading to an exam at age 16 called the GCSE and then a two year course leading to an A (advanced) level exam at 18. To get on to the A level course you need the previous one and maths and English etc at a fairly good level.

So 4 or 5 years training in all. And that means plenty of time to do it properly.

If anyone is interested the GCSE version is covered here:-

http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/art-.../photography-lens-based-and-light-based-media

And a typical A level page is here:-

http://www.cwc.ac.uk/Courses/Pages/A-level-Photography.aspx

(Some of you will see a reference to the K1000, which is why I picked it.)

They call them colleges these days but in my days you stayed at the same school but had a bit more freedom and smaller classes (12 to 18 students). Most of the modern colleges I've seen are buildings beside the old schools so it very nominal as all the kids do is move across the site and the school puts up a new signboard... (The teachers salaries don't go up, btw.)

I'd like a bit of background as to how it is taught in the USA as their schemes seem to dominate these forums but I know nothing about them.

Regards, David
 
You can generally get a Certificate in photography by taking 10 photography courses at a local community college, or an Associates degree (A.A.) if you add 10 additional courses in English, math, and other requirements. The Certificate is designed for one year, the Associates degree is designed for two years, but both often take longer because not every course is offered every semester and scheduling conflicts inevitably arise. In addition, many of the students are working and going to school part time.

In the university system, you can get a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts (B.F.A.) in four years. Note that a university degree generally requires 40 or so courses, only half of which of are in your major, in this case in the fine arts. Not all of those courses would be in photography, as there are other requirements like drawing, art history, etc. A Master of Arts (M.F.A.) requires another two years in your concentration.

That is just a rough sketch. Not all schools offer photography, and the requirements vary.

Of course you don't need to do any of that because if you open a studio or sell your work in a gallery nobody asks to see your educational credentials. You generally need an M.F.A. if you want to teach in a community college or University.
 
I guess, one really important question is, how old the students are:

How many people do care whether or not these little screens do damage the eye of a person that is still growing?

(Wait: Does anyone know exactly, at which point of time the eyes' growth is finished? Hm?)

Well, more and more parents (among them many who don't need glasses themselves) are very very surprised when they have to bring their children to an opthalmologist.

And, the result is: the better informed parents decide against «I-Pad» (etc.) teaching, and this should be the same case regarding cameras: the smaller the screen, the worse for young persons' eyes.
 
Many thanks.

The last line is very true, especially the word "generally" as it's very noticeable here that some degrees mean you can earn two or three times more outside school, that is compared to a teaching post's pay. So, they tell me, almost anything goes in some areas.

Add to that the fun and games they are having changing everything every week and you can see why most of my friends in the academic world have decided to retire early. You should hear some of the rants...

Regards, David
 
I teach film and digital classes at a community college, and our program still starts out with film. Most of our students rent Pentax K 1000 cameras and 50 mm lenses from the school, while a few have the "family camera". The K 1000's stand up well to student use, and they do help to make clear what the basic controls for photography are. Many of my students really enjoy the hands on aspect of film processing and wet printing and go on to get their own darkroom equipment after graduating, although some find it frustrating at first. Most low end DSLRs that I have handled have poor viewfinders and getting control of f/stops and shutter speeds is made difficult by the single control dials that most of these cameras have, so I think that students learn more about the basic process from film cameras.
 
Hi,

I guess that taking the lens off a K1000 and working the aperture and so on makes it easier for you as then you are no longer talking about an abstract but about something they can see and understand.

A lot of digital cameras don't even let you see the aperture blades, if they have any. And, of course, you can go on and expand the idea later on when 12 or 5 blade lenses come into it and those little combined shutters and aperture things like diamond shaped openings etc, etc.

And I'll also guess that getting a decent picture from something as 'old' and 'primitive' ;-) as the K1000 must give them a lot of satisfaction.

Regards, David
 
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