The Photographer

[photobyalan]

airfrog, that's a really beautiful photo. I'll bet the original print is spectacular.

Matt, you may be right about portrait studios losing some business because of the proliferation of digital cameras. I don't know if that's such a bad thing, though. Olan Mills, the "mall" studios and the ones in stores like Sears and Penneys contribute almost nothing to the art of photography. They usually produce cookie-cutter portraits that are popular with the T-shirted masses simply because they are relatively cheap and they look "more professional" than what the average person can do at home.

I think, though, at least for the discerning customer, there will still be a demand for professional portrait photography. The occasional lucky snapshot aside, there is no substitue for the skill of using the light available or having the tools available to create your own light to suit the subject.

So, what about digital cameras? You could say digital cameras have the potential to make someone a better photographer, provided they can learn from the instant feedback they receive. Some people simply don't get it. The can take any camera and make a bad photograph. On the flip side, there are some people who can make a great photograph with a shoebox and a pin. Everybody in between can improve with practice and feedback. It can, and often is, done with a film camera. It's just a lot faster with digital.

As an aside, I think it's great to be able to process your own film and prints, but it is far from essential. If I recall correctly, those wonderful Avedon portraits mentioned earlier were processed and printed by assistants, and Avedon's instructions to the printers were often along the lines of "it needs to be more ALIVE!" Apparently they knew what he meant...

 

[airfrogusmc]

Alan, thanks. I gotta pay you a couple a compliments to. Really like the image of the bride in the car with her parents in the reflection of the partially rolled down window. I also like the color portrait thats cropped real tight on the young woman (brown sweater).
I don't think I articulated my point well about the Avedon work. The show supporting that body of work were all bigger than life prints maybe 7 1/2 ft X 6ft sump'm like that anyway. He shot everything on 4X5 negs. 35mm would have never held up at that size. My point is those images had such an impact at that size. I've since seen those same images in books which were, I donno, 4X5 inches maybe. Not the same impact. Some images need to be really large to work just like some images work better very small.
The B&W print of the retired nurse has so much more detail in the shadows and the texture on the skin is much more defined. I shot it on t-max 100 film and processed it in Rodinal 1:50 for 10 min. at 68 deg. Printed (archival) on Kodak elite paper grade 3 and selenium toned.
I prefer to print my own work because it gives me the final control of exactly the way I envisioned the final image to be. Some one else printing my negs would interpret my image differently than I would. Its the way I perform the score and its import that my work looks exactly the way I intend it to look. No one can print my stuff as well as I can.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I was offline for Yom Kippur yesterday, so I'm getting to this thread late...

This is a very personal issue with me, and I have very conflicted and mixed feelings about it. Having grown up assisting my pro-photographer parents back in the 60s/70s, I am most decidedly a dedicated old-school photographer.

I have nothing against digital per se. It carries on the march to make photography easier for the non-expert that had already triumphed in the 80s/90s with the perfection of 35mm point&shoot cameras and autoeverything SLRs, and better fast films and smarter automatic printing systems. I am all for this: putting proficient means for capturing good images into the hands of casual photographers and non-photographers is certainly a good thing.

But the mad rush to digital in the last few years has badly damaged the infrastructure of traditional photography, with niche-product films, etc., being discontinued left and right, and startling developments like Kodak getting out of the photographic paper biz. And R&D on film technology is suddenly a thing of the past: after the recent wonderful strides in making increasingly finer-grain/higher-speed/more-accurate-colors products, film is now effectively moribund, with an ever-shrinking list of available emulsions. (E.g., if you told me that a day would come when Kodak didn't make a fine-grain 100-speed color print film, I never would have believed it.)

Again, I have nothing against digital cameras or digital image manipulation: I scan lots of my own prints and am quite adept at tweaking the resulting images for Web viewing and printing on a variety of printers/media. But I don't *enjoy* it in the way that I do watching a b/w print appear in the developing tray in my parents' darkroom.

And I am much happier using 30- to 50-year-old Minoxes, Olympus OMs, Nikon F2s, Mamiya and Yashica medium-format cameras, etc., than newer cameras. (Heck, I might even pull out my dad's 4x5s one of these days!) Today's cameras leave me cold: a plastic box filled with electronics and festooned with little buttons and LCD displays just doesn't feel like a camera to me! And I'm disturbed that today' state-of-the-art equipment has such a short lifespan, both as remaining state-of-the-art and in terms of how shoddily built much of it is. You used to get decades out of a pro camera, or even well-made amateur cameras - there are tens of thousands 1960s Nikon Fs still out there that work perfectly. But most of today's hot digital cameras will be sitting broken in closets or rotting in landfills in five or seven years.

I know, of course, that it's really the shooter, not the camera. Cameras are only tools. I myself have made great images with humble equipment like my kids' el-cheapo 35mm point&shoots and sub-1-megapixel digital cameras. But there's something about a classic mechanical camera...

You know, I've always been retro, but when I was a kid I was also a big advocate of progress and a devoted science fiction fan. Now it's forty years later and there has been enormous progress in some areas (though I'm still waiting for flying cars and automation giving us a shorter work week!)... I should be *delighted* that you can now get mondo-megapixel cameras remarkably cheaply, and pull splendid instantaneous results out of them with a minimum of effort. But alas, I find it just saddens me. The imaging technologies I learned as a kid, and still love and use, are being deserted and are dying on the vine.

I know that with every technological advance, some things are left behind. And I'm glad that great imaging tools are becoming ever more affordable, ubiquitous, and easier to use. I'm happy for all of you who enjoy your digital photography! But...

We spend a lot of time here talking about how stylish and well-made the things of the past were. That certainly includes the mechanical cameras of the last century. I don't want to be a luddite about it, but I was practically born in a developing tray, and I really, sincerely hate to see it pass away...

 

[Quigley Brown]

deleted

 

[PrettyBigGuy]

As far as "Joe-snapshot" goes, I'd say yes, the digital camera has definitely made people better @ taking photographs, but only because they can take as many pics as they want until they get it how they want.
But speaking as someone who works as an electronic retoucher in the printing industry, I can say that the digital camera has both helped & hindered my work. Digital technology (cameras & computers) have reduced the turn around time in pre-press graphics from days to hours. It's great when you have the luxury of having a really talented photographer in the digital photo studio that takes great care in their lighting and styling of the product) i.e. someone who comes from a conventional photography background). Those people work with the frame of mind that everything needs to be perfect for the composition because the turn around time is to long to make changes. Unfortuanately, most digital studio photographers I've been dealing with in recent years don't care about the styling, consistancy of lighting or the shape of their sets beacuse everything can be fixed in photoshop (part of my job). I can't begin to tell how many times I've retouched out the same scratches in a table top, banged-up corner on a cabinet or scuffs on the floor from our digital studio!!!
There are also clients (who never read their camera's manual on how to take high rsolution photographs) who think that they can grab a snap-shot and supply it to us for printing. Invariably they want their shot to be part of banner or poster and they don't understand why we can't make it look nice! This happens so often that many of us re-touchers now call ourselves "turd-polishers" because that, unfortunately, is what we do most of the time.
Sorry about the rant, but this one cuts close to the heart!
PBG

 

[MrBern]

I loved photography. Lately...not so much. I work as a graphic artist & spent a lot of time th last several years exporing the best of both worlds, which I felt was using a film camera & then scannign in negatives for optimal quality & photoshop enhancement. Now thats only a trickle as digital cameras have eclipsed film and theres littl need to scan unless youre totally devoted to medium & large formats.

Once upon a time people had a professional photo taken for a wedding announcement. They usually wore a jacket & tie at the least. Now I see people submit the most awful shots. They look like bubble heads w/ th digital camera on wide angle & you can often tell that th guy is holding his gal in one arm & the camera in the other trying to do a self portrait.So his suit is all askew & the girl is crushed against him. Often wearing a polo shirt is the height of fashion. Or theyre sitting at some bruncheon in beter clothes, but from behind a table cluttered w/ wine glasses. Or even better, its a vacation shot & theyrein ski caps & sunglasses tryignto look cool.
You can take that photo & crop out a lot of things & maybe crunch it into a decent 2inch shot for a B&W newspaper. But its a nothing shot. It doesnt compare to good old school photography.
But yes, we do see a lot of interesting spontaneous shots all over the internet from people w/ digital cameras who wouldnt have taken that photo if they'd had to lug around an old, heavy film camera all day & nite.
So theres good & bad, time marches on.
-b

 

[photobyalan]

But the mad rush to digital in the last few years has badly damaged the infrastructure of traditional photography, with niche-product films, etc., being discontinued left and right, and startling developments like Kodak getting out of the photographic paper biz. And R&D on film technology is suddenly a thing of the past: after the recent wonderful strides in making increasingly finer-grain/higher-speed/more-accurate-colors products, film is now effectively moribund, with an ever-shrinking list of available emulsions. (E.g., if you told me that a day would come when Kodak didn't make a fine-grain 100-speed color print film, I never would have believed it.)

Well, Doctor, I'd have to say that's about the most sensible complaint I've ever heard about digital photography. I couldn't agree more, and it's a real shame things turned out the way they did. Many really nice films have fallen by the wayside and there are really none being developed (pardon the pun) to replace them. I can still get old-style emulsions for my 4x5 Speed Graphic, but they come from Eastern European factories and the quality control is not what I am used to from Big Yellow or Ilford. I had a 3x4 Graphic, but the range of available films is so small that I sold the camera. To me, it's nothing but a museum piece now.

Airfrog, at the risk of turning this into a photography forum, have you ever tried semi-stand development in Rodinal at 1:200 for an hour? It's all I ever do now with film. And I agree with you about Avedon's work having so much more impact printed life size. Wasn't he using an 8x10 camera for a lot of those? Now that's the thing to use for big prints!

 

[airfrogusmc]

I have a couple of friends of mine that are working in palladium printing. Both coating their own papers and making contact prints. One is photographing old mission from the southwest. Very small from 2 1/4 negs; the other is using an 8X10 pinhole camera. I just saw a segment on Sunday Morning where a New York photographer is doing Daguerreotypes. The point is as digital becomes more and more the mainstream these old processes are slowly becoming lost art forms. In the future I believe photographers that are keeping these old process alive are going to find even greater success because the images that they produce look nothing like anything being produced in the digital photography world.

 

[airfrogusmc]

I tested a allot of different film and developer combinations (zone system tests) and came up with the t-max 100/rodinal combination that worked great for me and what I was doing. Adams used a dilution of HC 110 I think he called dilution C, I forget, but he used that developer with professional tri-x 320. I our profession film processing and printing are all about doing things very consistent. When processing film temp and agitation are key so doing it exactly the same way each time is so important.

 

[Mycroft]

I think it is great because anyone as we all said can be a great photgrapher. I also think as from my work in the historical society, it can really repare pictures from long a go and bring them to their prime again. The only thing I ask is not to abandon the old-fashion ways to take photos, you can not beat a black and white from an acual black and white.

 

[Quigley Brown]

I think it is great because anyone as we all said can be a great photgrapher. I also think as from my work in the historical society, it can really repare pictures from long a go and bring them to their prime again. The only thing I ask is not to abandon the old-fashion ways to take photos, you can not beat a black and white from an acual black and white.

Some people just don't have access to a darkroom anymore...I don't, but I won't forget the process. Someone on here stated earlier that digital cameras now can make anybody shoot like a pro. I disagree...and I find that an arrogant statement. I've seen too many people's work...those who used to use point-and -shoots film cameras and now use point-and-shoot digitals and they still take bad pictures...and they always will. Most people are just don't care if their photos are good and bad. They just want the memories. It will be those photographs that will show future generations what life was like today. I, myself, am not too fond of Ansel Adams' works. For those of you who like landscape photography you probably worship the guy, but he spent most of life doing that if someone like him shoots nothing but that all thier lives, then they are going to get fantastic shots....photographers who specialize in one subject all their lives are going to be great at it. Take, for example, National Geographic photographers...some spend their lives shooting nothing but butterflies or gorillas or penguins. I worked at NG some years back and got to see all their shots....they shot hundreds of rolls of on an assignment....maybe the pyramids of Egypt...and the outtakes could have been shot by a tourist.

I make a link to this site before, but I had to delete the post because someone here said I linked a personal photo incorrectly. This site shows that everyday snapshots can now be looked on, culturally, as important work. Heck, I'd like to blow some of them poster size and they would be works of art, but then if you make any photo...pros' and amateurs'...poster size and they will look great. There...there's my two cents on this subject.

Have fun with this:

vintage snapshots

 

[airfrogusmc]

Quigley,

Yeah I think there are allot more photographs being taken but that doesn't mean there are better photographs being taken. Lighting and composition take years to master.

The thing that Adams did for photography was articulate a system in which previsualizing a scene can be translated onto the negative. The Zone System.

I tend to like the documentary photographs like Robert Frank, Walker Evans, Dorthea Lange, Danny Lyon, Bruce Davidson over the west coast guys but theres nothing like viewing an Adams or a Weston print.

Allen

 

[Matt Deckard]

We have many pro photographers here... I have some questions;

Who are the greats?

Who do you admire?

Are they still around and do they use digital?

 

[MrBern]

Oh man, we lost three great ones last year, Cartier-Bresson, Helmut Newton, and Avedon. Not to mention, LifeMag's CarlMydans who covered teh DustBowl & WWII.
I hear there is finally a movie in the works to do an Film on Robert Capa.he had quite the life, but I dont believe his brother had previously wanted it depicted. There was a fabulous PBS bio a couple years ago.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Matt great thread.

Edward Weston
Ansel Adams
Micheal Johnson
Walker Evans
Dorthea Lange
Robert Frank
Bruce Davidson
Harry Callahan
W. Eugene Smith
Minor White
Daine Arbus

There are more but I'll stop here.

 

[Quigley Brown]

Weegee the great.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Mr Brown I agree. WeeGee and his Speedgraphic a great combo.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Matt which photographers are high on your list.

 

[MrBern]

eisenstaedt
and his leica

 

[Sin Khan]

I always liked this guy's work. He also answers his email. Works as a husband and wife team, i think thats great. He makes all his prints by hand and alters the colors in the process. too bad I can't afford one

http://www.christopherburkett.com/home.html

I myself am an amature photographer as well. i do many things but no regular portraits and stuff. this is my hobby, not my job, if my client is not willing to take the time to get the shot i think is best for them, then they can go somewhere else. I think this is the reason why so many of my photo's for others have turned out so well. It takes a lot of time to make a good photo, even more time to develop it correctly. haven't worked with digital yet, still have a lot to learn with film.

One more thing, if your into photography, take a class. I can always tell the difference between someone who has taken design and photography classes and those that have not. It will make a difference in your photo's, you might not think so at first, but they do, especially the 2d design classes and the drawing classes.