I still work on medium format which is getting very expensive.
Film stock for 35 mm is also getting harder to get hold of, with less choice in film stock, so cuts down your creative choice.
I love the tones and coloure in analogue and I still think that digital in some cases is very flat.
I may be ignorant here as I do not have any top line digital equipment.
I can see that digital can be very creative in low lighting conditions, seeing the latest books and magazines using digital photography some of it is now looking very ipressive. On a commercial level you can see the results and send them on strait away no need to process, I agree that over use of photo shop can be boring as when new effects come out everyone does the same things.
Using digital with analogue I find creative and feel less of a cheat.
I can sepia tone pictures with out using chermicals or wasting paper and if I dont like it try another colour untill something clicks so to speak. Check my pictures out here. They all started as analogue, weather good or bad.?
Photography and Filmmaking
Creative, conceptual and technical; contemporary and historicalThis is an ongoing debate, when the digital camera technology is very advanced, I have talked with quite a big number of photographers, professional and amature, some of them still feel uneasy with digital camera-something that has to do with the quality during the printing process of digital photography, which still on some level unparallel with film/slide photography, and with the amature photographers, some feel uneasy with the amount of photoshop one can do with digital technology. Really like to hear what you think and your experiences.
I love the tonalities in your black and whites. I work in jewelry advertising and promotional print work and my photographer uses a digital camera, the equipments are very expensive, and in a way less reliable then film equipment, since one can use the same film camera for ages, which you can't with digital equipment. He waited a long time until he feels digital technology was compatible with film. Now he loves the fact that he doesn't have to drive to the lab 3 times a day. I just wonder Chris, do you find with the fact that film veriaty has gotten less, in a way forced you to be more creative or go back to basics, in order to get the result you want? Richard Avedon shot with large format for so long and the variety was very limited for him, but he turned out beautiful and stunning work.
In reply to KaWai:
Using medium format does means that you have to make evevery negative work having only 12 to 15 exposures to a roll of film depending on the medium format format.
I use basic traditional ways of getting exposure and looking at lighting and compasiton.
I prefer to use fine grain film usualy shooting 100 ASA in both black and white as well as colour, The finer grain tends to give a wider colour saturation balance.
I can see that I will have to start using digital soon though becouse of the cost of getting film stock and printing, at the moment I have all the options of experimenting in the dark room,with computers or any other means, so that I have every option from analogue.
One thing that may be of interest, I do not change the compasition from the way I shot the image I get the copasition at the first stage of the process and use all the picture I have after.
I do not use long lenses its more personel if I get in close to the subject.
Its a personel thing and it crerates and identity to my work, thats what creative photography is about today creating your own identity in the equipment you use and the lighting film or digital process, thats why I think that a lot of digital photographers do not have a personell identity for this reason.
The ones that stand out are people like Nick Knight who experiments and is prepared to work with mixed mediums to get a creative effect, stretching imagination and ideas.
In reply to Chris Summerfield:
For those who feel that digital camera can't get the same results as film and it feels less personal-but whether it's digital or film, they are just tools in the end, it's up to each person to make the process and result personal and intimate, no? Is it just at this stage people still get carried away by what digital technology can do to photos, and people are still in the infant stage of experimenting, therefore we have yet to see digital photography that feels really intimate and with personal identity? Can you name some well known photographers whose work are done with digital camera/technology, without the coldness or high-tech feeling of it, intimate in feelings and with strong personal style? I use photoshop to create original images a lot, for my own interest and now beginning to inject this element in combination with jewelry and model photos, in my gallery, the first and 4th images were entirely done in photoshop, without any combination of photographs, I just use photoshop as a tool to paint.
In reply to mopar:
I agree with both of you, I have got results I like by taking the analogue picture in to photoshop and getting an effect that I have stumbled across, I like the acidental apoach sometimes to getting an effect, and do not keep records om how it was done for this reason.
I have taken an original picture transferd the picture to lith in order to lower the mid tones or in some cases take them out, then re printed on black and white paper, hand tinted,then scanned the picture then put in to photo shop to take the picture further untill I get an effect that I like.
Complicated but fun.
In reply to mopar:
But if you are trying to make digital effect look natural, aren't you just fighting against the nature of digital, instead of working with it and evolving with the characteristics of digital manipulatives? And do you find having the advantage of seeing the result immediately makes you become too dependant on checking the monitor on camera instead of relying on your own knowledge and judgement and in the end makes your photography skills more rusty than before digital cameras came along?
To me, shooting with film and shooting with digital, are too mediums, you really can't compare the two, and we are seeing 2 schools emerging, the ones who decided to go back to shooting film/slides, and just getting better scanners, and the ones who are really riding the waves of digital manipulatives.
In reply to KaWai:
Yes it is two mediums and I hope that analogue stayes on as a creative form of its own, but as mentioned it is getting very dificault and more expensive to get the various film stocks, printing papers and chemicals.
The boundaries of digital will be pushed in directions that we have not seen yet so that will be interesting, the only problems I can see is that with all new technology there will be an over kill of everyone doing the same untill it settles down. In Plymouth I new a photographer who was rubish with analoge but by scanning his pictures in to digital he thought that he was getting great effects, one of the problems being that he did not move on with the digtal technology so his style looks aged and still not very good, I see his digital work and think so what I can put a picture in to a computer, and montage it to make it look interesting and infact I have
One of the things I have noticed with digital is that from what I can see colures look flatter at the moment, but of course that will depend a lot on the equipment and lighting.
Another thing about film is that you tend to keerp the whole roll of film so if there are pictures that you dont much like at the time are still there, somertimes when you look back you see them in a difrent lihjt so to speak and might realy like them or be able to use them in an effect.You can not do this with digital pictures that you have deleasted becouse at the first instant you did not like them.
Yet again I agree with all you say Kaiwai.
Another good point is that digital is highliting cuilture and lifestyle likwe nover before, it is also changing the boundaries like never before creating a digital culture shock across the world with the instance of recording an image by people of every age and sending it to every corner of the planet.
What an interesting industry it is.
It is easier for photographers and film makers to get known and experiment whilst getting there work out in to the world.