The baggage of film
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I didn’t really shoot film. Sure I had a 35mm film camera like everyone else. As a kid I had my negatives developed at the local camera store or sometimes at the supermarket. Never spent any time in a dark room.
For me that’s worked out just fine.
Why? Because I’m a digital photographer. I can’t be bound to 16 or 32 frames (MF 120 or 220, yeah I actually shot a few rolls before purchasing the Hasselblad). Just not my style.
It goes back to my What’s in an Image post. I’m looking for the fleeting editorial moments that aren’t “poses.” I can’t tell you when these moments will happen. It’s much like trying to predict when lighting will strike. But when lightning strikes, the earth shakes, the heavens rumble, and sometimes you can create life (Frankenstein, Short Circuit, creation of life, etc.). In order to catch lightning in a bottle, you have to be prepared for those moments, and you also have to shoot a lot of frames…
But shooting a lot of frames is hard for photographers that lived through the days when film was so expensive. Back in the olden days, photographers had to be precise about their metering, focus, and lighting because not only did they only have a limited number of frames, they had a limited bankroll to spend on film. As a result, film photographers were forced to be very specific about models’ poses.
Those days are gone.
And while most of those same film photographers now own digital Canons and Nikons, few of them have adopted the volume-shooting style that digital technology affords. Instead, these photographers insist that their “take-as-few-frames-as-possible-precision” is the right way of shooting because it’s exact and yields predictable and repeatable results every time. To that extent, they are absolutely correct. But what these photographers will never experience is (as I’ve stated before) “lightning in a bottle,” because they feel wasteful when they shoot lots of frames.
It’s the equivalent of someone insisting on getting their water from the well in the backyard, even though there is running water connected to the house.
Why carry the baggage around from yesteryear? Things change. Embrace change.
But the baggage doesn’t end with just shooting-style. These same photographers used to spend hours in the lab developing their film. Perhaps for this reason they resent Photoshop’s ability to manipulate images with ease. Some of these same photographers say retouching is “cheating” and that you should get the shot “right” in the camera to begin with.
Sound familiar?
This issue is not limited to film photographers. It can be seen across the board in various aspects of life. We all know someone who is “afraid” of the computer and doesn’t have email. Or someone who refuses to carry a cell phone because back in the old days, people didn’t have cell phones. Or even people that still schedule their lives around their favorite TV shows because they don’t own DVRs.
Look, I get it. It’s a reluctance to change. One day, I’ll have my hangups about adopting new technologies. And sure, one can argue that digital photographers aren’t nearly as precise and use “volume-shooting” as a crutch for not having a clear vision. I get that. Or that Photoshop is just a crutch for not capturing things right to begin with. I understand that argument too. But being that this is a fashion-specific blog, I challenge you to open a copy of W, V, Vogue, Numéro and describe the current style of images. Gone are the overly-posed looks. What you see today is fleeting. It is motion, emotion, attitude, that is unpredictable and certainly not choreographed or staged or posed. It’s real. It’s candid. It’s human. And it’s alive.
Certainly, there are no wrong answers. Posed is not better or worse than natural. But being limited by archaic thinking and outdated practices will only hold you back from current trends and future growth. Use the lessons of film in the past and adapt that knowledge to the technologies available today. You’ll be that much stronger and better than those that haven’t had the experience of true physical photo-manipulation. Don’t let the baggage of film weigh you down on your photoshoots.
You can learn more about shooting with traditional film at one of my group workshops.
LUCIMA
Charles Lucima is a photographer/retoucher based in Los Angeles specializing in fashion, editorial, and beauty. His clients include designers, apparel brands, and modeling agencies around the world. http://www.lucima.com/
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November 14, 2011 at 3:15 am, Norris Carden said:
Your lack of experience with film shows in your arrogant ignorance. Film still provides more latitude for exposure as well as dynamic range than digital… and one doesn’t need darkroom experience to know this.
I missed the days of film as a professional photographer because I was shooting 3/4″ and betacam video. Even though I had more flexibility to do things over than the still shooters, it was still essential to “get it right” the first time.
Now as a digital still photographer, I still want to get as much possible before hitting the shutter. Yes there is much that can be done in Photoshop, but taking 10 seconds to get the hair out of a model’s eyes beats the time required to remove it later. Relying on digital magic will never make one a better photographer.
November 10, 2011 at 5:44 pm, Scott said:
It’s not a reluctance to change? It’s about the arrogance of digital photographers thinking that all film photographers MUST change to digital just because digital exists. I’ll leave you with this thought. If film and it’s process is so bad then why to digital photographers spend thousands in cameras, computers and software and then spend countless hours in front of said computer trying to get their digital image to look like……FILM! Why not just shoot film?
November 07, 2011 at 12:17 pm, Kincaid Blackwood said:
I started out shooting 35mm 8 years ago. After 2 or 3 years I transitioned to medium format 645. After a couple of years I added 6×7. For the last two years I’ve been shooting digitally.
With all due respect, your characterization of “the baggage of film” is wildly misleading. Even shooting digitally, I don’t shoot for the sake of volume. I’m not some wild game hunter, waiting for a moment to strike or firing bullets wildly so that maybe, just maybe I can get a kill after riddling the whole countryside with bullets.
No, the hunter analogy doesn’t even remotely fit. What I and many other photographers who shoot film or digital do is akin to composing a symphony and directing it. Specific poses are a reflection of very specific ideas in one’s head. The approach of allowing the subject to simply “do” and wait for the moment to come to you is simply a different ideology. It’s not an incorrect photographic methodology but it is a different one. That methodical, low volume photographers don’t embrace such an approach is not that we don’t embrace change (again, I shoot digitally and edit in PS) it is because the high-volume, passive approach doesn’t fit our shooting style.
This is an opinion piece and we certainly respect other’s opinions but, again, it grossly mischaracterizes ideology and methodology as an unwillingness to adopt a shooting strategy that is not a natural evolution but, instead, a different way.
November 05, 2011 at 3:47 pm, Prmass1 said:
+1 On the campaign of: Move on! Its time to grasp technology and leave the old behind.
November 03, 2011 at 8:36 pm, Lloyd Wright said:
What a waste of time thinking and typing this rubbish…what does it matter…you should be out filling up your memory cards…and spend this time seeing if you’ve anything worth using…everybody works the way they work- end of !
November 04, 2011 at 1:35 am, Prmass1 said:
Some people still live in the dinosaur age. Its time to move to digital. Film RIP.
November 04, 2011 at 7:36 am, Noel Grigalunus said:
Some people just like keeping up the drama. And comments like yours, only fan the fires of controversy. So how is life as a photographer for you in the so very distant future? Because from where I stand, there are SO MANY people that still shoot film in additional to digital, like me. Love your handle by the way.
November 03, 2011 at 8:23 pm, Lloyd Wright said:
What a waste of time thinking about and typing this nonsense…everyone works the way they work…end of…whose interested !!!
November 03, 2011 at 6:33 pm, Six said:
Oh this has so been done before. There’s really no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater is there? They are different but related media, but there’s no point saying you should no longer write if you can type everything instead. Yes, digital photography is a major ‘innovation’, and yes it has certain overstated advantages of convenience, but it’s clearly rubbish that no-one took a spontaneous photograph (or a photograph that gave an impression of spontaneity) before the advent of digital imaging. And for god’s sake novelty isn’t a justification enough in its own right: it’s a huge market selling ‘new’ and ‘better’ cameras every two years. Do you trust the man selling you a kindle when he tells you books are obsolete? Really, I’m no stick-in-the-mud – I’ve had some form of digital camera alongside my film ones since the days of sub-4MP (utter s**t) – and I do like your work Charles, but this really gets my goat.
November 03, 2011 at 5:15 pm, J6 said:
Digital will never be able to capture the same emotions and overall feelings that celluloid can. It’s only baggage if the user has no love or idea of how to maximize the potential. Yes celluloid is expansive, but also with “baggage” comes a different and subtle art that digital is STILL trying to emulate. Recently the Panavision + Arri film division has stopped production on film cameras, but that is only because the current economy is in the shits. Digital is all fluff, all glam, shallow and right now in development stages to become more robust and elegant. So yeah, digital is way more cost efficient, but to say it’s baggage is very disrespectful and arrogant. The whole digital era originated from celluloid.
November 03, 2011 at 12:18 pm, Tyrone Lavigne said:
The whole “embrace change” thing doesn’t really make sense to me, especially not on the topic of ditching film and embracing the digital age….
You said to look at the editorials in fashion magazines now; what I see is film….and a lot of digital trying to emulate film; be it with light leaks, burns, simulating crappy enlargers, grain, etc. To me it’s cyclical. Next month the big fad will be Old Hollywood lighting a la Hurrell, or maybe something more Man Ray-inspired (solarization anyone?).
One need only look at their own portfolio to see that while we have attempted change, we are perhaps still influenced greatly by the very past we seek to move on from 😉
November 03, 2011 at 4:05 am, Prmass1 said:
I shot film back in the 80’s and even up to the late 90’s and once I began using digital I never went back. I also think the people that still use film are affraid of change. The benefits greatly outnumber film. Full framed digital cameras finally closed the gap.
November 02, 2011 at 6:26 pm, Carlos David said:
On the subject of Vogue & Vanity Fair, the most iconic images are still the posed ones by the likes of Annie et al. everything is pretty much planned and diagrammed prior to the shoot.
November 02, 2011 at 3:40 pm, Rjmarsh01 said:
Tim, you are an ass, sorry but reread your post. I shot film from 1959 – 2001. I like both. today its all digital, but since i throw nothing away, i still like to shoot film, just like I enjoy wearing my old college jersey from time to time…its like “hello old friend”.. a background in film is simply NOT required to make the points the author made.
November 02, 2011 at 2:08 pm, Mike @ pasarella said:
Isn’t it that photography is about you capturing what you see through your eyes? So film or digital should be the same. 36 frames on digital can give me 36 spontane photographs. The same for film. It is about your aim and the chemistry between your model. It is about what you want to show the world.
In the darkroom you can also edit your negatives on print using different technics as well burning and doging, etc. I think that time the role of the mua was more important as it was quit more difficult to edit skin 😉
November 02, 2011 at 2:00 pm, Simon said:
You talk only of the technical aspect of image making. Yet your “baggage” of film conventions remain dominant in your work. (this is true of most of this site) You are making images that follow the visual aesthetic of processes that you never lived, and will never experience.
Paining did quite a lot once it was free from the bonds of rendering the real in detail. What will digital image making be once it is free from the conventions of analog processes?
November 03, 2011 at 3:00 am, Joseph Graf said:
um… what?
November 02, 2011 at 7:15 am, Tony Rundle said:
Yes. As someone once said “if God had meant us to fly, he wouldn’t have invented the railways!”
November 02, 2011 at 5:47 am, BrianLynch said:
Each has their place. But there is nothing like a real fiber print in your hands.
November 02, 2011 at 2:03 am, CDP said:
Lots and lots of people are calling themselves photographers these days, artists even. A photographer knows his craft, he knows how to measure light, he knows how to figure out lighting ratios, how to calculate fill flash outdoors, how to pose for portraits in addition to just using film. Any boob can machine gun off countless shots of the same thing and then attempt to correct it all with a computer.
Yeah, it is like talking about fucking when you’ve only ever played with yourself. It’s also like going deer hunting with a machine gun and claiming you’re a marksman; but your kill has 48 bullet wounds.
Ah, and we still had photojournalists years ago who shot fast and got the shot, just look at the photo of Lee Harvey Oswald getting plugged by Jack Ruby. Oh, I’m sorry did you not cover that in the 8 grade?
November 03, 2011 at 2:59 am, Joseph Graf said:
The author did not grow up in the US. I doubt that his course of study covered the Oswald/Ruby situation.
November 02, 2011 at 1:19 am, T R Willmitch said:
It’s interesting to hear someone who never shot film talk about what it was like to shoot during the film era… What unique insight!
November 02, 2011 at 1:15 am, Mahmoud El-Darwish said:
Thankfully, i’ve shot the tens of thousands of film images and yes, “lightening in a bottle” and 100,000+ digital images since 2003, as well. I will admit that i have done two Zone System calibrations on film material and know chemical darkroom processes inside and out. I don’t miss chemicals a bit and got out of photography for nearly 10 years while the digital technology matured. This article hits the nail on the head. Shooting film was expensive and digital is a godsend for the budget and therefore, removes a constraint on the artist. But what about the gross overhead of warehousing and managing billions of digital assets? Minimizing ones ‘keepers’ in camera is a sustainable policy for minimizing digital waste- irrespective of the ‘free’ cost of the shots themselves. The author might have addressed this fact- that we are approaching a stage of digital quagmire, a digital image population explosion of sorts. In the tangible image era, at least we had a self-regulating constraint of the cost of shooting with film and chemicals- what about now that those constraints are gone? The mature photographer should toss his or her outtakes, in camera before they become a further burden.
— ©2011 mahmoud el-darwish
November 02, 2011 at 1:12 am, zak pegg said:
and gone are the days you can use flash for your web site intro…thanks for the insight and motivation.
November 02, 2011 at 1:11 am, Ross Murdoch said:
Digital Photography I must admit is the modern format but to actually learn to use film & chemicals to process then work in the darkroom is an art all of it’s own & certain aspect from that art art now done via a computer. I was never lucky enough to own my own darkroom but work in a few & to be able to print a few of my own photo’s was a bonus as later on with mini labs coming about you had to compose your photo’s so the mini lab operator wouldn’t crop out certain parts of your image. Now that I’ve got digital I have my own darkroom in my computer & all the creativity with Photoshop I can take my images to a photo lab & have it printed to just how I want them. I still feel like you say wasteful when shooting a lot to get the right image but it’s something that you can do when necessary. I did a wee portrait of my Granddaughter recently & I was amazed that I actually shot around 70 images to get that 1 great shot. When shooting with Models I find I don’t shoot as much as they take direction better than a 1 year old. But still having the knowledge from the old film days is something I will always have to fall back on now & in the future.
November 02, 2011 at 12:44 am, Noel Grigalunus said:
All the individuals here who posted that the ‘author’ had not done enough research into the history and business of photography to offer a logical opinion, are both correct, and incorrect. Speaking only for myself, I grew up with film. I used film exclusively throughout my undergraduate work, while pursuing a degree in Photography and Photojournalism. I worked under veteran film photographers and along side younger peers, who like myself were just coming into the business, for over ten years. And I continue to shoot film now as I celebrate my twentieth year. But I also shoot digital. There is no reluctance on my part to forgo using film and embrace the new digital medium. Just like, I am not afraid to own a cell phone or use a computer as the author has suggested. I have owned numerous cell phones and computers over the years as the technology has evolved. And I will continue to upgrade, so as to make the work I do and refine the photographs I capture easier.
In the world of COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY, digiital is just another tool to be used by to its fullest, and nothing more. I personally know of professional photographers working throughout the industry who still shoot film when the need arises. Just as they, like me, shoot digital when it’s called for. It is not the end all or be all of photography. Nor will it ever eliminate film completely. There is a renewed interest in film, and a new generations of practioners and artists are embracing the medium with open arms. But that younger, less expereinced shooters have no knowledge of or background in shooting film should not be made to feel as they are missing out on something either. If that was the case, early photographers who once shot wet plate collodion or dry plate could make the same argument about younger photographers who shot silver emulsion film and printed on commercially manufactured black and white paper.
I will not comment on the author’s skills as a photographer, and the quality of his work to make a judgement, as to whether he is completely off base or. I did take the time though, to view the various categories of his images, and found most of them to be of high caliber. So I can only surmise that his opinion is based on his personal expereinces, and not of his knowledge of the history of the medium. I would suggest though that he, and anyone else who agrees with him wholeheartedly, take a significant amount of time to study where photography began, the strides and the sacrifices generations of photographers before us made, to really appreciate how far we have come. In every generation, there will be more adventurous and aggressive individuals who will have little if any knowledge of the past. And they to, will one day make a similar argument about us.
Noel Grigalunus
Basil Fairbanks Studio
November 01, 2011 at 11:57 pm, Jcampbellfotos said:
I shoot film, 35mm, medium format and 4X5 large format, and also digital. All have their place and use.
November 01, 2011 at 11:55 pm, Chris Pickrell said:
“Why carry the baggage around from yesteryear? Things change. Embrace change.”
What change? Everything is just a modernization of what was done before. MP3 players, computers, TVs, cars, etc. Nothing is new. Everything is just a newer version of what came before. Things do not in fact change. They evolve.
That doesn’t mean the the things from yesteryear are worthless and hold no value.
November 01, 2011 at 10:53 pm, Wyse Creations said:
I agree, capturing the ‘moments’ is a wonderful plus of digital.
Being an old codger I have no romantic urge to go back to film or vinyl records if pressed…
November 01, 2011 at 3:09 pm, daniel taveras said:
When I read the first few lines of this article, I was gawking in disgust. I think the knowledge film work gives a photographer is essential to actually knowing and understanding the art of photography as a whole, not just what you find in Vogue or Numero; and I think if you did put some time and patience into developing in a darkroom, you would change substantially as a photographer and realize this fact for yourself. But you are totally right when you said: “Use the lessons of film in the past and adapt that knowledge to the technologies available today.” I think to one extreme you have the obsessive digital machine-gun shooting photographer, who just depends on 1 lucky shot out of 150+ frames to get good work, and on the other extreme you have the old school die-hard film photographer who shuns technology, like the example you gave in the article. Balancing the two is key; the knowledge and photographic insight one learns through film, must be applied to the practicality and economy of digital.
November 01, 2011 at 2:23 pm, Greg Cobb said:
Another digital user who doesn’t know enough about his camera to use film. My 14 yr old niece was smart enough to buy her own film camera first so she knew how it worked rather than just jumping to digital. Your opinion is less than factual and lacks merit.
November 01, 2011 at 1:24 pm, 6308 said:
Obviously, you never shot film. Film was the cheapest component of the process back then. The maxim was to shoot more. Film’s cheap. Compared to the paper and chemicals, it was. That’s why Nikon came out with a 4fps motor drive back in the 60s and a 250-exposure magazine for it, too. Sports shooters kept multiple bodies, so they could switch out as soon as they ran out of film … and an assistant loaded the body for the next round.
Sure, the digital cameras of today can fire off more exposures and even go a little faster than the Nikons of the 90s.
Even the trusty Hassy had a motor available. Once again, assistants loaded film, so photographers never had to stop. They’d just hand off one camera and get another. By the time they finished another 220 roll, there was a fresh one waiting.
Volume shooting adds its own set of woes. When you don’t really know what you’re getting, you’re often stuck in the editing process with three or four images that are almost right. Good compositing can put them together for the one good image. But shooting with discipline, even when shooting fast, gives you a better opportunity for the optimum image.
Take a look at fashion mags from the 60s and early 70s. The editorials then were as ephemeral as are those of today. Sure, there was a time between then and now when things looked all pose-y and stiff. And there was a time before that when models looked downright unhuman.
I just love it when people project their own feelings about stuff onto everything else. A little information goes a long way.
Congratulations to MM for moving the opinions of the forums into the “educational” area of the site.
November 01, 2011 at 6:48 am, richburroughs said:
Do you think people didn’t shoot candids before digital existed? Do you think people couldn’t make natural images on film? Google a guy called Wolf189, he’s someone who shoots a lot of film and who I think does it very well.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with shooting a lot of frames, but I think it’s wrong to just dismiss the kind of discipline you get from shooting medium or large format film. When I got my Hasselblad it made me much more thoughtful about how I compose images, and I think that carries over into my work with other cameras.
That doesn’t mean I won’t spray sometimes. I’m working on a project now where I’m projecting Super 8 movie film onto models. There are certain spots in the footage I know are better to use, and when I hit those I shoot as fast as I can. It’s such a matter of timing, how the model’s pose and the light and the images on the film all line up, that I know
I improve my chances by shooting more.
But in general I feel like my film photography experience is an asset when I’m working with digital, not a liability. And I’m sorry but it seems a bit weak to hear someone who admits they haven’t shot much film trying to explain why it makes them a better photographer. Give a film photographer a DSLR and give a digital photographer a Hasselblad and I have a feeling the film photographer will get a better result. Because shooting film, especially with manual cameras, is a great way to master the basics.
November 01, 2011 at 5:33 am, Lionfish said:
I was a film photographer for many years but I was one of the early adopters of digital technology. To me, the inherent advantages of digital capture were crystal clear. I now shoot anywhere from 600-1500 image during a 4 hour shoot for many of the reasons you stated.
What I see a lot of today and what bugs me slightly is the lack of technique exibited by many photographers. It almost seems that you can disregard proper exposure, focus and composition. Let’s just take some poorly exposed images, run a few photoshop actions on them, crop and sharpen to taste and presto……instant art.
November 01, 2011 at 5:16 am, Julian Wilde said:
If you really don’t know WHAT you want, you can spend add day trying to shoot it. And Never get it. If you do KNOW what you want, you can get it in a surprizingly limited amount of time. And in the real world, the amount of TIME you spend waiting for “lightning in a bottle,” is the difference between getting the job and not.
My point: no amount of exposures will ever guarantee the results you’re after.
Only Experience can do that. 😉
-JULIAN
November 01, 2011 at 11:50 am, Victor said:
Very well said.
November 01, 2011 at 5:09 am, RBM Photo said:
You do realize, right, that what you are talking about here seems exactly like what Henri Cartier-Bresson coined as “the decisive moment” some SIXTY years ago, y’know back when they used FILM. The trick is not banging away in burst mode to make sure you have every last moment of the shoot covered, it is in learning to SEE that moment, learning to anticipate it and spark it even.
November 01, 2011 at 4:58 am, Andrewchris said:
Considering your last article, I’m wondering if you’re writing these provocative articles eschewing the old to draw attention to your portfolio?
November 01, 2011 at 2:53 am, martin kunert said:
How dare any of you talk about photography if you haven’t done wet-plates, mixed your own chemicals, and blown your own glass.
Seriously – you think you know how to take a photo? 36 images on a roll. Ba-humbug. Thoughtless amateurs.
Real photographers grind their own lens.
And if the civil war photographers who poisoned themselves with arsenic were alive today, they’d laugh in your general direction.
Now get off my lawn!!!!!!
November 01, 2011 at 2:35 am, Robertpetersen71 said:
ohh well ok looking at your site it is obvious why you choose this media , it is not possible with film , the look your after is a bit different than Ansel Adams you both would drown changing places very good and lucky you using the digital hasselblad , you don’t need depth of field or tonality any furtur than the pose and blown out whites suit your work , boken is all part of the image dont want to distracked the product or expression and yes the models are changing pose per secound is about ten? better use that digital or youll be darn frustrated telling them hey slow down i have lots of money no way !! weres the excitement in that ..you have choosen well , can i have your baggage??
November 01, 2011 at 2:15 am, Anonymous said:
I can remember when I wanted to try making silk screen (seriography) images. I went to the local college art department and discovered that before they would let me take that class I had to take three classes in drawing, one in water color and two in oil painting. I played with a homemade silk screen and never got very much of anything. I had learned photography on an old Kodak folding 620 camera that had exactly 3 controls: focus, f/stop, and shutter speed – all set by guess or understanding the charts that Kodak put in the film box. I graduated to an Argus C-3 that had separate film wind and shutter cocking; I learned a lot about double exposures by accidentally producing them. I bought a light meter, worked through several cameras including a 4×5 view camera, medium format, 35mm cameras and a 16mm Minox. I studied Ansel Adams zone system, read every photography magazine and borrowed every photo book the library had. Over the years I built and used five darkrooms and even got to the point of color printing. I photographed weddings and did model portfolios and family portraiture – that and Audio Visual work payed for my college BS degree. I got to teach H.S. black & white film photography with darkroom work for 8 years. My master’s degree was in educational communications theory using photography. I retired from 33 years of teaching still doing weddings, etc. on the side.
Then I started digital. That experience with film, darkrooms and traditional photography taught me more than digital ever could. Just compare. All of my film cameras and lenses let me open and close the aperture while I looked through the empty back. Digital does not let you do that and those who begin with digital often completely misinterpret the f/stop. I actually talked to a 20 year old wedding photographer who asked me “Isn’t the f/stop just like a brightness control with funny numbers?” Many or even most of my film lenses had very useful depth of field scales on the barrel. I have not seen that feature on digital cameras. How does a beginner learn depth of field without such help? I have met a large number of young digital photographers who do not understand a third of what their cameras can do. I even transfer what I learned from the zone system to digital.
All kinds of people say that the digital raw image is like the film negative. They are wrong. It is most comparable to the undeveloped latent image on film. Those of you with an extensive film background think about that. I am sure you will agree. Imagine if Ansel Adams could be brought back. He would cherish the Camera Raw image because he could go back and develop it again and again. He would love color because he would not have to contend with color balance change with three sensitive layers that had different characteristic curves. He would lament the loss of the automatic S shaped response curve and the lost of shadow detail in digital. But he would figure out how to compensate, even if the number of zones shrunk to five or so. Those of you with film and developer experience probably followed every word I just wrote. Do you suppose those with only digital experience did?
November 01, 2011 at 2:31 am, Anonymous said:
Correct. I learned color printing as well on RA-4. My instructor engrained our brains on how to compensate for color shifts with ye olde color wheel. Too much cyan, add red (yellow and magenta on the enlarger). Does anyone learn that anymore, or do they just push “auto” in Photoshop now?
I think Luci needs to take a break from writing these articles.
November 01, 2011 at 2:03 am, Odin Photo said:
I convinced my sister to go digital only because of budget. I currently shoot digital as well. However, I feel that you are missing a very large experience in having never shot film.
A great deal of what you are saying is akin to saying you should photograph things instead of painting them because it is more efficient. Some people enjoy thew act of painting. Some people enjoy the >process< of shooting and developing film more than the process of shooting digital. The shooting and developing is it's own reward in addition to the final image. It's a little more magical.
November 01, 2011 at 2:03 am, Robertpetersen said:
just one more idea , please pick out 20 items all white yet the tones are different to the visible eye , a card from the home depot of egg shell white paint variables , an egg or several some linen some things with lots of high lights some mat pile them up on a table compose and light her up professionally in fact use your strops shoot this digitally , now with a med format similar lens i.e. perspective.. process and ask your self damm it why are all my whites just blown out on the digital were is all the subtle changes in tone humm there on the film hey we could get creative here and shoot an image with a digital and then film try do try to get the exposures right ..after there both in photoshop sandwhich them together now remove the film whats missing??
November 01, 2011 at 1:42 am, Robertpetersen said:
maybe 600 images of one face and portrait with minor changes is ideal , toss toss toss burn crop gamma and saturate aww no good toss next next next one next sound familiar , yes you can capture your model just as she turns her head the way you have been asking her for 6 hours and then there for that millisecond snap with a digital ,,nooo not a crutch just completely necessary for what ? 600 images or one ? isn’t 600 pictures of one model baggage in the end isn’t there just one that works film digital or Polaroid isn’t there one that says money or art how you get it is not baggage , fleeting non posed images in vogue , stolen from street photographers who had to shoot that way and with cameras that required little baggage! .. no look in your trash bin ? tossed any baggage ? what you got four five no six hard drives with what a external hard drive for each shot for clients and several for your own work no baggage there , and god havnt you seen that image you treasured just disappear , or are we keeping it safe on the sever no baggage there all folded nice and clean in a ordered fashion just in case , forget learning from the old camera learn from the old photographers , i love digital manipulated images tigers and bears walking around downtown Newyork streets models walking on water , i love polaroids blurred and soft , i love that street lieca look , i love that hasselblad clarity were contrast and resolution was achieved with a damm good lens and square reversed perceptive , model or no model , i have seen images in the zines of the products imitating the film , regarding it as that old mastered look has quality.
here is my bottom line .. i cant express it to you in a equation of lens resolution or pixel count or tone or sharpness it HAS to be experienced… shoot your digital (one ten thousand shoots doesn’t matter ) find the one you love the one that says what you wanted to say (or your consumer ) shoot the same image with a 6×7 maymia 7 or a rb67 and use if you have to all the baggage the light meter the tripod the lens hood and film , pick a good film with low asa shoot some were like 8 , 11 , 16 , have this processed , and scanned to a disk at even med resolution , study your digital image then slap that disk in after setting all the baggage down and just click your first image ..wow what is it what is it ???, the simple answer …film
November 01, 2011 at 1:25 am, semi234 said:
The writer chose to focus on why film is (as he sees it) “bad” as opposed to why digital is “good”. So much potential for worthwhile discussion or even a point-counterpoint debate yet so little was actually worth reading.
*sigh*
Someday a writer for this site will get it right.
November 01, 2011 at 12:07 am, Sam D said:
I actually like to keep my digital frames to a minimum, not because I’m coming from a film mentality (I didn’t get serious until the digital age anyway), but more because it takes so much longer to go through 1000 frames rather than 100. Personally I find I get around the same amount of usable images from less photos as I do from many photos.
October 31, 2011 at 9:32 pm, Pat Gilmartin said:
I shoot digital, exclusively. Now. Why? I love being able to shoot hundreds of frames, changing ASA (excuse me, ISO) at will. The process of making prints is now something I can do in my own home with no fuss, no muss, no bother. Ah, but the days of film. The smell of the acetic acid, the eerie glow of the red or yellow safelight, the mastery of the enlarger and the unparalleled excitement of the moment when an image emerged from within a piece of paper soaking in a tray of Dektol. That was pure magic. It can not be duplicated by 21st Century technology.
October 31, 2011 at 8:50 pm, Jim Minics said:
I shoot digital, I shoot film. I shoot Polaroid (yes I still have some) and I will continue shooting every process I can get my hands on because I am obsessed with photography. To say “Those days are gone” is actually more limited thinking than what you are saying the film photographers of the “olden days” are thinking.
You know I dig your work Charles, you know I respect what you do. But just because it works for you doesn’t mean that everyone should do it. Personally I could not shoot the way you do, it’s not my style and that’s okay, I’m sure my style isn’t for you.
There was a great conversation that happened between Helmut Newton and the editor of Vogue magazine, it went something like this….
Vogue “um… Mr. Newton, you only sent over 6 images to be selected for the cover.”
Helmut Newton’s response “You only need one.”
His way was the right way no matter what he did because it was his way and that was the only way to get a Helmut Newton photograph, his way, whichever way he chose to do it.
This is how I think of my work, it’s mine, no matter if it’s digital, film or if I take up sculpting.
October 31, 2011 at 8:12 pm, Gblack said:
I actually laughed several times while reading this. For some it’s a reluctance to change but for others it has nothing to do with change. Film and digital are different mediums. Digital has it’s obvious benefits. I shoot both but I prefer film (and I started with digital). I simply prefer the way the photos look. I’ve never developed a single roll in my life so I don’t romanticize about fixer on my hands or seeing images appear. With film the colors look better, the light falloff is better, the highlights are better..well to me anyway. The fact that I have to slow down and think before I shoot helps (me) generate more keepers. Photoshop isn’t bad it’s just that so many people DESTROY decent images with it or try to put “lipstick on the pig” with it. I read somewhere “there is no un-suck button in Photoshop” and it’s the truth. All you’re doing is enhancing an already crappy photo. Bad is still bad & good is still good.
November 01, 2011 at 12:22 am, Gary Samson said:
+1
October 31, 2011 at 7:47 pm, Tim Orden said:
You’re right that digital photography brings unique possibilities to the creation of photographs. But you’re not qualified to speak of it… Let me put it to you like this.
“I can do what you do, I have been doing it since it was possible. But I can also do what i used to do, (since 73′) and I bring some elements from my experience with film, that you have no idea about.”
Where you get the idea that you’re qualified to talk about digital photography, without having a background in film photography is amazing to me. It’s like a guy talking about *ucking, when he has only played with himself.
October 31, 2011 at 11:40 pm, mKunert said:
Shesssh…. people as so ‘effin whacked around here! Is it jealousy? Bitterness? Lord, I wish I know because I get that sh*t thrown my way too. Whether you agree or not with Lucima is one issue. But to get all venomous at Lucima because he had the balls and motivation to write an opinion here… well.. in that case:
So Tim, you’ve been shooting since ’72, (maybe before Lucima was born) and have graduated up to shooting….
Baby beauty pageants.
(http://www.hawaiisupermodels.com/)
Awesome.
“I can do what you do, I have been doing it since it was possible. ”
Uhm, not from what I’ve seen in your port.
“Where you get the idea that you’re qualified to talk about digital photography, without having a background in film photography is amazing to me.”
Probably the same place as him not having a background in wet-plates. That’s why, surprisingly, as a digital photographer he’s talking about…. wait for it… digital photography. Like wise, I’d find you qualified to discuss photographing kiddies.
“It’s like a guy talking about *ucking, when he has only played with himself. ”
Ugh. Coming from a guy who photographs children for a living, that’s just creepy.
November 05, 2011 at 3:38 pm, Guest said:
Writing an opinion piece is one thing. Writing an “educational” article is another.
This is much more a polemic and a tutorial. As such it’s fair game. If I see a shark masquerading as a sheep I dont think it’s of topic to complain hard.
November 01, 2011 at 11:10 pm, BC said:
One of the most off-base analogies EVER. I’ve shot film since the early ’50’s and I love digital, for all the reasons Lucima has gratefully taken the time to lay out for us.
Lucima is highly regarded in the field of digital photography and digital processing. And VERY talented.
October 31, 2011 at 7:36 pm, Paul said:
Spray and pray was popular in the film days already, price didn’t bother many shooters to spend hundreds of rolls of film each shoot. Nothing changed here with digital. It’s just what you prefer to do: think and make the best image possible, or shoot a immense number of images and sort it all out later, sometimes to find that “the ultimate image” still isn’t there. You couldn’t know before, you were pressing the shutter, changing the card, pressing the shutter, changing the battery pack, pressing the shutter….
October 31, 2011 at 6:52 pm, Anonymous said:
Pure utter nonsense.
Film processing and printing are a true art. Nobody’s stopping you from going 100% digital, but the BS mantra of YOU must assimilate to digital too makes no sense. If anything it makes you seem foolish to dismiss film’s place in art.
October 31, 2011 at 5:30 pm, rick brandt said:
not as much reluctance to change, rather reluctant to lose… much digital and film.
October 31, 2011 at 5:03 pm, Film Adict said:
I shot film and loved it. There is nothing wrong of the smell of rapid fix on your clothes:) I finally put away my cameras in 01. But I still get the itch to use film I dust off the Mamyia RB pro, and blow off a roll, oh yea, and play with a couple Polaroids.
October 31, 2011 at 4:58 pm, Albino Unicorn said:
If lightning zaps your digi(and kills it) when a spaceship lands on the golf coarse… you better hope you have that disposable kodak with 800 sitting in your glovebox….. or you are a failed editorial photographer with a big digital limp penis……….?
October 31, 2011 at 6:09 pm, variant said:
lolwut?
October 31, 2011 at 7:22 pm, Albino Unicorn said:
When the greatest thing to ever cross your path happens …it makes no difference whether its captured on film or digi! What matters is that you have whatever it takes to capture that moment… … hope that helps!
October 31, 2011 at 4:48 pm, Timothy said:
I totally agree that digital allows more freedom to capture raw energy and emotion easier. But about the staging and posing, there still seems to be a lot of that (at least in campaigns, if not editorials), including on your website. Wouldn’t you consider the “Desert Black” shot of the woman in the black dress with a bird staged and posed? I mean, I love the photo, but looking at it makes me think I’m not grasping what you’re saying about these things.
November 01, 2011 at 11:44 pm, Nycstefano said:
all points are well taken and there is value in all what both sides say..
But, I agree with Lucima..
My shoots, 98% natural light, mostly outdoors, average 1500 shots over 3 hours.. I feel the need to do this as the ‘External Factors’ Changing light, public, traffic, security guards, wind, etc etc etc all, make 1500 average, Logical