Are we nearing the end of Photography as we used to know it?

[umslopogaas]

#25 handsomefortune: re. slide scanning, I dont have the technology to do this (actually, somewhere on this computer I probably do, but I dont know how to use it), but a friend has done some for me, I have several CDs of images on the shelf. I must buy the lady a nice dinner and see if I can persuade her to do some more. Before I retired I was in regular demand for presentations and in recent years organisations abandoned slide projectors in favour of CDs: now I guess you just load it all onto a memory stick. But there is a certain nostalgia for that nervous moment every time you press for the next slide and wonder if the machine is going to jam ... they often did.

I have a copier attachment for my Canon and it can be a very useful gadget. You can home in on part of the slide and eliminate unwanted stuff round the edge. I also noticed that copying increases the contrast (I think this is something to do with the light source), so that dark bits get darker and light bits tend to burn out. Not generally desirable, but sometimes the effect can be rather attractive.

It was a lot of effort, hauling that heavy bag all over the world, but I'm glad I took the trouble, I've got a photo record of some interesting experiences. Three weeks behind the lines with the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Army, for one. Very serious people, but you feel very safe with a few thousand Kalashnikovs on your side. I was there, I hasten to add, to advise on crop protection matters, not military ones.

[gamba]

Like Hornspieler I dislike the problems associated with using a screen on the back of the camera.

I now have a Canon G12 which allows the screen to be removed & rotated at almost any angle to avoid sunlight, reflections etc. More importantly, it has an optical viewfinder - no problems.

[gamba]

As someone who started in 1946 using a single lens reflex Thornton Pickard with 1/4 plate ( 3 1/4" x 4 1/4" ) glass plates , I'm quite happy to accept the digital age.

However, what does most concern me is the ability photographers now have to work on the original so as to produce something bearing no resemblence to the original at all.

[Hornspieler]

As someone who started in 1946 using a single lens reflex Thornton Pickard with 1/4 plate ( 3 1/4" x 4 1/4" ) glass plates , I'm quite happy to accept the digital age.

However, what does most concern me is the ability photographers now have to work on the original so as to produce something bearing no resemblence to the original at all.

Fair point.

As a matter of interest, I also had a TP Ruby ¼ Plate Camera, which had an optional 120 roll film adaptor and a very fine f2.8 Zeiss Tessar Lens.

I bought it for £10 from a member of the CBSO who was formerly in the Hallé Orchestra.
Believe it or not, a book about the Hallé (I can't remember its title now) contained pictures from the past which were all taken with that very same camera on quarter plates.

I was persuaded to part with it by a very keen collector of photographic memorabilia who worked for television in BBC Bristol.

Perhaps I should have hung on th it - it was in complete working order.

This thread is becoming very interesting. Let's hear more.

HS

[Stunsworth]

One thing regarding scanning negatives and/or slides.

Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, but if you are using a flatbed scanner you need to use one that's designed to scan negatives and slides. That will have a light source in the lid. Normally scans are made with a light source that's beneath the object being scanned. While that's fine with photographs it won't work with film.

For the actual scanning itself I use some software called Vuescan - http://www.hamrick.com/ - it's quite complex at first sight and probably not something to be used by the casual scanner. Vuescan has the advantage of not using the scanner manufacturer's drivers, which can be useful if you have an older scanner that's no longer supported by the latest version of your operating system.

[gamba]

A matter which concerns me is the attitude & outlook of almost all so-called photographic & camera clubs. I would dearly love to meet up with others who might share my love of this medium but cannot. Take a look at a typical local exhibition by members of almost any club & what do you see ? Landscapes, portraits, dogs, natural history etc., all of which have a sameness about them which seems to go on & on year after year. I would award them 95% for the quality of the picture & about 5% for the content. Many of the members that I have met appear to be more interested in their equipment than it's function. This of course is a result of most of them being 'guided' towards what photography is all about by the vast numbers of magazines on sale, all purporting to make a better photographer of you. You'll need the latest zoom, filter, close-up attachment, w/a or telephoto lens in fact, isn't it about time you updated your present model with the very latest & get all those extra pixels !

I first started in 1946 as assistant to John Vickers, who was responsible for all photography relating to the The Old Vic Theatre Co.. I was warned, " Bring one of those magazines in here & you're sacked ! "
If only people would regard the camera as a painter does his brush, but no, the lure of the hardware is too great for many & these magazines ( & their advertisers) encourage it.

A camera is a tool. I have used mine recently, as a hobby, to have a building near where I live, closed down. It was in appalling condition & people were expected to work there. Attempts by' the proper channel ' were a waste of time. So, under extreme weather conditions I took a series of photos dramatising the cracked & rotting stonework & woodwork. These went to a newspaper. Six weeks later, building closed.
I have quite a few other projects in mind. Some in praise of local endeavour & others condemning. I don't love my camera - but I do love what it can do !

There are so many aspects to the role photography can play - why is it confined by so many to the pretty pretty ?

[Stunsworth]

Gamba, that's just the way many camera clubs work. I've noticed the same thing myself. Listening to judges at club competitions can be very frustrating as many seem to have fixed 'rules' about what makes a photograph good or bad. The style of photography I like the most - b&w by people like Ronis, Boubat, Doisneau etc - would be slammed by judges as not fitting into their fixed 'pretty' aesthetic.

And don't get me started about the soft porn images submitted under the heading of 'glamour'.

[Lateralthinking1]

All these comments are fascinating. I agree with many of the sentiments. As someone who is not very technologically minded and doesn't think in terms of having "hobbies", I do have these further thoughts based largely on what others have said:

- Have stood in shops with my father considering scanners to transfer slides onto disk. We have decided against purchase to date, not wholly convinced, and probably for different reasons. Him - doubts about using new technology. Me - not sure that it would lead to improvements or even exact copies. My feelings are reinforced by what I now know - not a lot - of blue, green, red, colour bias in the originals, although I think this can be filtered out as others have said. Also, there were processes associated with the old photography that were cumbersome but more substantial - a tea ceremony rather than a ready meal.

- There is something about that above mentioned colour bias - particularly blue and green - and the sharpness of colour which really works for me with slides. I feel sure that it isn't just my imagination. I would say from memory that the vividness is only really striking using a small viewfinder and not on overhead projector. A combination I am guessing of the quality of the slides and the intensity of light, although a third is no doubt the favoured colours of specific eras - 50s and very early 60s. Is there a more relaxing way of creating that somehow? A giant viewfinder? Would welcome advice.

- While I know people love to edit their digital photos, actually I don't. I feel that it then becomes artifical. The beauty of it is that once if I was taking photos of other people in a certain spot, I'd be waiting for them to look natural in facial expression. Now I can take about six for no extra cost and find one where it doesn't look staged. I do agree with Anna though that it is difficult to get rid of even the bad ones, unless they are really dire. I tend to have folders - good, not good-good, not good-dire.

- Totally agree that the camera is a paintbrush. I could learn a great deal by listening to others' enthusiasm for camera equipment and good luck to them but to me that is like buying magazines wholly devoted to pens. Not what I would choose. There is also the syndrome of focussing so much on equipment that it becomes the be all and end all, ie a friend decided over the course of a year which expensive golf clubs to buy, talked nothing other than golf at that time, and then never played it.

- My take on "fixed rules" or if you like "textbook correctness" - anti - is largely based on observations of sport. John Lloyd etc often struggled to play tennis as required by British academies. McEnroe was himself. Had he been British, he would have had the peculiarities of serve etc knocked out of him and as a consequence would probably have become a complete nobody. This is not to say that every photo has to be unique or even unconventional. There are great photos that should and do win competitions because they are seen to fit the mould but the difference with most is that they are not only sharp but feel natural.

[gamba]

Welcome aboard Steve !

Also the competition rules specify the size of the picture, in fact a whole host of silly regulations that would never apply to an exhibition of paintings. There is also an obsession with 'sharpness ' Vast sums are spent on the fastest, the latest & most critically sharp lenses. This is fgrequently one of the most popular subjects for discussion with photo clubs. WHY ? If paintings had to be that sharp you might as well throw out all the French Impressionists from our galleries !! Some of my favourites are quite fuzzy !

Yes, & where would the likes of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Eugene Smith, Cartier-Bresson, Kertez, Elliot Erwitt, Werner Bischof & many more fit in to the present assessment of what constitutes great photography.

I presume you will have a copy of ' The Family of Man ' book. And if not WHY NOT !!!

I give copies to all members of my family & friends - to me it's a sort of visual bible - using the best in photography to look at ourselves.

[Stunsworth]

I presume you will have a copy of ' The Family of Man ' book. And if not WHY NOT !!!

I think I saw the exhibition a few years ago.

Anyhow, here's a link to some of my photographs - some film, some digital. As you can see they're not judge friendly <grin>.

http://500px.com/Steve_Unsworth

[Nick Armstrong]

I think I saw the exhibition a few years ago.

Anyhow, here's a link to some of my photographs - some film, some digital. As you can see they're not judge friendly <grin>.

http://500px.com/Steve_Unsworth

Some really wonderful images there. Just the sort of stuff I aspire to taking, and could look at for hours!

[gamba]

Steve,

Well done. some great stuff here. I shall enjoy looking over them during the next few days. What is now called ' Street Photography.

Alas, I do wish I were younger ( 89 next week ! ) but I do intend making a start by looking for & photographing all that's odd & unusual in the area where I live ( will probably be arrested ) & hope to have an exhibition in the local library, as I did last year. Also find myself very attracted to what is called 'urban decay,' great beauty in old houses & buildings of all kinds. Nice leisurely activity for an old man.

Although I started in photography; theatre, advertising, industrial & fashion, I spent most of my working life in films & then TV. I now wish I had maintained more contact with 'stills.'

I remember little of significance from moving pictures of any kind but great ' still ' pictures are always with me.

gamba

[Hornspieler]

All these comments are fascinating. I agree with many of the sentiments. As someone who is not very technologically minded and doesn't think in terms of having "hobbies", I do have these further thoughts based largely on what others have said:

- Have stood in shops with my father considering scanners to transfer slides onto disk. We have decided against purchase to date, not wholly convinced, and probably for different reasons. Him - doubts about using new technology. Me - not sure that it would lead to improvements or even exact copies. My feelings are reinforced by what I now know - not a lot - of blue, green, red, colour bias in the originals, although I think this can be filtered out as others have said. Also, there were processes associated with the old photography that were cumbersome but more substantial - a tea ceremony rather than a ready meal.

- There is something about that above mentioned colour bias - particularly blue and green - and the sharpness of colour which really works for me with slides. I feel sure that it isn't just my imagination. I would say from memory that the vividness is only really striking using a small viewfinder and not on overhead projector. A combination I am guessing of the quality of the slides and the intensity of light, although a third is no doubt the favoured colours of specific eras - 50s and very early 60s. Is there a more relaxing way of creating that somehow? A giant viewfinder? Would welcome advice.

Lateralthinking1:

A great post

Let me address a part only of your reply – that concerning colour balance:


One of my main criteria when copying transparencies to digital format is to use only reflected daylight for illumination. Hence any form of scanner is out – and that is why I copy directly onto the camera and transfer the image to the computer as a jpeg file.


Reflected daylight and not direct sunlight is essential. I use a large plain white board placed behind the colour slide holder and for preference (like the artists) a North-facing window. Beware of net curtains - they cast shadows. You may not see them but the camera certainly will and who wants a striped reproduction?

There is a lot of useful knowledge coming on this thread. Some contradictory, but that leads to good discussion Let's keep it going.

I repeat my offer to send you copy of the article I published on slide duplication. Just send me a Private Message with your email address and I will send you the full text plus photographs as as attachments.

Needless to say, I clearly undertake not to reveal any of your details to any third party, as I hope you would also undertake with mine.

That offer goes for all interested message boarders.

HS

[Lateralthinking1]

Lateralthinking1:Let me address a part only of your reply – that concerning colour balance.....
I repeat my offer to send you copy of the article I published on slide duplication. Just send me a Private Message with your email address and I will send you the full text plus photographs as as attachments.HS

Thank you HS.

That is interesting and helpful. Certainly I wouldn't have known that was the best process. I'd like to accept your kind offer and will be in touch. Actually I don't do net curtains. They are in the same category as umbrellas, briefcases, suitcases, watches, jewellery, combs, hairdrying equipment, blankets, dishwashers, fridge freezers, mobile phones, cars. I don't do those either! Lat.

[Stunsworth]

HS, a 'proper' film scanner shines light through the slide or negative to the scanner's sensor, so it's similar to your 'white board' solution. I should perhaps add that I've been scanning film for 15 years or so, occasionally 250+ rolls per year.