Do not go gently ...
Whlist out and about with my Tim Horton's extra large coffee at one of my favourite photo spots, I began thinking about a question I recently responded to on a film site I belong to.
Why do I still use film for photography?
The following are just some musings and opinions.
I began film photography as best I can recollect back in junior high school. I was facinated by the chemical process and joined the club when I graduated up from elementary school. My next recollection comes from doing a science project that involved photographing star trails, i.e., earth's rotation, and then processing the film, printing a few images and writing up the report.
For me photography is about the creative process not just about pulling out a mobile phone or pushing buttons. Its not about awkwardly squinting and straining over a tiny LCD screen either. It is about careful consideration for the choice of camera and what message I am trying to convey through my photographic instruments. It's about considering how something will look on a negative or transparency and then reproduce as a print. Photography is about previsualisation, contemplation, composition, tones, hues, colours, gradations, contrast and visual impact. I suppose one could argue these things just as easily for digital imaging, but that just doesn't "feel" right to me, at least not at this point.
No doubt our world is currently racing ahead at mach 2.0 with it's hair a-fire, jumping from this new bell or whistle to that.
On the other hand, I wonder if the masses are not letting the billion dollar - human psychology marketing/advertising influenced corporations pull their purse strings like a marionette puppet this way and that. "You got to have this new feature on the new model ... last month's just won't do anymore!" Let's face it, technology corporations depend upon manufacturing for their massive unfairly gained profits just like the food market industry. For the manufacturing sector to succeed, the public must continue to buy ... buy ... buy! So it makes me wonder how things have changed when that ol' reliable film camera was sufficient for decades ... all of a sudden the latest and greates new types of digital cameras or computers for that matter, are obsolete within months!
I am not anti-technology, quite the contrary as I use it and welcome it everyday. But when it comes to that creative endeavour we call photography, here is where I am glad we have a choice. Yes, I have a nice DSLR and use it from time to time, but it is not my main imaging tool.
The point is that we consumers must be vigilant against the wiles of human psychology influnced marketers and advertising.
Furthermore, there is perhaps a different creative milieu associated with film versus digital photography or have I missed something?
Therefore, as a film photographer, I shouldn't need to justify why I use film, this question shouldn't even be asked!
As Dylan Thomas once wrote, "Do not go gentle into that goodnight ..." with respect to his dying father, I think we can apply it as an anology for my continued advocation of traditional photography from the imaging tools to processing film and working out the final print in a darkroom - photography is a hands-on labour of passion and dedication. I do it not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because, dare I say, it is therapeutic. Coming to the painful awareness that I am not the sharpest pencil in the box, and stuck in a life with many disappointments, I also see photography in light of a therapy, which is why I look foward to weekends or any time I can get out with camera(s) and perhaps a coffee-to-go.
Why do I still use film for photography?
The following are just some musings and opinions.
I began film photography as best I can recollect back in junior high school. I was facinated by the chemical process and joined the club when I graduated up from elementary school. My next recollection comes from doing a science project that involved photographing star trails, i.e., earth's rotation, and then processing the film, printing a few images and writing up the report.
For me photography is about the creative process not just about pulling out a mobile phone or pushing buttons. Its not about awkwardly squinting and straining over a tiny LCD screen either. It is about careful consideration for the choice of camera and what message I am trying to convey through my photographic instruments. It's about considering how something will look on a negative or transparency and then reproduce as a print. Photography is about previsualisation, contemplation, composition, tones, hues, colours, gradations, contrast and visual impact. I suppose one could argue these things just as easily for digital imaging, but that just doesn't "feel" right to me, at least not at this point.
No doubt our world is currently racing ahead at mach 2.0 with it's hair a-fire, jumping from this new bell or whistle to that.
On the other hand, I wonder if the masses are not letting the billion dollar - human psychology marketing/advertising influenced corporations pull their purse strings like a marionette puppet this way and that. "You got to have this new feature on the new model ... last month's just won't do anymore!" Let's face it, technology corporations depend upon manufacturing for their massive unfairly gained profits just like the food market industry. For the manufacturing sector to succeed, the public must continue to buy ... buy ... buy! So it makes me wonder how things have changed when that ol' reliable film camera was sufficient for decades ... all of a sudden the latest and greates new types of digital cameras or computers for that matter, are obsolete within months!
I am not anti-technology, quite the contrary as I use it and welcome it everyday. But when it comes to that creative endeavour we call photography, here is where I am glad we have a choice. Yes, I have a nice DSLR and use it from time to time, but it is not my main imaging tool.
The point is that we consumers must be vigilant against the wiles of human psychology influnced marketers and advertising.
Furthermore, there is perhaps a different creative milieu associated with film versus digital photography or have I missed something?
Therefore, as a film photographer, I shouldn't need to justify why I use film, this question shouldn't even be asked!
As Dylan Thomas once wrote, "Do not go gentle into that goodnight ..." with respect to his dying father, I think we can apply it as an anology for my continued advocation of traditional photography from the imaging tools to processing film and working out the final print in a darkroom - photography is a hands-on labour of passion and dedication. I do it not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because, dare I say, it is therapeutic. Coming to the painful awareness that I am not the sharpest pencil in the box, and stuck in a life with many disappointments, I also see photography in light of a therapy, which is why I look foward to weekends or any time I can get out with camera(s) and perhaps a coffee-to-go.
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