The Devil's Work, Part II

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

In point of fact, it is film that is "of the devil."
Digital, on the other hand, is Luciferian.
We need to be precise in our definitions.
There is no amount of logic that will change that.
Logic itself is Luciferian.
Film is about capturing soul. That is what the devil does.
It's also what blues singers do.
A huge rift has opened up into the 4th dimension
since photographers tried to capture the soul
of blues singers on digital equipment.
The entire space/time continuum is in disarray
thanks to all the digital Luciferians out there.

Shame on you. Everything would be normal if you'd
just left well enough alone and limited digital photography to what it was created for: corporate product and internet porn.
Now we have to contend with two ancient and powerful earthbound demi-urges fighting over turf. It's frightening.

Mark my words, this won't end well.

Isn't Lucifer just another name for the Devil? Satan is like God, he has 99 names, lol!

 

[celluloidprop]

I did very little photograping between dropping out of a college BFA program and DSLRs (specifically the Nikon D70) getting cheap enough for someone in their early 20s to afford. So digital was, in a lot of ways, a savior for me - I was never going to be in a position to have a decent darkroom, and slides/drugstore prints weren't cutting it.

Now, years on, I have far more control over my images than I ever did in a wet darkroom, without the hassles of washing and drying fiber prints and ruining expensive sheets of 11x14 Ilford paper when I didn't get everything right.

I still shoot film, but that's mostly for nostalgia and getting to use different/fun cameras like the Hexar AF and my Agfa not-quite-toy cameras (Isola, Clack, etc.).

 

[mfunnell]

I agree, platinum prints and regular silver prints for black and white are superior to inkjet.

Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, they are. However I, personally, cannot produce silver prints superior to my inkjet prints. I never learned the skill to any extent beyond mucking around in school photography class many (many!) years ago. I have none of the time, inclination or space to easily set myself up for wet printing nor the time to learn how to do it well. So, for me I'll produce my best prints in colour or B&W by inkjet printing. For B&W I most usually develop myself, scan the negs then process digitally from there.

That produces prints that I like. Maybe not as "good" as wet prints. Who knows? But better than any wet prints I'd ever be likely to produce.

...Mike

 

[Nikon Bob]

This is not a religion, and there is no divine Truth to defend.

Amen brother. Use whatever turns your crank. You don't have to justify what medium you use to anybody but yourself.

Bob

 

[timor]

:bang: Now I can see it clearly. Not the film or a digital is a devil's work. This disscusion is.
Let stop it befor "there will be blood".

 

[btgc]

For me as an amateur digital route would cost more - new quality gear costs, be it digital or were film. Jumping on early gives advantage, for sure.

Digital photography isn't just imaging sensor instead of film. Redundancy and backups is something people underestimate most of times. Hey, I've paid for a brand new laptop, it has to last! Nope. Hardware and software is needed, sometimes two or more similar programs doing similar task with certain differences. As software and nuances of data storage aren't visible to eye people tend to diminish their role and lessen importance. It will take some time while masses will become educated. Just like with everything - tobacco, fast food or non-stick cookware. They will learn what's important and what's not.

 

[j j]

Thus far the answer to "I decided to ask around and see if there were more logical reasons for not embracing digital" seems to be no; it's about faith, poetry, battles between right and wrong and all that.

Me, I'm just glad to have another way of painting with light. My film cameras work and so do my digital ones. I get pictures from both/either that I like and that the people I offer them to seem to like; this is what I care about. Someone banging on about what I do not being proper or true or right or permanent is all hot air, whichever medium any particular evangel adheres to.

 

[ssmc]

Why is anything cool and/or technical (telescopes, steam power, railways, hot air balloons, Devil's Tower, WY, digital photography... you get the picture) always attributed to Satan? Didn't people get their brains from God?

/sarcasm = off/

Not but I just don't buy the assertion that digital photos are somehow less "real". Sure you don't have a physical negative but you have information content which is the core of any "image" (photograph, photogram, painting, spectrometer cube, ultrasound, seismic section, etc., etc.). Anyway there is nothing to see in an undeveloped negative. You still have to "do stuff to it". And then you need to print it. Do dodging and burning, or adjusting the color balance make it less of a real photograph?

As far as I'm concerned the EXIF description sounds good to me: "a directly phtographed image". I take this to mean an image acquired (by some means) of a physical arrangement of objects and light source/es that actually existed at a given moment in time, as observed during the exposure/capture/integration (whether directly visible to the unaided eye or not).

I shoot film and digital and the results when printed are equally "real" (whatever that means), though of course what happens between me pressing the shutter release and holding the print in my hands (or looking at an image or a scanned negative on screen) is of course very different.

As alyways, YMMV
Scott

 

[Cutly]

film looks like memory. Digital does not. For me, it makes all the difference.

 

[sebastel]

lucifer is (literally) the (carrier or) bringer of light.
in that sense, both film based and digital photography are "the devil's work".

as for the original question, i don't care. also for myself, both works. digital has it's charm in speed, while film based (b&w) gives me that little bit more of satisfaction (?), which i just cannot name where it comes from.

being the lazy guy that i am, i use digital for most of the time.

so?
so what!

live long and prosper
s.
amateur

 

[zuiko85]

I just like my old mechanical cameras. Come to think of it I didn't like it when cameras became battery dependent. Just personal preference I guess.

 

[mfunnell]

Come to think of it I didn't like it when cameras became battery dependent. Just personal preference I guess.

I used to think this was silly - until I found myself at a once-in-a-lifetime spot with failed batteries, no spares, and no ability to calculate exposure for the one fixed mechanical speed my camera did support. It didn't work out well.

I've since fixed all of the above: I always have spare batteries, anywhere serious I have a purely mechanical backup camera and I've worked hard at reading light. I'd probably still mess up if all my batteries failed, but I'd know to bracket, I'd know how to bracket, and I'd have a camera that I could bracket with should I find myself similarly situated.

Of course, now that I'm prepared, it'll never happen again.

...Mike

 

[gavinlg]

lucifer is (literally) the (carrier or) bringer of light.
in that sense, both film based and digital photography are "the devil's work".

Was going to say this too... I love christian mythology...

 

[jsrockit]

I just can't buy into this crap. I get it... digital is not cool and film is. However, many of us who embraced digital used film for many years, printed cibachromes, c-prints, and B&W wet darkroom prints, messed with many film cameras, etc. I can understand the embrace of film if you didn't live through it the first time. However, the medium does not matter. It's all personal preference. Photographs matter.

I cannot believe people will give absolutes about what is better. I could give a rat's ass if digital is not capturing light the same way as film. It is giving me a photograph that is nice to look at and still looks like a photograph. The BS on this site regarding film myths is crazy. Sure, use film or digital if you love it, but don't disparage the other side of the coin. It just makes you look petty and elitist.

 

[newsgrunt]

^^^ yup, pretty well sums it up

 

[FrankS]

A couple of posters in this thread presented a SEMANTIC argument about digital capture and photography, but no one here is disparaging digital. The people speaking up for film, including myself, are simply saying that it is our choice and preference. Do what makes you happy. Breathe. Relax.

 

[BobYIL]

I am one of those “old dogs”… and using digital cameras as well.


For me a P&S camera costing $200 producing sharper images than my 50-year-old M2 does not mean much.. for I know the M2, as far as B&W is concerned, can turn out better tones and gradations than what the M9 could. I love the fine and meticulous details depicted in Vermeer’s paintings, however these do not make him a greater painter than Renoir or Monet who expressed everything in brush-stroke patches.

For me digital, inspite of claiming of 48 bits -281.5 trillion colors, will need some years more to reach to the level expressed in the Ektachrome prints of David Muench for Arizona Highways magazine. I love digital color on my computer, but I love film on my slide projector (so brilliant!).

However… how to shoot at ISO 6400 and color?! 50 rolls weigh a kilo, an SD card a gram! Fight everytime with the security at the airports when they see your rucksack filled with film rolls. And touch a button, your friend on the other half of the globe shares the same picture with you.

Compared to film, digital photography is not Devil’s Work at all.. they are just different means… like listening to music through either tube amplifiers with horn speakers or solid state amplifiers with electrostatic speakers. Audiophiles love them all…

 

[jsrockit]

A couple of posters in this thread presented a SEMANTIC argument about digital capture and photography, but no one here is disparaging digital.

In general, not necessarily this thread.

 

[hipsterdufus]

My experience has been that most of those who screech about digital not being 'true' photography are the sort whose images have nothing to offer, so they fall back on process as a validation. This is coming from someone who still shoots a couple hundred rolls of black and white film a year, so I hardly have any prejudice against film.

The hard truth is that those who matter in the world; the professionals, the critics, the curators, the galleries, the publishers, the clients.... long ago accepted digital. To denigrate it as not (real, true, good, acceptable, etc.) photography just makes you look like the same kind of people who still insist that blacks aren't human, that women belong in the kitchen, and that God hates 'fags'. Sorry folks, the world has passed you by. Keep burnin them crosses; the rest of us will keep working on what matters: making photographs by whatever medium we choose. This is not a religion, and there is no divine Truth to defend.

Agree with this completely. Also coming from a (mostly) film shooter.

I make a living doing it, its my only income, and most of my sales are to people outside Indiana. My work is in collections around the world. I know what I'm talking about. Do you? Put up or shut up.

Oh, snap! Love a lot of your work, btw, Chris.

 

[helen.HH]

what I find more AMAZING about this Thread
is the Rather Uncivil, & Vulgar Approach
in Relating to each Other

Mind Boggling....
I mean its supposed to be All in Good Fun, Good Humor
The way People get sooo defensive and Plain Old Ugly is Astounding

oh Well....