There is hope for the younger generation of photographers.

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jamesdfloyd

Film is cheap therapy!
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This weekend I was hanging out at my local "real" photography store and something very surprising happened. I watched 4 families come into buy Tri-X and batteries for film SLR's. I was amazed.

It seems that the local high school photography instructor does not allow digital or Photoshop for Photo I students. My friend who runs the store said that on Tuesday he got 50-rolls of Tri-X for the start of school and only 15 remained when I left the store Saturday.

Of the 4 students I saw come in, 2 had Pentax K1000's, 1 Minolta and 1 Olympus OM-1n. Most of the kids told me that the cameras belonged to the grandfathers.

There is hope for the younger generation.
 
I dunno. It's so much faster to get feedback from digital, I'm not sure of the real utility of forcing 21st century kids to learn photography with 20th century tools. But I guess if it sells some film...
 
In the consumer marketplace, there seems to be many instances of "back-pedalling" to retro designs and fashions. I'm thinking auto and motorcycle designs, cameras, even Coke "Classic". I'm sure there are more examples. The word "classic" is used a lot in advertising.
 
In 1415, or was it 1314 .. anyway at agincourt the army could lose ten to twelve shafts a minute, it was the start of the twentieth century before we could shoot round at the same rate, abyssinia iirc, we won both btw

reality is often not involved in these things
 
There is clearly a "coolness" to shooting film right now and, from what I can gather, it is growing. Of course it is impossible to discern how large this market is, at what rate it is growing, and how long it might last.

A local art photographer I've had the pleasure of meeting recently teaches photography at one of the city's universities. It is required that he teach darkroom skills. He can't stand it and feels it's the equivalent of teaching someone how to use a buggy whip.

Although I still only shoot film and remain a film lover, I can't really disagree with him.
 
I'm young, and since i picked up my M2 I've almost completely stopped shooting digital. I think that there is still a lot of interest in film.
 
Paddy, would art schools not offer painting courses because photography (film and digital) is faster/easier/more convenient/ more applicable to the current marketplace? Of course not.

Stewart, you lost me there.
 
that's amazing

that's amazing

and great. The teacher should be nominated for the Nobel prize for teachers.

jamesdfloyd said:
This weekend I was hanging out at my local "real" photography store and something very surprising happened. I watched 4 families come into buy Tri-X and batteries for film SLR's. I was amazed.

It seems that the local high school photography instructor does not allow digital or Photoshop for Photo I students. My friend who runs the store said that on Tuesday he got 50-rolls of Tri-X for the start of school and only 15 remained when I left the store Saturday.

Of the 4 students I saw come in, 2 had Pentax K1000's, 1 Minolta and 1 Olympus OM-1n. Most of the kids told me that the cameras belonged to the grandfathers.

There is hope for the younger generation.
Click to expand...
 
I don't think I've ever seen a Holga outside of a shop or any kids my age with film cameras, but I did see a guy with a Yashica-mat t-shirt outside of my chem lab.

I think film is cool...
 
True about the Holgas.

Last weekend I was at the Redbull Flugtag in Philadelphia, using my Nikon D3 and I came across a group of 5 college kids using Holgas. I asked them their motivation for using them and it all came down to the "coolness" of it. I do have to admit, that their comments and use of the cameras struck me as a fad and not a hobby however.
 
FrankS said:
In the consumer marketplace, there seems to be many instances of "back-pedalling" to retro designs and fashions. I'm thinking auto and motorcycle designs, cameras, even Coke "Classic". I'm sure there are more examples. The word "classic" is used a lot in advertising.
Click to expand...

Also, at Agincourt the English knights were dismounted allowing the archers to rain arrows in a killing field that decimated the gallant but disorganized flower of French knighthood. Perhaps proving that a step backwards can often prove very effective.
 
FrankS said:
The Holga/Lomo thing may be fad-dish, but it can be a useful intro to the film world.
Click to expand...

Indeed. My 23-year old daughter shot a lot w/ a Holga in college, then took a photography class and learned to develop film, and is now shooting 35mm bw and color. She's got a digicam too, but I think only uses it for casual snaps.
 
At the Palo Alto friends of the library monthly used book sales (one is going on this weekend), a few times a year they have boxes of green film cameras, fixed focus and exposure, for 0.25 cents each. I'm guessing they are used for some kind of educational program, and cost less than holgas. We tried 2 a few years back, one was pretty good, and one had a bad light leak, so we just trashed both to not waste more film in them.

I'm thinking that film photography, like analog electronics and physics labs with lasers and actual lens elements are going by the wayside, since being phased out in the '80s or so.

Now kids have Wikipedia, and no real experience on how stuff actually works. They'll be fully prepared to design the next generation of Ford and GM cars from their ipads ...
 
I'm thinking that the Holga/Lomo thing is yet another example of reaching back into history, both for that imperfect vintage "look" , and for use of simpler technologies.

I'm also thinking that many people are feeling that the optimum point/level of technology has been passed, and that now technology has gone too far, creating more problems than solutions, hence the attraction to "retro classic" in many areas.
 
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FrankS said:
Paddy, would art schools not offer painting courses because photography (film and digital) is faster/easier/more convenient/ more applicable to the current marketplace? Of course not.

Stewart, you lost me there.
Click to expand...

drink can do that 🙂 it is that just, that progress is what it is, and it isn't always better than what went before ... just easier, sadly
 
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