The Empty Mind -- film vs. digital

Steve Williams

Steve Williams

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Since the end of November I have committed myself (along with a friend) to shoot two rolls of film each week, process, and make three silver prints. At the end of January I started posting the results on my Vespa blog (a Vespa and Leica are similar) and until this past week was quite satisfied with the process.

You can see the 3 Prints Project posts HERE

The key word for this post is process.

Another friend and serious photographer cautioned me about becoming enamored with process and suggested that passion for what I see should be driving me and not the warm fuzzy feelings I get being in the darkroom (yes...*sigh*).

And he went on to suggest that not only might I be hobbled by the process but shooting film might keep me from reaching the Empty Mind, the place where I can let go of my expectations and preconceptions and really begin to see.

Words from him are not something I take lightly. And I have considered carefully how I work with film. Looking at my contact sheets it's obvious that I am careful tripping the shutter and work with what is familiar and comfortable. I don't take risks and don't push. He could see it. (*******)

Ever the rationalizer I suggested that if I wasn't getting the warm fuzzies from the camera and process I wouldn't be shooting. He conceded my point but told me that it did not remedy my careful view of things.

So I have been second-guessing myself for the past week. I parked the M6 in the Domke bag and have been carrying the Nikon D200 with a 20mm lens around. I use it professionally but never much personally. It's a beast in comparison and I don't feel comfortable with it. Strange considering how much I use it otherwise. But there is no doubt that I am face to face with my narrow approach and predisposition with the Leica.

I can't turn this around in my head any longer. (Well, I could but don't want to). So aside from venting existentially I was wondering if any of you have run into a similar fork in the road?

Have any of you long time informal shooters made the transition to a digital SLR and found new freedom? Or new paths?

I carried the Leica everywhere. The D200 is a pig but carry it I do. But I feel myself hating it.

Will this pass?
 
Dear Steve,

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but, um... M8?

Though for black and white, well, I'd stick with film (as I do).

Edit: Then again, I'm no believer in 'Empty Mind' in photography. Buddhist practice, yes. Photography... no. And in any case, I strongly suspect that hating the camera you're using is completely incompatible with 'empty mind' anyway.

Cheers,

R.
 
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I've shot a few years with a Nikon FM and collected glass, it's now one year I got my D200 and shot a lot with it since I did a lot of travelling and events. A while ago I started shooting BW film again, and an M2 as well.

M2 serves for shooting for myself now, mostly in Black & White. D200 for color: nature, macros, parties, events, experiments, tasks for a magazine I shoot for,...
No idea what I'll do with my 2 FM's 🙂
 
Steve Williams said:
... Will this pass?
Click to expand...
Sure. You will become complacent and bored with it. 🙄

Your friend motivates himself the way he does it, and you have your own separate motivation. If shooting with your DSLR is producing the type of work you like, then keep it up. If you want to go back to your Leica, do that. I don't really see the conflict. It seems as if you are trying to become The Photographer that your friend envisions.

Then he'll be happy with your work.

But what will make you happy with it?
 
Interesting post Steve. I'm going to give you my view point from the other side.

When I started shooting seriously four years ago I went straight to digital and didn't even consider a film camera because I thought film was obsolete...

I began shooting and learned to composite elaborate photos in photoshop. The more I did it, the more I fell into the same routine. I was using all the same effects, sharpening techniques, etc. So about 6 months ago I got fed up and and bought an M3. Little did I know that shooting film instead of digital would open my mind to the potential of photography. Not because film is the conduit to my imagination but because it made me realize how much impact a picture has and not the camera it's been shot with.

Shooting film is like driving a manual transmission car in the days of automatic. It's mostly personal preference and it has zero effect on where you go.
 
maybe not but I relate much to your experience. I have both rd1 och leica m and I found that I didn't get what I wanted from digital b&w due lack of dynamic range and pretty uggly pattern of noise and grain. This was clearly not better alternative to Trix with D76. But time consuming of developing films left me still undecided if I can get rid of digital stuffs. Probably not that I'm gonna abandon the digital arena but I see the digital medium as good choice to fool around and learn how to take better pictures after instant feedback in the lcd screen of camera or a computer. M8 sounds much nicer alternative to DSLR for professional use and this still can compete with Canon 1ds by judging quality of prints. I also owned nikon DSLR and I find the bulkiness of DSLR too big everytime. Olympus offerings have come close to OM classic body and Nikon fm2.

I'd feel glad to be able use expensive M mount lenses on not only on "hobby" cameras, also future digital or professional tools. So it is wise to mantain same system as possible if other applications don't require another system.
 
I shoot both, about equally, professionally.

I think digital is great, I do often take more risks and shoot more frames, but digital is not always the right fit. The fact you can see it right away can be very distracting and break up my way of seeing and assessing light.

With film, I make the judgement call, frame it, wait for the right moment, click and then move on to the next frame.....that is the key thing, with film, I make the current image and then I move on. I have faith in what I just did and don't even feel the need to chimp.

There is no right or wrong, worse or better, there is simply another option in photographic history.

One thing I have noticed is that the quality of images I see has not grown at the same rate that digital has taken the photography world. I see a ton more mediocrity because that is the limit of the user. The new fangled digital camera is not actually helping them to see better, just quicker.

So while your friend might be right in that if you are so enamored in the process of film that it might be preventing you from seeing more connectedly, the very same thing could be said if digital.

For every time you look at the back of the digital camera, it points your head downward, away from the world, the moment and the life that you live and places you in the past, not the present that will give you the best opportunities for meaningful images.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Steve,

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but, um... M8?

Though for black and white, well, I'd stick with film (as I do).

Edit: Then again, I'm no believer in 'Empty Mind' in photography. Buddhist practice, yes. Photography... no. And in any case, I strongly suspect that hating the camera you're using is completely incompatible with 'empty mind' anyway.

Cheers,

R.
Click to expand...

Hello Roger,

The M8 has crossed my mind more than once. The cost still scares me though.

I am curious though about the Empty Mind not being compatible with photography. Seems as if a visual release could be beneficial. I just finished reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Albert Einstein and it seemed obvious that Einstein sort of lived a non-stop Empty Mind approach that allowed him to see things others could not.

When I look at my personal photos I can see a repeating of things. I just can't get my head emptied of "this is good composition, this is worth shooting, Cartier-Bresson already did this, blah and blah..."

I do appreciate the feedback though.
 
when I checked your gallery, I can tell that you're not gonna to get same rich tonality with any digital available within 35mm. So stick with film for art 's sake. I love your art 😉
 
Steve Williams said:
I just finished reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Albert Einstein and it seemed obvious that Einstein sort of lived a non-stop Empty Mind approach that allowed him to see things others could not.

When I look at my personal photos I can see a repeating of things. I just can't get my head emptied of "this is good composition, this is worth shooting, Cartier-Bresson already did this, blah and blah...
Click to expand...

Great book, Walter is a friend and neighbor of mine.

As fun as it is to look at other's work, I actually try to avoided it for the most part. I never want to be concerned if another photographer has already made an image. If I think it is a good image, I should make it.
 
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Steve Williams said:
Hello Roger,

The M8 has crossed my mind more than once. The cost still scares me though.

I am curious though about the Empty Mind not being compatible with photography. Seems as if a visual release could be beneficial. I just finished reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Albert Einstein and it seemed obvious that Einstein sort of lived a non-stop Empty Mind approach that allowed him to see things others could not.

When I look at my personal photos I can see a repeating of things. I just can't get my head emptied of "this is good composition, this is worth shooting, Cartier-Bresson already did this, blah and blah..."

I do appreciate the feedback though.
Click to expand...
Dear Steve,

The problem I have is with 'empty mind' and 'prepared mind'. In photography (as in Buddhist practice) you need to have a framework for what you are going to see, and 'empty mind' is as much a framework as slavish following of the 'rules of composition' or the excessive analysis you describe.

My most original thoughts generally come unexpectedly, from a vast range of sources. For example, I've just written a piece for my AP column in the UK which was prompted by something I read in a book about folk song: about how the historical accuracy or factuality of a folk song is substantially irrelevant to its success and impact.

In photography, I'm much inclined to shoot first and ask questions afterwards, which may be why I am happier with 35mm than with 8x10 inch. What happens, increasingly, is that I see something and then 'shoot around' it. Sometimes my favourite shots are not the ones I expected, and I can't even explain why I like them. At least, not to myself, though I can always do the Empty Artspeak if someone is interested.

Maybe 40 years ago I wrote a poem that began, "I see everything twice today," about that special intensity that comes when you see things as if for the first time. Today, I try to remember always to look at things, for themselves, for their beauty, not as potential subjects for pictures. Often I forget to shoot; only later do I think, "Oh, bugger, I could have photographed that." Sometimes, at the time, I think, "That's too hard to photograph." But sometimes I get pictures.

This is why, FOR ME, your approach of 'X films per week' would be counterproductive -- and why I don't want to use a camera I don't like. I'm not saying you will feel the same way; just suggesting it as an alternative.

There's a wonderful phrase, 'hardening of the categories'. Ask yourself, "Am I doing it this way because I have always done it this way? How else could I do it?" And even if the new way doesn't sound as good, give it a try. It might surprise you.

Cheers,

Roger
 
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Shoot faster. Think less, react more. Don't put things in the center of the frame so much. Use the ability to see the edges to your advantage.

Camera doesn't matter unless it's a hindrance to above.

Many people, myself included, came to the Leica not so much because of what if offers feature wise but because everything else feels like a hindrance to shooting. I avoided it for as long as I could shooting with point and shoots, small SLRs etc till I tried one and realized it has just the stuff I want and nothing else to get in the way of seeing and shooting.
 
Fascinating question, Steve. Your response to your friend is much as mine would have been.

I don't know the Empty Mind concept, but it sounds a child-like state in which the filters that adults use are inoperative. I don't know whether that's something to aspire to or not. My own childhood was a time of visual and olfactory wonder, but with hindsight it seems that it was chiefly 'macro' in perspective, much more obsessed with detail than my adult senses. I could be fascinated by the iridescent patterns of oil on a rainwater puddle, and neither notice the passage of time nor hear the lorry approaching.
 
The whole concept of the "empty mind" for me, is what is at the core of any art, suggesting that you need to use this or that tool to achieve that zen is a highly pedestrian view of things... I rarely see digital photos that move me. Not because they are digital but because they somehow lack comittment one way or another. If there was any foundation to what your friend was telling you, for the amount of digital cameras that are now out there in the world, we'd be INUNDATED with amazing photography and I simply dont see it.

Your freedom as an artist comes from within. The only thing whatever tool you hold in your hand to realize it should do, primarily, is not get in the way. If you have a tool you arent comfortable with that tiny bit of angst for it is always going to be somehow, part of the equation when you use it. For some people this is a film camera or a digital camera or this kind of guitar or that kind of brush. If you, as the artist, cant overcome and fluidly work with the tool, you arent much of an artist. Perhaps for your friend, that was a digital camera. Its not going to be the same for everyone. To suggest a digital camera will somehow set you free is among the more absurd things Ive heard in quite a while and really goes to the core of what for me, will always be wrong with nonlinear storage systems and their interaction with the creative process.
 
I have no qualms with risking a frame on film. I don't think the film/digital has anything at all whatsoever to do with such a thing.
 
This sounds like over-intellectualised, pretentious claptrap to me. You have set yourself a task which has now become a chore. You have allowed yourself to doubt your own eye and your own mind because you have listened and given weight to the opinions of another. Now you are doing it again by airing your "concerns" here.

For goodness' sake abandon the artspeak, and walk away from your project for a while. The kit is not important - it is just a tool. If the tool comes between you and your vision, it is the wrong tool. Go back to your project when you feel motivated to do so. The rest will follow.


Regards,

Bill
 
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