Grumpy Old Photographers

For my last post I urge you to visit this website that Adobe has created. (http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.3bc41711/6) On this forum I have found many grumpy, old school photographers like myself griping about the changes that digital photography has imposed on our artform. One grumpy old photographer commented "Has the photography hobby been downgraded by the apparent lack of thought now required in this auto everything mass exposure world where if you click the shutter often enough you are going to get lucky ?" He also stated the theory that I have been focusing on all semester-"the million monkeys banging on a million typewriters eventually producing a masterpiece theory." To say it simply, we film photgraphers are all in the same boat here. We can be outdone by ametures who just click away without any consideration to composition, light source, f-stop or aperature. With just one click a digital camera can take a picture that can be cropped, rotated, and adjusted by photoshop. Another grumpy photographer made the comment that someone who proudly takes 700+ pictures on a digital camera but just clicking away might capture some good, maybe even amazing photos. The question is, will they recognize them when they see them or will they simply be deleted from a memory card?

Another Little Lesson

After posting the history on film photography I though it would be interesting to do some research about digital photography and this is what I found:

Digital camera technology is directly related to and has evolved from the same technology that recorded television images. In 1951, the first video tape recorder (VTR) captured live images from television cameras by converting the information into electrical impulses (digital) and saving the information onto magnetic tape.
Although the consumer digital camera was not invented until the late 90's, digital images were being used in government work. During the 1960s, NASA converted from using analog to digital signals with their space probes to map the surface of the moon (sending digital images back to earth). Digital imaging also had another government use at the time that being spy satellites. Beginning in the mid 1970's, Kodak has invented several solid-state image sensors that are able to convert light to digital picutures for professional and consumer use. In 1986, Kodak scientists invented the world's first megapixel sensor, which was capable of recording 1.4 million pixels that could produce a 5x7-inch digital photo-quality print. In 1987, Kodak released seven products for recording, storing, manipulating, transmitting and printing electronic still video images. The first digital cameras for the consumer-level market that worked with a home computer via a serial cable were the Apple QuickTake 100 camera (1994) and the Kodak DC40 camera (1995).

And that's history!

A History Lesson

While I rave and rant about film photography I have realized that many people may not now how film photography was created and how it has evolved, therefore I have put together this short and sweet history lesson about the first film photography ever used.
"Photography" is derived from the Greek words photos ("light") and graphein ("to draw"). The inventor of the very first process of photography was a man by the name of Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre who was born in France. Daguerre was a professional scene painter for the opera and began experimenting with the effects of light on translucent paintings in the 1820s. In 1829 took the first permanent photography in 1826. After several years of experimentation, Daguerre developed a more convenient and effective method of photography, naming it after himself -- the daguerreotype. The daguerreotype gained popularity quickly; by 1850, there were over seventy daguerreotype studios in New York City alone.
Obviously from here on out technology evolved rapidly into what we now know as film photography. The picture I have posted was the very first daguerrerotype ever taken in America.
Hope you ejoyed the lesson!

A More Pleasant View

I recently read this article in The Wall Street Journal and it warmed my heart. This article is by a fellow film photographer and he makes many good points about the cold and unsentimental nature of digital photography. Douglas Gantenbien makes many statments in this article that I often feel reverberate within me when I am contemplating the struggle between film and digital photography. I think Douglas said it all when he stated "...Film was magic -- the process of pushing a button to open the shutter, forming an invisible image on a strip of coated plastic, then making that image visible by bathing it with chemicals and projecting it onto a sheet of paper that in turn was soaked in more chemicals and sometimes rubbed and massaged to manipulate the image." This is exactly how I feel about the art and beauty that film photography creates. He also makes a very valid statement that some of the most amazing pictures have been created by the human error that film photography allows. Some mistakes or miscalculations in photography have created award winning pictures. Now with this new digital age there is no room for mistakes and those once amazing "by chance" shots will be extinct.
The part of this article that really struck me was the sentimentality and emotion that is attached to film photography. The opening of this article talks about a man who becomes misty eyed when talking about his very first 35mm camera. I may just be cynical, but I find it hard to believe that any person is sentimentally attached to thier kokak point and shoot digital camera. Within this examination Douglas made one more statment that I believe should be passed on to our younger generation about the loss and extinction of a beautiful art. Douglas "...sees digital photography as a disaster for historians. People delete pictures from their cameras' memory cards. Hard drives crash. PCs end up in the dump, photos still on board. And CDs full of pictures will become unreadable when their surfaces deteriorate (you heard that right -- CDs are incredibly unstable). With all that, says Mr. Federman, we're on the verge of losing billions of pictures. We will not have a record of the individual stories that are told by families from one generation to another through pictures.That is a wealth of human history that will simply be lost."

Amen.

"Film Photography Fades To Black" by Douglas Gantenbien, The Wall Street Journal
March 14, 2006

Man Down!

An article titled "Fujifilm Rearranges the Picture" in Chemical and Engineering News has reported another man down in the film photography business. The Fujifilm Company based in Japan has recently seen a drastic decline in film photography interest. Within the last year Fujifilm has laid off thousands of workers because of the impact that digital has had on thier company. This company which once based 50% of it's profit on the film photography market now considers film a burden since it hardly contributes to the bottom line of the company's business. This article stated that since the beginning of digital photography "The worldwide photographic film market has shrunk in size from a peak of about $17 billion in 2001 to a bare $7 billion last year." In order to survive this company has had to take drastic steps to stay afloat since the demise of film photography. This company which once succeded mainly on film has laid off over 5000 people in the film industry and has focused all of it's attention on research to avoid this catastraphy again. Fujifilm now researches technology that they believe will be popular in the late future to stay on top of the game. As for film photography, well it's simply ancient history, a burden and a dead weight. Man Down!
You can read more about this stress signal for film photographers at http://pubs.acs.org.ezproxy.lib.ipfw.edu/isubscribe/journals/cen/85/i27/html/8527bus1.html
Please say a prayer for the lost.

Digital Pro

Upon logging on to Nikon's homepage I must say that I was shocked. The first advertisement for this once highly renouned film camera company was one that boasted about the performance enhancement of thier new D40 digital camera. (www.nikonusa.com) I was now baffled by the new technology that this company had created, but by the advertisement strategy that it was using. I have read (in more than one article) that facing the new digital dilemma, Nikon has been forced to cease all production of 35 mm cameras in order to support the invention of their new digital technology. The invention of digital photography has completely forced this company to desert the camera that they knew and loved in order to keep up with the times. Seeing that digital has begun its supreme reign over the world, I do understand the need for survival in this case. While the new D40 Nikon digital camera is amazing in all of it's features and capabilities, I have to admit that I was disturbed by the message that Nikon was relating to its customers. In order to beckon more users to continue on the page the very first statement made about this camera was that "ANYONE can take amazing digital pictures with a Nikon D40 in thier hand". This brazen statement completely delineates form the very core of what this company once provided. With this one statement Nikon has shown thier customers that there is absolutely no need for professional photographers when one has a D40. And to prove this point they have created a "trip to picturetown" which shows the (obviously enhanced) pictures that 200 people took in Georgetown, South Carolina. This message shows the consumer that there is no longer a need for professional photographers and it is obvious that this profession is soon to be extinct. Although the message seems tainted for me, I do suggest checking out the camera. It has some pretty amazing features and capabilities that can make anyone a pro.

Sepial Fine Film Photography

Recently I have found myself on a quest to find other photographers who embrace and love film photography as much as I do. This website http://www.sepial.com/ shows just that. This is a professional website for an independent photographer to show his work and gain clientel. The reason I was so drawn to this website was partially the inclusion of "film" in the title and mostly because this artist stated that he only uses film. Damian Counsell, who runs this company, states that "...Unlike most professional photographers today, I use real film. I believe that, in good hands, film photography makes more beautiful pictures than digital photography. Fortunately for me, most digital photographers don’t have good hands.

Compare my photos on this site with my competitors’. I don’t manipulate my images, either in the darkroom or with tools like Photoshop—except to crop, rotate, or resize them for the Web. My images have appeared in magazines and newspapers in the UK, the States, and the Middle East."

All in all I find him and his work very impressive. This company embodies all that I love and respect about film photographers. Check out his site and you will see the true beauty of film photography (something I have been boasting about since day one) and hopefully you can gain the respect for film photography that I have acquired.