Will I ever be a digital guy?

Yeah, digital is convenient.
I think we all *get* that.

But film has all the reasons for me to enjoy. The imperfection, the latitude, the waiting, the processing, and don't forget, the darkroom printing.

So no, as a person starting with digital, I don't have any romantic notion beyond the "coolness" of using classic gears, but film photography is really enjoyable as a pursuit. The farther back in time I investigate, the more fascinating it becomes.

Digital is quick, easy and painless, and just as easily evaporates in my "memorable moments" list.

But I'm sure that's just me 🙂
 
I used to think that I was not a colour guy. I liked shooting in black and white. Then I began exprimenting using Photoshop and found that I quite liked colour images that are high contrast and low saturation. Now I shoot almost always in color and that means of course in digital. If you only want to shoot black and white or black and white film I think thats perfectly OK. But I know from personal experience that it can be enlightening to stretch the boundaries and experiment with entirely new imaging modes..
 
i was a black & white film guy forever...did not like colour much at all.

and then i got the rd1 and the colour it produces made me fall in love with it.
now i convert to black & white and am quite satisfied with the results...but many of my images remain in colour.
 
Paul,

I think this ( no aethetic reason to produce digital B&W) is mostly in your head.

In my opinion you are a careful, thoughtful photographer with something to say. The work you produce is uniquely yours. In my view you can produce aesthetically outstanding B&W work from your X100's raw files.

Making quality prints is not problematic. I use MPIX's B&W print services (true monochrome printing) for most of my B&W work. Some of these have been in juried gallery shows. There are other reasonably priced commercial labs that use higher quality papers with true monochrome printing. For me, producing digital B&W photographs is as time consuming and challenging as using a wet darkroom.

We can argue endlessly whether or not a digital monochrome print is aesthetically equivalent to a wet darkroom print. This really doesn't matter. Paul, for you, the impact of your content overwhelms the minor differences between media. I don't believe you are a photographer that needs to rely on technical minutia to fully express your aesthetic excellence.

So... just keep working.
 
jsrockit said:
It's all fun if it isn't your job.
Click to expand...

Umm, yeah....right...

In the past 24 hours, I shot a magazine piece on Tri-X in my M3 and Xpan, an advertising job under the milky way at 12,000 feet that went until 3AM with a D3S, D800 and Ektar in 4x5.

OP, why would you even want to call your self a "Digital Guy", why not just a photographer?
 
First of all I would like to say something about your photos - I have never thought "oh he shot this one with film/digital!" first. for me it is completly irelevant compared to subject, framing, right moment and all other things that make subject of photo in a strict sense. I like subjests of your photos, not the medium. more often then not we use medium to cover up shortcomings of photo itself

There are 3 main reasons why I still can't get film completly out of my mind.
1) DR in highlights - but I assume it is something that in a short time will be a noissue; further more, FFs like 5D offer files that you can work with really well, highlights recovery included
2) keeping originals - back up of a back up of a back up... F*** that!
3) film is aquired taste that is hard to get rid off (I'm not excluded) - I think that we should fight for aesthetical identity/"truth" of a (not so) new medium i.e. digital. often I come to threads like "would HCB use digital today?". I don't know, but besides pure aesthetical request, there's also honesty request: do we want to capture geist of today's world and our surroundings? development of photo media gave a certain look to each period. photographers accepted it not rejected, with film lot of shots look like "out of time", kids shot yesterday at a party look same as their parents in 80's (or 70's or whatever). It would be irrelevant if photography was pure aesthetical, but it is not, it is very much interwoven with it's time (every art should be as far as I'm concidered). Now I'm going to far. your photos are great and I think digital and film each add something to it. Digital is not inferior to film.
Alex
 
shadowfox said:
Yeah, digital is convenient.
I think we all *get* that.

But film has all the reasons for me to enjoy. The imperfection, the latitude, the waiting, the processing, and don't forget, the darkroom printing.

So no, as a person starting with digital, I don't have any romantic notion beyond the "coolness" of using classic gears, but film photography is really enjoyable as a pursuit. The farther back in time I investigate, the more fascinating it becomes.

Digital is quick, easy and painless, and just as easily evaporates in my "memorable moments" list.

But I'm sure that's just me 🙂
Click to expand...

I'm with you on that 🙂
while I started with film, I only got serious about photography when I acquired my first DSLR (Minolta Dynax/Maxxum 5D. What a superb camera!) and after 7 years of DSLR user, I am now mostly working with film. All you stated above holds true for me too.

I just got a Contax RTS III and a set of Contax lenses (50/1.7, 85/1.4, 135/2.8, 35/2.8, 35-70/3.4 and a 28/2.8) and love it. But I love even more what I do with my Retina IIc...shooting with that camera and producing great results is rewarding in a way my D700 + AF lenses never was.

After all, photography is just a hobby, and enjoying the process is more important than the results, in a way. The fact that I still produce good photographs with highly enjoyable film gear is a very nice by-product 😉
 
shadowfox said:
Yeah, digital is convenient.
I think we all *get* that.

But film has all the reasons for me to enjoy. The imperfection, the latitude, the waiting, the processing, and don't forget, the darkroom printing.

So no, as a person starting with digital, I don't have any romantic notion beyond the "coolness" of using classic gears, but film photography is really enjoyable as a pursuit. The farther back in time I investigate, the more fascinating it becomes.

Digital is quick, easy and painless, and just as easily evaporates in my "memorable moments" list.

But I'm sure that's just me 🙂
Click to expand...



You are not the only one. Me too 🙂
 
Paul I had a quick look through your work and was drawn to your film shots. They seemed to jump out at you. Maybe it's my bias. Maybe your affinity with the OM has you take better images. I don't know. IMHO they are just better.

At I type the scanner is working away in the background. - 2 rolls of HP5 36. I enjoyed taking them this week and I am getting a second round of enjoyment as they scan. Lastly there's the joy of tidying them up in PS (or a wet print in the darkroom that is getting built soon).

Do what you enjoy.
 
We all see how greatly music has benefitted from the "infinite tape" effect where essentially do-overs are the norm and thinking about duration limits are a non-issue. Just look at all the great music being released today compared to the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s! What you say? It's all mostly soulless crap? There's a reason for that.

Limitations produce art worth experiencing. Lack of them produces tripe.

Shoot film if you want your photographs to matter.
 
Hi paul,

I'm kind of surprised that you don't do any medium format stuff ... your photography style would suit it IMO.

Every time I start getting a little comfortable with digital I run a couple of rolls through my P67 ... those 6x7 negatives really bring home to me just what digital can't quite do yet!
 
clayne said:
Just look at all the great music being released today compared to the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s! What you say? It's all mostly soulless crap? There's a reason for that.
Click to expand...

You aren't looking hard enough... great music and great photography is made by EVERY single generation.
 
I agree, maybe more than ever... the problem is that same applies for crap which have overwhelmed the mainstream so it seems that everything is a crap
Alex
 
I am going through a similar phase, Paul. I have hundreds of film based images that I find beautiful, and it took years of active photography to have so many photographs that appeal to my own taste. This is not being immodest. It i simply that I enjoy looking at many of my older photos. I did not have children then, and I took different photos from I do now. The digital age is new to me, and it may take some time before I can create imsges that I approve of. There types of photos that I took with B&W film that were challenged by commercial developing and scanning, and that somehow ended up having a unique look. I do not know how to create such images digitally.

Maybe this is what you are going through. You compare newly taken digital images with film based images that you have taken over many years.

Not everything is equipment driven, but using good digital equipment may make me a better "digital photogrpher", and maybe it will not. I read about the need to do PS or similar with digital images taken by M8 cameras and other advanced cameras.

I would settle for a happy mix of digitl and non-digital cameras for a while beore making any decisions on what to do next.
 
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