Photographic film has resurged from its supposed demise predicted over fourteen years ago. This resurgence is especially noticeable when listening in on conversations in the social media sphere. It’s also brought about what I see as a giddiness from new photographers as their introduction to film is akin to being gifted a new toy. For them, I suppose digital is something like an old geezer/geezer girl. Film is now fresh! Such an adoration of film, especially black & white film is… Overblown. It’s all a matter of perspective. Just my opinion here.
That sense of freshness wore off on me over twenty-five years ago. Hour upon hour of darkroom printing can do that to you! I don’t begrudge anyone’s smugness about it. Though it blares so much louder in this digital world where everyone’s voice is heard at the exact same time. The burgeoning awareness on social media with those that are learning to use black & white film is sensorily overwhelming on me. I figure it’s what I probably did in my early days. If this feels a bit like a rant, yeah—a little one. It moved me into expressing my perspective in Black & White.
Photography is “photon + graphy.” The Greek translation means “light drawing” (vernacularly drawing with light). Do black & white photographs make you feel any different than color?
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Camera Obscura, considered the first light drawing. But, that’s actually an artist doing a drawing of a projected image onto a wall in a darkened room. Not an actual photograph.
Whew! That felt good! For me, the print has always been the end result. Not the negative. I believe the increased absence of printed photographs in today’s digital age makes the negative equivalent to yesteryear’s print. What do you think?
Again, there’s unsubstantiated chatter projecting the second demise of film photography. The first was presumed after Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012.
I love and enjoy black & white photography. I equally love and enjoy color photography. There’s some kind of preference molecule that states one has to choose between the two these days. Rant over 😉
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I always appreciate your attention in reading it through.
Til next time…
Kenneth
I'm not quite sure your point, to be honest, except to rant (just a little). I'm cool with that. I know that sm makes every thought a shout, and that the resurgence of film is overblown. You are not wrong. But I do think it proper to celebrate this resurgence. It means today Film will continue to be manufactured, for one.
I dove into film recently, getting my film developed and scanned at a local place. I'd then process the scans in light room. Which, to be honest, kind of fucks up the entire point. I'm basically dealing with a digital file. Is that still film? Seriously?
I have a friend who uploads his entire roll of scans from his medium format as if its Fucking miraculous. The images suck, to be honest. But it's film, god damn it!
So i learned to develop and print. And guess what! The prints came out so much better in quality than the scans. It turns out the company I paid does a shit acan job! But what did I know?
Now...I shoot film a lot less because I'm committed to developing and printing on my own. Which is both fulfilling and fucking exhausting! And expensive! Can you spell $1 per 8x10 paper?
Now I'm ranting.
In the end, each to their own. I'm planning on doing more film, but the romance is gone. I like the change of brain energy the camera with its b/w film gives me. I see things and think differently. But the hard work will limit that activity for me for sure. As well as the expense c
End of rant.
Great photos Kenneth - I shot a lot of film back in the day and mostly digital now - I still love black and white but there’s a little part of me which is saying ‘yeh but you shot in colour’ which doesn’t stop me but you never got with film. It’s also interesting in terms of cost as back then the film, the processing the printing were prohibitively expensive to shooting lots - I recently looked at the price of film and nearly fell off my seat … maybe we are going full circle!