Students and film

[Dogman]

My perspective on learning photography is skewed since I was self-taught in the early 1970s by reading monthly issues of photo mags and those Kodak booklets the camera store sold. As such, I tend to believe learning the basics with film, chemicals and working in the dark is The Best Way to do it. But I also accept that I'm looking at things from a perspective that is much different from today's norm. So maybe it's unrealistic to expect a foundation in photography today to be based on what I learned nearly a half century ago. Until the next technological development comes along, digital is the norm for photography today and the foreseeable future. The basics of light, exposure, etc., are the same but the tools and the working methods are completely different.

Nearly a half century ago, I would never have considered learning how to coat glass plates or how to use mercury vapors to make a daguerreotype.

 

[robert blu]

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

I fully agree, I have experience with someone who learned to use my Nikon FM2 simply because seeing a couple of times what's happening when rotating a ring on the lens, open more light in, easy like this.
Now using Nikon D5... the aperture concept has now become an abstract concept...

robert

 

[sepiareverb]

A demonstration with a manual film camera body showing the shutter working and holding up a lens and showing the aperture moving suffices.

 

[David Hughes]

A demonstration with a manual film camera body showing the shutter working and holding up a lens and showing the aperture moving suffices.

Hmmm, but the instructor/teacher/professor has a year to fill in and he'll need something as a filler.

As the best instructors have something to change the tempo and liven things up when boredom sets in...

More to the point, this is about photography, not how to use the latest gear. Get too specialised and you'll have courses for Canon owners with Macs and then one for Canon owners with Windows 7 and so on. The variations are endless.

Regards, David

 

[radi(c)al_cam]

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.

cf.: http://drdunckley.com/2016/10/01/tech-industry-new-big-tobacco/

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

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.

I spent 4 years as a public school teacher. I DESPISED iPads. Our school district bought several thousand of them, and we were expected to have kids use them to do some assignments, online tests, and research for writing papers.

The problem with them was not that they hurt kids' eyes. The kids were all addicted to their smartphones anyway, so we weren't really doing any more damage having them use iPads. The problem was it was damn near impossible to keep the kids from watching youtube videos, playing video games, and even trying to look at porn (which was blocked, thankfully, but they still tried) instead of doing their schoolwork.

Very little real work was ever done with them. We have too much tech in schools and not enough teaching.

 

[radi(c)al_cam]

Thank you, Chris, for your very good additional informations.

I spent 4 years as a public school teacher. I DESPISED iPads. Our school district bought several thousand of them, and we were expected to have kids use them to do some assignments, online tests, and research for writing papers.

The problem with them was not that they hurt kids' eyes. The kids were all addicted to their smartphones anyway, so we weren't really doing any more damage having them use iPads. The problem was it was damn near impossible to keep the kids from watching youtube videos, playing video games, and even trying to look at porn (which was blocked, thankfully, but they still tried) instead of doing their schoolwork.

Very little real work was ever done with them. We have too much tech in schools and not enough teaching.

It's sometimes really frustrating, no: infuriating!, how public funded money is wasted!

Well, as you know, I live in a «nanny state» (as many US Americans of the not-Democratic spectrum love to say) but, nevertheless, in my country parents have the freedom to decide whether or not «tablet teaching» takes place. (In Austria it needs a 2/3rd parents' majority if a teacher wants to use I-Pad etc. — and since for very recently, the Federal Ministry decided that not the public but the parents have to pay for these gimmicks, I expect more and more of them will refuse.)

Certainly, this computerised stuff is detrimental to learning. And I'm sure, exactly the same applies when we talk about learning photography.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Certainly, this computerised stuff is detrimental to learning. And I'm sure, exactly the same applies when we talk about learning photography.

I completely disagree. Computers are integral to doing photography in the modern world, and any photo program that doesn't teach digital photography and photo editing is stealing the students' futures. They'll have to compete in an incredibly fierce market against people who do have those skills, and they'll fail without it.

 

[radi(c)al_cam]

I completely disagree. Computers are integral to doing photography in the modern world, and any photo program that doesn't teach digital photography and photo editing is stealing the students' futures. They'll have to compete in an incredibly fierce market against people who do have those skills, and they'll fail without it.

I have expressed myself unclearly. By «computerised stuff is detrimental to learning», I meant: for the first learning process, and above all: for people under — say — 12 years, computerised stuff is not just unsuitable, it is detrimental to learning.

 

[Bill Clark]

I'm an oldie moldie that started with film and manual cameras.

To me, in the 21st century, learning with film is like learning to drive a car with a Model T! Three pedals on the floor, yup, they were like that but find a car like that today.

Digital is what is used today with pros and amateurs. Some use film but those folks are a small minority now. To me, I can do everything with my DSLR and much more than I did with film. I can immediately learn with digital, see the results of my efforts, where with film I can't. How are you going to evaluate a students work if it takes a fair amount of time to develop and print/scan film photos? Let's see, after the film is developed and scanned/printed, go back, set this up, oh, where was the reflector, I can't remember how high to put the lights and she has different clothes on now! Try finding a histogram to read with a film camera. Back in the film daze I would use a Polaroid back to determine things. That's gone! Thank goodness.

And, I believe, the two other important steps to learn are the process and printing stages. For the process stage, I use Photoshop and learned the most about the program by staying up until the wee hours of the morning, spending a lot of screen time learning some of the techniques this program offers. I did take a few classes with Eddie Tapp that helped me. The learning curve took me a long time to get started but once I climbed it, man this is a powerful tool to use! There are a lot of programs that work in conjunction with Photoshop. I opted for a couple that would help me be more productive and I wrote a few actions to help me along.

The viewing stage is another matter. I decided to have a lab make the prints, for better or worse, depending how you think about this. My day has only 24 hours and I love photography but not 24 hours each day!

Some of the tasks used with film do cross over to digital and you can talk about this but I would focus teaching students about digital. Like all of us, they have only 24 hours to each day.

 

[David Hughes]

Hmm, there seems to me to be two schools of thought; the first is about an apprentice learning the trade and then going to work alongside of the teacher and the second seems to be about a school or college teaching all about photography.

I'd expect the apprentice to know all about taking pictures and the boss's camera and so on, and the other student to know all about photography and taking pictures with a camera. (That means any old camera even though the plates aren't available and so on; you can't say you've done a course in photography and got the diploma etc without knowing how to use a common film SLR.)

But the problem seems to me to be that people - no one in particular, I'm just posting this as the next one after Bill Clark - think that you have to teach them how to make a wet plate/slide, then do it and use it and so on. Surely, all they need to know is what they were and how they worked and be shown typical examples of the cameras and photo's? In other words a talk about wet plates as part of the background knowledge most of us seem to have but don't necessarily practise.

As for film or digital, they both might be obsolete on Monday when something new is announced...

But they still need to know about them and how to use the cameras; I can usually pick up a camera and understand how to use it by looking at the controls, or lack of them, and so on. Some people seem to think that they should be taught how to use the latest and greatest and dearest and nothing else.

Anyway, it's just my 2d worth.

Regards, David

 

[Bill Clark]

When I was a member of the PPofA and our local affiliate TCPPA, almost all of the young students have never used film or intend to. Our local group met at the Eden Prairie Vocational College and at one of our monthly meetings, a few years ago, they were shutting down their analog darkrooms. It was kind of sad to see Omega D2 enlargers, I think D2 at least they could take a 4x5 negative, on a cart to be taken away!

That's the way the staff saw the future of photography.

 

[shawn]

I think both film and digital can be very useful to help teach/learn more about photography.

The immediate feedback of digital is handy for teaching the effects of shutter speed and aperture as well as being able to quickly show the different looks of altering focal length. Explaining the concept, shooting a couple of shots in class and then immediately projecting those pictures for the whole class to see is very effective. Ditto when teaching about lighting.

Letting students shoot like crazy and experiment can be effective *if* they are thinking about what they are doing and experimenting in that manor. Having hundreds of photos to cull through can also help a student find what they like and to hone in on their own preferences.

Film can help the students become more disciplined in their shots, in essence culling the shots before even shooting. The limits imposed by 36 shots and no feedback forces a student to think through the process more. It can also be useful for having them understanding the difference between what they think they captured vs what they actually captured.

Shawn