[vcf-midatlantic] OT: film photography

[Jason Howe]

On 12/2/18 7:55 AM, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> On 12/1/18 3:27 PM, Laura S. Reinhard via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
>> True. I just can’t afford to work the way I love most. Working
>> digitally was great at first and still has many advantages
>> especially for making photomontage. But I miss the level of
>> control and patience that film took. I can’t even print my own
>> color prints from negs anymore. The machine simply does not
>> exist. (At least not operating). C’est les vis.
>   <snip>
>
>    The general public now thinks of photography as "taking pictures"; and
> they don't understand the effort and talent that used to comprise nearly
> all of photography.  It has been diluted almost beyond recognition by
> the advent of cheap digital cameras and the subsequent commoditization
> of the field.  But when people see the work of, say, Ansel Adams, they
> say "WOW!" and sometimes wonder how he did that using such "primitive"
> tools.  "No Photoshop, OMG!"
>
>    Like other fields, the truly artistic side of it will be kept alive by
> people like you and my mother.  Even just talking about occasionally,
> like here in this thread, it raises awareness and keeps it in the public
> consciousness.
>
>                -Dave
>
>
Agree with both of you.   I currently have a hybrid workflow. Shoot on 
film, develop at home, scan with a dedicated film scanner then do some 
minimal processing in DarkTable.  I'm kinda working my back, backwards 
into the wet process as time and dollars allow.  The fun thing is to 
pickup up old books on advanced darkroom techniques and see the 
multi-step processes with inter-positives and all the rest, and realize 
that 3 hour process is now a click of a button in $editingProgram (I 
never got advanced back in the day).  Even more fun, is explaining that 
process to the young 'uns.

When putting one of my images out there on the Soc' Nets for 
consumption, I use the phrase, "I made this photograph".  It's a turn of 
phrase Ansel Adams uses in his books, which I instantly latched on to.  
I like to think it's just off-beat enough to make people stop and think 
for a second.   Hopefully it indicates that there was intent behind the 
recording and presentation of the image and not just a random snapshot 
that happens to look nice.

--Jason