# Digital technology ruined photography for me, or did people ruin it?  (or both)



## erotavlas (Dec 21, 2014)

Digital photography's pervasiveness in our society has become a double edged sword.  On the one hand it has opened up the opportunity for everyone to take photo's with greater ease, in many more circumstances that would have seemed impossible during the film era.  It's amazing that you can carry a tiny camera attached to a phone in your pocket, and take a snapshot at any time.  It is also cheaper to take photo's (that is if you don't give in to the endless GAS manufacturers expect from consumers)

But no matter how great these benefits are, modern digital technology has turned photographs into just another consumable like everything else in our modern society.  And because of this change  photography has lost its 'charm' for me, they are no longer special.   There are two ways this has happened

1 - We need to take MORE photos!!!

People are trying to capture more and more.  Not stopping to think about the scene or what it means.  They just need to capture and store away as much as they can on their computer memory., bypassing the need for their minds to even acknowledge the scene they just witnessed.   In doing so we are detaching ourselves from that moment, treating the world like it is something not to be admired, but as something that needs to be exploited. 

As an example I see it time and time again at the most popular national parks.  Thousands of tourists arriving in droves forgetting to admire the beauty and why they came, instead they insist on carrying a camera everywhere they go and focus solely on capturing some images that will sit in their computer memory only to be lost amongst the countless other images and quickly forgotten. 

Family photos have followed a similar pattern.  At family gatherings everyone is well prepared like the paparazzi to take the latest photo of some impromptu moment.  It's almost not enjoyable anymore, like we aren't enjoying the time together, always focused on taking those photos.  With so many people carrying their smartphones, it seems redundant and even pointless to participate.   Why bother snapping a photo when someone else already did?  Just get a copy from them.

2 - You think that's unique?? HA!  Look at THIS!!

More amateurs are creating images that rival those of the best professionals.  No longer is it possible to create something so unique that can't be recreated by anyone with the motivation, time and money to do so. 

People are now trying so hard to distinguish themselves from the rest creating crazier and crazier photos, in the most unusual scenes.   No matter how hard people try it is underwhelming at most because just around the corner is someone else who can create something even more unique, beyond what was already done.  And the speed at which this is happening is increasing.  Consumer electronic equipment of the most sophisticated kind has dropped in price immensely, putting it in the reach of the average person.  Enabling them to compete with the best.  It almost reminds me of people trying to purchase more expensive cars, bigger homes, expensive clothes just to keep up with or compete with family friends and neighbours.  People post away on photo sharing sites, not to share, but to impress.  Look at me, the amazingly special and unique photo I created!

Now every time I carry my camera and I think I want to take a photo I always have these thoughts in the back of my head.  Am I about to do the exact same thing that I hate to see other people do? Am i just a consumer of photos?  Or am I truly taking an image that means something to me? Is this image I am going to take help me to convey some information, emotion or beauty that I want to convey to other people? 

Maybe it's not so much digital technology by itself that has changed things so much, I think it has also been the shift to a consumer society that has changed peoples thinking.  More isn't always necessarily better.  And that applies to intangible things like photos as it does to material possessions.


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## snerd (Dec 21, 2014)

Digital ruined it for my soon-to-be-ex-wife. She hasn't shot in 10 years or more. Me, I just enjoy it. Laid-back enthusiast.


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## Trever1t (Dec 21, 2014)




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## baturn (Dec 21, 2014)

Sorry you feel that way. I'll bet many people felt the same way about the Brownie box cameras and every other aid to the public at large taking their own photos.


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## AlanKlein (Dec 21, 2014)

You're not the first to notice this.
 

*Ecclesiastes 1*
*Everything Is Meaningless*
1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.


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## bribrius (Dec 21, 2014)

erotavlas said:


> Digital photography's pervasiveness in our society has become a double edged sword.  On the one hand it has opened up the opportunity for everyone to take photo's with greater ease, in many more circumstances that would have seemed impossible during the film era.  It's amazing that you can carry a tiny camera attached to a phone in your pocket, and take a snapshot at any time.  It is also cheaper to take photo's (that is if you don't give in to the endless GAS manufacturers expect from consumers)
> 
> But no matter how great these benefits are, modern digital technology has turned photographs into just another consumable like everything else in our modern society.  And because of this change  photography has lost its 'charm' for me, they are no longer special.   There are two ways this has happened
> 
> ...


http://www.newsweek.com/photography-dead-94541


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## Buckster (Dec 21, 2014)

Sounds to me like you ruined it for yourself by shifting your attention away from your own creativity and your own enlightenment through your own photographic efforts and your own results, and focusing instead on what other people are doing.

So what if a million other people take a million shots of that waterfall or tree or landscape?  So what if they're looking through their viewfinders more than you think they should?  So what if everyone in the family is wearing a cell phone that can take photos?  So what if there are literally millions of snapshots that aren't worth anything to anyone but those amateurs who shot them?  Why should any of that stop you from enjoying your own photography?  And what makes you think they shouldn't enjoy themselves with that stuff any way they want to?  Who are you to say they shouldn't?  Who died and made you king of what people should and shouldn't do?

Your problem seems to be that you want to be the "special one" by being the only one who can take the photos, and now you're not the "special one" anymore because everyone can do it, and you can't figure out how to make yours stand out from the others as "special" anymore.

In short, it looks to me like your own jealousy over the fact that others can now take pictures at will is what ruined photography for you, and that's on you alone.

If you can't figure out a way to muster better than the snapshot quality coming out of the vast majority of those millions of amateurs shooting millions of shots with millions of phones, maybe you should just find a new hobby that nobody else is doing so that you don't have the competition messing with you anymore.  Maybe basket-weaving or pottery or chainsaw tree sculptures or some other hand-crafted type of thing like that is a better fit for your mentality.


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## photoguy99 (Dec 21, 2014)

But Buckster, photography has changed. It's all very well to say that you should just ignore that, and focus on your own thing, and maybe that works for you. But that is to deny that photography as an aspect of our culture had changed.

While we're printing more than ever, the print is no longer primary (which suggests a path to the OP by the way). This is just one of several fundamental changes in how photography fits in to our culture. You may be able to ignore the fact that your friends and family and coworkers and indeed everyone you know now sees photography in a way that is profoundly different from the way they saw it ten, twenty, years ago.

Not all of us can.


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## Buckster (Dec 21, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> But Buckster, photography has changed. It's all very well to say that you should just ignore that, and focus on your own thing, and maybe that works for you. But that is to deny that photography as an aspect of our culture had changed.
> 
> While we're printing more than ever, the print is no longer primary (which suggests a path to the OP by the way). This is just one of several fundamental changes in how photography fits in to our culture. You may be able to ignore the fact that your friends and family and coworkers and indeed everyone you know now sees photography in a way that is profoundly different from the way they saw it ten, twenty, years ago.
> 
> Not all of us can.


For me, it's pretty simple: Ask what it is that YOU PERSONALLY got out of photography that YOU PERSONALLY don't get out of photography anymore.

From 1969 on, photography for ME has been a PERSONAL journey of learning to accomplish photographic goals and then achieving them.  I never cared that I wasn't the first, nor the only person doing it, because my PERSONAL journey and enlightenment and goals and achievements and satisfaction were about my own self-fulfillment, not a competition with others nor a way to be unique from others.

I'm still very much on that journey, and continue to be enlightened and satisfied with my own efforts in that regard.

I don't depend on other people to make me happy, nor do I allow what they do to make me unhappy when what they do doesn't directly affect me.


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## photoguy99 (Dec 21, 2014)

And that is a fine strategy which works well for you. Good on ya!


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## baturn (Dec 21, 2014)

Hear, hear!^ Crap! This was supposed to follow Buckster's post.


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## Buckster (Dec 21, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> And that is a fine strategy which works well for you. Good on ya!


It's not a "strategy", it's a personal satisfaction mentality.  If you seek enlightenment, seek it within yourself, not others.


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## photoguy99 (Dec 21, 2014)

Oookay then.


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## bribrius (Dec 22, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> Oookay then.


I agree with buckster and the o.p.  As far as I can tell neither of their statements really conflicted. The o.p stated many truths far as I am concerned. Buckster pretty much responded for the o.p to concern himself with himself.


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## JTPhotography (Dec 22, 2014)

Good discussion. If photography really is dying because of the digital revolution, then social media is the nail in the coffin. In reality, it is only a bad thing for pros and semi-pros. Amateurs are lured in by the attention they can get from things like facebook and most of them have no problem stealing and copying ideas and locations. Also, the public is mostly to blame. Photography's "audience" is largely ignorant. For example, I have a following of about 8000 on facebook. I can post my best macro photo, artistic and technically difficult, and it will get a terrible response. If I post a crooked OOF shot of a rainbow, I suddenly become a genius. I resist the urge to pander to that crap.


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## rexbobcat (Dec 22, 2014)

Buckster said:


> photoguy99 said:
> 
> 
> > And that is a fine strategy which works well for you. Good on ya!
> ...



I understand what you're saying. Yes, technically, the bitter taste that one feels toward an activity is their own responsibility. 

It's part of the "You can't always control what happens but you can control your attitude toward it" mentality. 

However, and I know this is probably an unpopular opinion, but the whole "look within yourself for happiness" line is so trite. It's true to an extent, but at this point it's just a dismissive cliche. It's a statement that elevates the speaker while not even attempting to empathize with the recipient.

The human ego does not exist in a vacuum. I've researched and studied enough psychology to know that a person can't simply will themselves into contentment while disregarding their social and psychological predispositions.

At least that's the way I see it. Your statements might be true, but man you sure stated them in the most dickish way possible.


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## Buckster (Dec 22, 2014)

rexbobcat said:


> Your statements might be true, but man you sure stated them in the most dickish way possible.


Yeah, well...  Ever since I was diagnosed with an incurable cancer, I tend to be more direct in my approach.  Some might call it blunt.  Others might call it dickish.  I call it simply my unambiguously honest opinion.

And I live by the values I espouse above, not just regarding photography, but about everything, including my incurable cancer.  It's neither trite nor a cliche to me, regardless of your armchair psychology studies, young man.  It's a positive mental attitude that I've always had throughout my 55 year experiential lifespan, not one that I work at or try to cultivate or will myself into or pretend to have but don't just for the benefit of doling out advice to strangers on the internet.

Do with that what you will.  It doesn't affect me any more than millions of amateurs clicking millions of shutters at millions of landscapes, selfies and each other.


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## rexbobcat (Dec 22, 2014)

Buckster said:


> rexbobcat said:
> 
> 
> > Your statements might be true, but man you sure stated them in the most dickish way possible.
> ...




The applicability of that mentality to your situation doesn't make it any less dismissive or cliche within the context of giving (rather backhanded) life advice to a stranger on the Internet whom you know nothing about. 

Like I said, the advice is true, but *reiterate above points*

But I'm glad you beat cancer and have a personal philosophy that works for you.


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## Buckster (Dec 22, 2014)

rexbobcat said:


> Buckster said:
> 
> 
> > rexbobcat said:
> ...


I don't have to know anything about anyone to know that it's mentally unhealthy and unproductive to let something like the fact that lots of people these days take pictures "RUIN" an aspect of your life the way the OP described.

I don't even let the fact that my ongoing cancer could end my life at pretty much any time "RUIN" an aspect of my life.

And I didn't "find" a philosophy that works for me.  Again, it's a positive mental attitude that I've just always had.  I'm just one of those people who naturally looks on the bright side of things.  I accept and simply deal with situations I can't change.  I don't let others, even millions of others, "RUIN" the enjoyable aspects of my life, especially not JUST because they're doing something similar.

Letting others "RUIN" something I enjoy just because they're doing something similar makes about as much sense to me as saying I can no longer enjoy my favorite TV show because too many other people also watch it.  That's neither mentally healthy nor productive, and I can neither condone it nor defend it, whether you go along with that mentality or not.

Edited to add: BTW, you don't "beat" an incurable cancer.  You continue to deal with it day after day until you're dead.  That's what "incurable" means.  I do it with a big dopey grin on my face because I love every day that I get.


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## rexbobcat (Dec 22, 2014)

Buckster said:


> rexbobcat said:
> 
> 
> > Buckster said:
> ...




I never said it was mentally healthy or that you should defend it.

But congrats on your natural optimism and resilience.

BTW: I'm on my phone so I quickly skimmed your post. I didn't catch the incurable part, sorry.


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## Vince.1551 (Dec 22, 2014)

Essays to read [emoji16]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Rick58 (Dec 22, 2014)

I said in an early post that today people machine gun off 100 photos, in hopes for one keeper, shoot sloppy and fix in post. Now I'll add shoot everything and anything because the cost and time of processing are no longer in the equation. To me none of these things can be considered good things for the medium.


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## Braineack (Dec 22, 2014)

I dont even try to expose properly anymore since I have so much recovery.


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## SCraig (Dec 22, 2014)

I don't think there has been one single time in the 3+ years I've been on this forum that I've agreed with anything Buckster had to say.  Until now.  I completely agree with is comments.  If one is going to allow others to dictate their enjoyment of something then they really need to reconsider their priorities.  The fact that thousands of others enjoy taking crappy snapshots and sharing them on Facebook has absolutely zero bearing on whether I enjoy photography or not.  If I got annoyed every time I saw what I consider to be a bad photograph I'd have abandoned this forum long ago because in my opinion there are a LOT of bad ones here.

Personally I could care less what others do.  I enjoy photography for my own benefit and I won't let that enjoyment be affected by how others enjoy it.  That is one of the great things about photography:  Everyone can choose to enjoy it in their own way.


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## Ilovemycam (Dec 22, 2014)

OP, yes. I agree more or less. but I would NEVER go back to film. Just got to take the good with the bad.


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## jsecordphoto (Dec 22, 2014)

Jesus grab a tissue, dry off your tears, and go shoot some photos (don't worry about putting any thought into them though, you can fix them in Photoshop)


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## Dagwood56 (Dec 22, 2014)

I do agree that digital has changed the face of photography, BUT, I agree with Buckster -  so what! Why let how other's do things ruin your own enjoyment in photography? That's just plain stupid! 

And to Buckster: as one cancer patient to another, Right on!, for the positive attitude! You have to have a positive attitude and learn to enjoy each and every day like its your last - because it very well could be, and its not an easy thing to live with, believe me, I know.


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## weepete (Dec 22, 2014)

But on the flip side photography has never been as popular as it is now. Information on photography (whither that's gear or technique) has never been more accessible or available. Digital development, along with mass market pricing means that the average person can have more control over their finished image than ever before on a device that most of us have anyway. 

So from my point of view is a bit contradictory as there are probably more photographers taking a better standard of photo than ever before.

It's a bit like arguing paintings were ruined since they put paint in a tube and you don't have to source any mix your own pigment anymore.


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## The_Traveler (Dec 22, 2014)

Digital has changed photography and it has made it possible for me to enjoy something I thought I had lost.
My life is pretty constricted by circumstance and the only real persistent pleasure I have is my photography and I won't let anything spoil that for me. 

I agree with Buckster and SCraig - I couldn't care less about what other people do as long as their behavior doesn't spoil my enjoyment of my life.


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## KmH (Dec 22, 2014)

Since it's beginning photography and pretty much everything else has been in flux.

The Industrial Revolution that started about the same time as photography caused the rate of change to increase - dramatically.

Photography isn't going away anytime soon.

It's been said that if you put enough monkeys in front of keyboards, given enough time the monkeys will eventually and randomly re-create all the works of Shakespeare.
With so many photos being made today, by accident, some will be really good or even great photos.
Want a banana?


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## Braineack (Dec 22, 2014)

I'm still steamed that the gasoline otto-cycle engine has ruined the steam car.


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## Rick50 (Dec 22, 2014)

Braineack said:


> I'm still steamed that the gasoline otto-cycle engine has ruined the steam car.


And now they are perfecting the electric car. On, what horror's!


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## Fred Berg (Dec 22, 2014)

OP, your post strikes a chord and is one of the best reads I've seen posted in a while.

This might interest some: John Hedgecoe Interview - My Life in Pictures - Amateur Photographer


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## Braineack (Dec 22, 2014)

Rick50 said:


> Braineack said:
> 
> 
> > I'm still steamed that the gasoline otto-cycle engine has ruined the steam car.
> ...



Technically we are going back to electric cars, they were used much earlier than you think.


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## erotavlas (Dec 22, 2014)

Buckster said:


> Sounds to me like you ruined it for yourself by shifting your attention away from your own creativity and your own enlightenment through your own photographic efforts and your own results, and focusing instead on what other people are doing.
> 
> So what if a million other people take a million shots of that waterfall or tree or landscape?  So what if they're looking through their viewfinders more than you think they should?  So what if everyone in the family is wearing a cell phone that can take photos?  So what if there are literally millions of snapshots that aren't worth anything to anyone but those amateurs who shot them?  Why should any of that stop you from enjoying your own photography?  And what makes you think they shouldn't enjoy themselves with that stuff any way they want to?  Who are you to say they shouldn't?  Who died and made you king of what people should and shouldn't do?
> 
> ...



First of all sorry if this topic has been talked about before, I'm sure everything already has, but I just wanted to vent my own perspective on it.

I think it's important to care that people are taking millions of photo's without any thought to what they are taking photo's of.  They are shifting their focus away from the subject and towards the acquisition of photo's instead.  Again my point has to do with the connection to consumer culture.  How consumerism not only applies to material things that you purchase in the store, and has made it's way to other activities like photography

Regarding your point about jealousy, Painting my observations in a negative context doesn't imply jealousy.  And I don't think my own personal feelings really change the observation I made.  An onlooker who was not jealous should be able to observe the same phenomenon happening.  Maybe my title should have excluded the "me" part because I was referring to photography in general, not my own personal experience trying to 'stand out' through photography.  It should have been more like "Digital technology ruined the charm of photography and our appreciation for our environment (people places and things) by turning photos into another consumable"


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## Stradawhovious (Dec 22, 2014)

erotavlas said:


> More amateurs are creating images that rival those of the best professionals.  No longer is it possible to create something so unique that can't be recreated by anyone with the motivation, time and money to do so.


 

This has always been true.  Copying, forgeries and plagiarism have been around as long as something came before it to copy.  You can't blame technology for that.

If the Pros are worried that the amateurs are getting as good/better than them, they need to step up their game.  If you are worried that the bar for what is acceptable photography is getting too low, you need to educate the sheeple.

Two different arguments, two different solutions.

Technology changes things.  Always has, always will.


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## jsecordphoto (Dec 22, 2014)

Think about this in the context of any other career. Those who ***** about the changing tides of an industry get left behind, and those who evolve continue to thrive. All I see is a larger range of mediocre photos than before. 

Sure it's easier now to take thousands of photos and get a few that are useable- but they will never be great. It still takes just as much skill and talent to produce truly great images, even if the methods of achieving those results have changed.


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## photoguy99 (Dec 22, 2014)

It's not about technology, at least not to me. The point is that the society in which we live has changed its attitude toward photography.

Photography is no longer the domain of a group of people called "photographers", it is now something almost literally everyone does. 150 years ago it was like being a professional opera singer in terms of rarity. Now it's like singing in the shower. You can't just buy a camera and study up a bit and be "the guy" that takes the nice photos in your family or social group -- everyone takes adequately nice photos.

But it's not just about being special and different. Now that everyone takes photos, now that we're steeped not merely in the medias photos, but our own, people view photos as different. They're not looking at them as an expression of anything, they're looking at them more and more as a second-hand stream of experience. I wasn't at the party, but I saw the photos. I wasn't on the lake that day but I saw the photos.

When you show your beautiful photos of a flower or whatever, people see it not against their memories of Karsh's photo of Sophia Loren, but against their memories of photos of 500 parties and events they did not attend, and 1000s of photos of their friends lunches. They're as likely to be puzzled by your macro pictures of bugs as anything "did you have the bug for lunch? Was the bug at the party? I don't get it." (not quite, but you get the idea).

So, you're not special, and people increasingly don't see your photos as special.

You can choose to live inside a personal bubble on this point. Sing your heart out in the shower, who cares if you're never going to The Met? That is OK.

You can choose to make yourself special by doing something more than basic photography. You can do wet plate. You can print. You can make books. More importantly, you can shoot with purpose. As long as you have something to say, you're not making copies any more.

These things may or may not cause your social circle to see your work as anything. They might make you see it as something, though, which is more to the point.


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## bribrius (Dec 22, 2014)

in this environment. Most photos just are consumerables.  And photography is somewhat outdated now, moved on to video. we have satellites taking photos from up above, telescopes photographing other galaxies. The common person camera is quite common and has been that way so long it isn't any large change here except maybe the every increasing amount of photos. The article I posted above said photography lost its "soul". That doesn't just speak to the average consumer but also gives accusation to perhaps those that are higher than the average consumer that KNOW how to take a technically proficient good photo. It wasn't about a lack of photos, or even a lack of good photos. But a change in mentality. Loss of SOUL. which I thought went along well with the o.p.

But I think in this environment, it could be the perfect time for a photographer to stand out amongst the herd. That would require not thinking like and following the heard though.


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## Buckster (Dec 22, 2014)

Film on spools ruined photography.
Kodak's Brownie ruined photography.
Color film ruined photography.
The 35mm film format ruined photography.
Nikon's F system opening up the medium to even more common people ruined photography.
Autofocus lenses ruined photography.
Autoexposure systems ruined photography.
Digital cameras ruined photography.
Cell phones with cameras ruined photography.
Tomorrow's advances in capturing images will ruin photography.

Is there a technology that's ever come out that didn't have someone saying it ruined what came before it?

You kids with your fire and your spears and stone axes have ruined hunting and eating by making it too easy for anyone to do it.


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## jsecordphoto (Dec 22, 2014)

If you think photography has lost it's soul maybe you are following the wrong photographers. I really don't even understand the logic in half of this thread


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## photoguy99 (Dec 22, 2014)

Yes, change has always afflicted photography in this way. There are documented records of wet plate people bitching about how dry plate ruined photography.

A case can be made that this is a qualitatively different thing.


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## Usul (Dec 22, 2014)

Digital gives us additional opportunities, makes photograhy easier and open photography for many people. Of course since a man hasn't to hunt animals everyday to feed himself we got fat and lazy but who wants to go back into the woods again.


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## weepete (Dec 22, 2014)

Upstairs in my loft is a box.....

and in that box there's a few hundred prints taken in the late 90's to 2003

They still contain the blurred shots, the overexposures, the black ones too we still kept most of them anyway.

I'd wager most people have a box or two like that. I know that in my parents loft there's a couple, though it'll be in older boxes and there will be a few slides thrown in too, taken  mostly before I was born by my dad.

Anyway my point is that it's just the way we store things that's really changed. I bet if you went to random houses and looked at the photos in similar boxes it'd take a long time to find anything of the quality of HCB or the like.


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## gsgary (Dec 22, 2014)

weepete said:


> Upstairs in my loft is a box.....
> 
> and in that box there's a few hundred prints taken in the late 90's to 2003
> 
> ...



No my prints are on the wall or in my darkroom and a pile of negs waiting to be printed


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## The_Traveler (Dec 22, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> You can choose to make yourself special by doing something more than basic photography. You can do wet plate. You can print. You can make books. More importantly, you can shoot with purpose. As long as you have something to say, you're not making copies any more.
> 
> These things may or may not cause your social circle to see your work as anything. They might make you see it as something, though, which is more to the point.



This is a different fork in the trail. 

Technology has elevated 'doing' to an almost unbelievable level.
I just read an article about an artist who expresses his view of the world by constructing things, in the latest case a 26 foot boat, out of 3d printed parts that he assembles and paints. This latest boat has 100,000 pieces and they are being printed by a phalanx of thirty 3d printers. 
The bar for 'being special' is way too high to make that a reasonable goal.


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## weepete (Dec 22, 2014)

I said most Gary. You Lecia guys are all a bit weird anyway.


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## photoguy99 (Dec 22, 2014)

You're not going to be "globally special", basically. All you can reasonably expect is to be "special enough" for whatever your own purpose is.

Arguably you should aim for global, though. If you aim low, you're sure to hit it, and all that.


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## Buckster (Dec 22, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> You're not going to be "globally special", basically. All you can reasonably expect is to be "special enough" for whatever your own purpose is.
> 
> Arguably you should aim for global, though. If you aim low, you're sure to hit it, and all that.


Why bother at all if photography is truly ruined now anyway?


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## pixmedic (Dec 22, 2014)

I dont know why people are complaining about digital ...Photography was ruined long before digital.....
As soon as roll film replaced wet plate it was all over.


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## photoguy99 (Dec 22, 2014)

I don't think it's ruined. Radically changed, sure. Increasingly difficult to find ones way in? Yeah, that too.

But not ruined. In some ways more awesome thank ever. The technical clutter had been entirely pushed aside, for one thing.


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## imagemaker46 (Dec 22, 2014)

Maybe for some, yes for many, and no for everyone else that decided they were good enough to try and make money from it with the help the technology it offers.


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## gsgary (Dec 22, 2014)

weepete said:


> I said most Gary. You Lecia guys are all a bit weird anyway.


Terrible what happened again in Glasgow


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## weepete (Dec 22, 2014)

gsgary said:


> Terrible what happened again in Glasgow



Aye mate, it was indeed. It was mobbed at the weekend so it would have been busy. My wean was going to go in tomorrow with her mates to the ice skating as well. I'm just thanking God they were not in town today.

Last I heard the death toll was 6, need to wait for the names now and hope it doesn't get any worse. At least they were about 2 mins from the Royal so the emergency services got there quick.

Gotta feel for the friends and families who have lost someone.


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## weepete (Dec 22, 2014)

Here's a link to the story for everyone else

BBC News - Six people killed and eight injured in Glasgow bin lorry crash

I guess the point is stop worrying about abstract aspects of what we do, just get out and enjoy it as you never know when the ride will stop.


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## Gary A. (Dec 22, 2014)

For me, growing up in the film-only days, it was the darkroom that separated "true" photographers from the wannabees. It was an easy and distinct line ... the darkroom was truly a line in the sand. With the popularity of digital, anybody with a computer and a printer could make a 8x10 ... the line in the sand has been erased and trampled.

I sorta miss the days of exclusivity ... of when "Photographer" was reserved to the few who truly desired to be a photographer.


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## tirediron (Dec 22, 2014)

pixmedic said:


> I dont know why people are complaining about digital ...Photography was ruined long before digital.....
> As soon as roll film replaced wet plate it was all over.


Hell's bells man....  what do you think the _camera obscura_ people were saying when that donkey-hole Daguerre came along????


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## rexbobcat (Dec 22, 2014)

I think I have the solution. Just shoot film and make sure to bring all the attention to the fact that _you shoot film.
_
The goal is to distract others from your mediocrity by making your photos all about the process.

You'll have that e-fame in no time.


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## Designer (Dec 22, 2014)

weepete said:


> Last I heard the death toll was 6,



In reading the story, I didn't catch the identity of the lorry driver.  

I'm naturally suspicious of anything that seems like it could have been prevented, but somehow wasn't.  

They need to study the driver and find out if there was any motive for him to do that on purpose.


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## weepete (Dec 22, 2014)

Gary A. said:


> For me, growing up in the film-only days, it was the darkroom that separated "true" photographers from the wannabees. It was an easy and distinct line ... the darkroom was truly a line in the sand. With the popularity of digital, anybody with a computer and a printer could make a 8x10 ... the line in the sand has been erased and trampled.
> 
> I sorta miss the days of exclusivity ... of when "Photographer" was reserved to the few who truly desired to be a photographer.



I guess that's where I differ then. 

I'm quite lucky, when I was a kid my dad was always into photography and he did have his own darkroom at one point (before I was born) and developed his some of own shots. Though he did move to slide film a lot which he loved. So I was lucky enough to shoot some film when I was a kid and a teen. I always got rolls of film to shoot with and my dad would  give me some cash to get them developed in the local store as he didn't have a darkroom. I got to use his old cameras when he moved on and got to use his old 70's Pentax SLR under careful supervision when he moved systems. I stll remember him teaching me how to focus and use the light meter in camera.

But it wasn't until I got a digital camera that I really developed an interest in it. I got a Sony Cybershot DSC-W1 P&S as a present for my birthday one year (with a sweet built in f2.8 lens, av, tv and full manual mode too. And it still takes good shots!). From there my interest developed and if it wasn't for the move to digital I probably would have never developed a real interest in photography.

Sure, there is a lot of bad out there, but there's also a lot of good. In part it's seeing the good and slowly realising that if I get some knowledge, experiment and build up my skill base there is no reason I can't create some of the wonderful images I see from other photographers. 

So for me it's made good photography a real and achievable goal. Even if I'm reaching a bit at the moment


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## limr (Dec 22, 2014)

rexbobcat said:


> I think I have the solution. Just shoot film and make sure to bring all the attention to the fact that _you shoot film.
> _
> The goal is to distract others from your mediocrity by making your photos all about the process.
> 
> You'll have that e-fame in no time.



Easy there. This is sounding like shooting film is being automatically associated with mediocrity.


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## Microbois (Dec 22, 2014)

Sorry, I didn't read the whole discussion, but the OP got it so wrong, it's not even funny.

Point 1 : We DON'T need to take more pictures, but we CAN today, and it's a beautiful thing that way. I remember back in the film days, with a 36 exposure film loaded, if you were a tourist, you would shoot only 1 or 2 pictures, and hope your pictures are all good once you get back home. How many ruined shots (sometimes by the lab itself) back then? Tons! It's a very good thing that we can take as many pictures as we desire today and stop only when YOU get the one YOU really like. I just can't see what's wrong with that. Please stop all that Ken Rockwell type of BS about film vs digital.

Point 2 : Regarding uniqueness. WHO CARES? I bought a few great cameras over the last 30 years of so, and I always bought what I wanted for my own needs. I don't care what everybody else does, and I'm not jealous if they pull a camera next to me to get the exact same shot. I won't see their pictures once they get back home, nor they will see mine when I come back to my place. Once again, WHO CARES? Photography is a personal hobby you share with those interested in seeing your work.

There's one thing I do see though... Now, with this level of technology being so affordable, anyone with a good idea can create a masterpiece. You no longer have to have tens of thousands of dollars of equipment, nor do you need to have a reputation to have your work published or broadcasted. Sure enough, a newbie can pull an amazing picture out of luck, but so what? He was lucky, and won't make a career as a photographer just for that one shot... Clients who hired those newbies will soon find out why they were so cheap...

Taking pictures should have never been a special moment reserved only to a selected few. We should take pictures anytime we feel like it. The special moment is not when you take the picture, but when you look at it 20-30-50 years later. I probably have no more than 100 pictures of my entire childhood in the late 60s, early 70s. My son is about to turn 10, and I already have several thousands of pictures of him. How can this be wrong? It won't prevent me from living the present moment either...

Sorry, I don't get it. This is a very exciting time for photography and videography all together. Maybe it's much harder today to make a living out of photography, or to just stand out of the crowd, but it's the same problem for musicians, writers, journalists, etc.

Benoit


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## weepete (Dec 22, 2014)

Designer said:


> weepete said:
> 
> 
> > Last I heard the death toll was 6,
> ...



Reports are he was slumped over the wheel. In the news here it's suspected that he had a heart attack or other medical problem while at the wheel, though that's not been confirmed yet. I'm hoping it wasn't a pre existing condition. At the moment there is no reason to suspect any other motive and the Police are treating it as an RTC. I doubt they will release the drivers identity until enough evidence is gathered and a decision is made whither or not to charge him with anything. 

After the Glasgow Airport bombing (which incedentally me and my family flew to the states 4 days after) there is a close eye on security here.


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## rexbobcat (Dec 22, 2014)

limr said:


> rexbobcat said:
> 
> 
> > I think I have the solution. Just shoot film and make sure to bring all the attention to the fact that _you shoot film.
> ...



Heh, no I don't mean it like that at all. I just see a lot of people with average photos, but because they shoot film (often on old cameras), people are enamored by it.

"That one mega grainy out of focus photo that was a stop underexposed and had to be pushed in a lab because you don't personally know how to develop film is so amazing, although the same photo taken on a digital camera wouldn't even garner a second glance from me."

It becomes more about the process than the product, which, intentional or not, masks some of the average-ness of the individual photographer.

Basically, film photographers aren't mediocre, but mediocre photographers will more likely be given more critical leeway if they shoot film.


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## ByronBrant (Dec 22, 2014)

A very interesting read. Thanks for everyones input


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## Braineack (Dec 22, 2014)

I can darkroom.  I can also 1-hour photo.  My pictures didn't improve worsen.


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## limr (Dec 22, 2014)

Yeah, I know you didn't mean it that way. Just had to defend my peeps 

I know that there are certain factions that will praise even the crappiest picture as long as it is on film, but just because some of us _use_ Holgas doesn't mean we are drinking the Lomography Kool-Aid 

I've also seen some astounding photos (taken on film) on another forum I'm on that would never fly here because the photos wouldn't be technical enough. So sometimes it goes in the opposite direction.

But I basically agree with your point - a technique or process is something that you use because you respond to it in some way and it helps you take better pictures, helps you fulfill your vision. Otherwise, it's just a gimmick. Film can be a gimmick, HDR can be a gimmick, software filters, Lensbabies, long exposures...


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## limr (Dec 22, 2014)

Braineack said:


> I can darkroom.  I can also 1-hour photo.  My pictures didn't improve worsen.



Apparently your grammar also worsened


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## Didereaux (Dec 22, 2014)

When I see the crowds with all their various picture taking gadgetry, I cringe.  But over the last couple of years I have seen the light, so to speak...they are shooting only temporary images doomed to oblivion.  The real photography, the art, the documentary photography is PRINTED, and HUNG.   The crappola will never have harmed a tree.   The sad thing is that all those fools shooting the family and never printing the pictures are destroying a part of their history...maybe they really were never too significant anyway?


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## rexbobcat (Dec 22, 2014)

Braineack said:


> I can darkroom.



But can you dougie? If not, I can teach you.


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## snerd (Dec 22, 2014)

KmH said:


> ........ It's been said that if you put enough monkeys in front of keyboards, given enough time the monkeys will eventually and randomly re-create all the works of Shakespeare. With so many photos being made today, by accident, some will be really good or even great photos. Want a banana?


You really do need some sensitivity training.


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## tirediron (Dec 22, 2014)

limr said:


> Braineack said:
> 
> 
> > I can darkroom.  I can also 1-hour photo.  My pictures didn't improve worsen.
> ...


You think his Grammar's bad, you should see his Granpa!


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## snowbear (Dec 22, 2014)

KmH said:


> It's been said that if you put enough monkeys in front of keyboards, given enough time the monkeys will eventually and randomly re-create all the works of Shakespeare.


And an infinite number of rednecks with an infinite number of shotguns, shooting at an infinite number of street signs will recreate all the great works of literature in braille.


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## Ilovemycam (Dec 22, 2014)

;large 





limr said:


> Yeah, I know you didn't mean it that way. Just had to defend my peeps
> 
> I know that there are certain factions that will praise even the crappiest picture as long as it is on film, but just because some of us _use_ Holgas doesn't mean we are drinking the Lomography Kool-Aid
> 
> ...


 

All these things are tools we use to distinguish a photo. But the photo has to have something worth distinguishing.

In the old days (1970's) you could call the curator at a museum and set up an appointment to show your work. Nowadays it is hell even trying to find out the name of the curator of photography at some museums. It is guarded like it is nuclear secrets. All you can do is send in a contact form and get no reply.

Photos are very cheap nowadays and the market it flooded. I do well placing my work at large institutions cause I make book art out of it. We just have to roll with the punches with the current state of affairs. But it can be very discouraging if you wish to promote your work. I'm not in it for the $, I do it for love of photography. In any case, it is tough even giving away photos for free.


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## pgriz (Dec 22, 2014)

I've shot enough film (both positive and negative, b/w & colour) and have enough prints to fill many boxes, picture albums and shelves. I've developed my own film and printed thousands of prints.  But in the end, digital was the tool that helped me improve my photography the most, as it provided instant feedback and shortened the cycle of trial and error and eventual success.  I learned how to bounce flash and how to combine ambient with flash by using digital to give me instant feedback as to what worked and what didn't.  Digital also allowed me to re-shoot on site when my first try didn't work.  With film, I've missed many opportunities because I had the focus off, or the exposure, or something else.  So from a learning perspective, it's hard to do better than digital.


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## gsgary (Dec 23, 2014)

pgriz said:


> I've shot enough film (both positive and negative, b/w & colour) and have enough prints to fill many boxes, picture albums and shelves. I've developed my own film and printed thousands of prints.  But in the end, digital was the tool that helped me improve my photography the most, as it provided instant feedback and shortened the cycle of trial and error and eventual success.  I learned how to bounce flash and how to combine ambient with flash by using digital to give me instant feedback as to what worked and what didn't.  Digital also allowed me to re-shoot on site when my first try didn't work.  With film, I've missed many opportunities because I had the focus off, or the exposure, or something else.  So from a learning perspective, it's hard to do better than digital.


I bet you don't print as much now you shoot digital most at our club just have them on the hard drive, when your hard drive fails  or in 10 years when they are not readable you will still have your box of negs


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## Garbz (Dec 23, 2014)

Gary how is not looking after your bits and different from not looking after your negs?

A house fire will kill your negs, just like a lightning strike will kill your harddisk. If anything it is easier to now ensure your photos will last longer than ever before. Just use open standard formats, and use redundancy + backup + checksumming to store them, and diversify their locations to protect them from weather and environment.


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## gsgary (Dec 23, 2014)

Garbz said:


> Gary how is not looking after your bits and different from not looking after your negs?
> 
> A house fire will kill your negs, just like a lightning strike will kill your harddisk. If anything it is easier to now ensure your photos will last longer than ever before. Just use open standard formats, and use redundancy + backup + checksumming to store them, and diversify their locations to protect them from weather and environment.


House fire are not very common over here, digital will cost more in the end plus I find editing on the computer very boring


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## Fred Berg (Dec 23, 2014)

pgriz said:


> I've shot enough film (both positive and negative, b/w & colour) and have enough prints to fill many boxes, picture albums and shelves. I've developed my own film and printed thousands of prints.  But in the end, digital was the tool that helped me improve my photography the most, as it provided instant feedback and shortened the cycle of trial and error and eventual success.  I learned how to bounce flash and how to combine ambient with flash by using digital to give me instant feedback as to what worked and what didn't.  Digital also allowed me to re-shoot on site when my first try didn't work.  With film, I've missed many opportunities because I had the focus off, or the exposure, or something else.  So from a learning perspective, it's hard to do better than digital.




I don't agree that digital is better to learn with. With film you have no EXIF details available at a click of a mouse, so you have to write things down and make notes. This very process is a crucial link in the learning chain, IMO, and it is missing in the digital age.

A similar phenomenon occurs when people google for information. On the one hand it is very quick and useful, but this stuff is forgotten again in no time at all. Going to the library and using the index cards to find the books you need and then jotting down notes when you find what you're looking for is slower, but that info will still be in your head in 10 years' time.


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## Village Idiot (Dec 23, 2014)

gsgary said:


> Garbz said:
> 
> 
> > Gary how is not looking after your bits and different from not looking after your negs?
> ...



I have to disagree with this, well about cost anyways. Beyond the initial cost of the computer, a 2TB HDD can be had for $100. That will should store about 40,000 25 MB, assuming that my math is correct and going based on the conversion of 100KB = 1MB, 1000MB = 1GB instead of the actual conversion. Even buying two 2TB HDDs as backups, you couldn’t even shoot 40,000 frames of film for $300 anymore, let alone print or store.

Now editing on the computer may not be exciting to people, but the ability you have to edit and the ease is much greater. I find myself sometimes having to walk away from more time consuming edits for a little while. It took me about 3-4 hours over the course of a couple days to edit out the car rig suction cups and pole from a photo when I was first learning. It’s a very tedious process. I don’t see how that could have been done pre-digital days though.



Fred Berg said:


> pgriz said:
> 
> 
> > I've shot enough film (both positive and negative, b/w & colour) and have enough prints to fill many boxes, picture albums and shelves. I've developed my own film and printed thousands of prints.  But in the end, digital was the tool that helped me improve my photography the most, as it provided instant feedback and shortened the cycle of trial and error and eventual success.  I learned how to bounce flash and how to combine ambient with flash by using digital to give me instant feedback as to what worked and what didn't.  Digital also allowed me to re-shoot on site when my first try didn't work.  With film, I've missed many opportunities because I had the focus off, or the exposure, or something else.  So from a learning perspective, it's hard to do better than digital.
> ...



People still do this in the age of digital. It was mentioned as a great tool on David Hobby’s Strobist blog about keeping a lighting journal to record your shoots so you could go back and look at it. EXIF doesn’t tell you the whole story and for someone that’s not as experienced or even certain photos, you might not necessarily be able to tell where the light sources are coming from in a photo. Also, writing down the flash powers and everything else can be crucial to learning how to set up your lights without firing a ton of test shots.

I did what would be considered a bad thing if I were doing a paid shoot last weekend. I showed up with brand new lighting equipment and spent about 15 minutes dialing in powers and trying to figure out all the buttons on the SB-910 whereas with my Canon flashes, I would have had them set up and dialed in in 2-3 shots. It’s a good thing that was a shoot for a friend and not for a client and that’s precisely why I did it there instead of during a paying shoot. But keeping notes of where the powers are at on the new flashes, I’ll be able to set up and shoot more quickly in the future.


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## gsgary (Dec 23, 2014)

Village Idiot said:


> gsgary said:
> 
> 
> > Garbz said:
> ...


What about when you buy new cameras + I wouldn't want a hard drive for more than 5 years before I moved them to a new one will your hard drive be compatible with computers in 10 years time


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## Village Idiot (Dec 23, 2014)

gsgary said:


> Village Idiot said:
> 
> 
> > gsgary said:
> ...



Depends on the cost of the camera and how long you keep it for, I guess. I had my 5D MKII for four years, but I sold it and paid an $800 difference between it and the D750 body. HDDs will be compatible in 10 years time unless there is a HUGE shift in technology and all current connection mediums become obsolete and all current computers become eradicated. My gaming PC is probably 6-7 years old and still has the same drives in it as it did from day 1. Plus with SSDs becoming more available at better prices, I'd be less worried about storing one of those for long periods at a time as there are no moving parts to wear down and break.


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## pgriz (Dec 23, 2014)

Fred Berg said:


> pgriz said:
> 
> 
> > I've shot enough film (both positive and negative, b/w & colour) and have enough prints to fill many boxes, picture albums and shelves. I've developed my own film and printed thousands of prints.  But in the end, digital was the tool that helped me improve my photography the most, as it provided instant feedback and shortened the cycle of trial and error and eventual success.  I learned how to bounce flash and how to combine ambient with flash by using digital to give me instant feedback as to what worked and what didn't.  Digital also allowed me to re-shoot on site when my first try didn't work.  With film, I've missed many opportunities because I had the focus off, or the exposure, or something else.  So from a learning perspective, it's hard to do better than digital.
> ...



That depends on how one goes about experimenting and learning.  In my case, I DO have a notebook for photography, and when trying something new, I do have a plan of action in terms of what my constants and variables will be, and the shooting sequence I will be using.  The difference is that now I can see instantly whether an approach I'm taking is getting me where I want to go, and I can adjust my shooting sequence accordingly.  With digital, I can also take many more shots than I would if I was doing film, and discard what didn't work. 

The EXIF doesn't help me much, because most of my experimenting these days is about lights and lighting technique, which is external to the camera.  I still need to record the light configuration I was using, the relative strengths and contributions, and then see which effects I was able to achieve with each setup.  Another area of experimentation is the use of the "big stopper", a 10-stop ND filter.  The digital feedback I get allows me to make adjustments after each exposure, since I can see if the approach I was taking was giving me the results i wanted.  With digital, I can adapt to changing lighting conditions very quickly, verifying if I have properly adjusted to the variations in the light.  I've always used a hand-meter, in addition to the meter in the camera, to determine my exposure range and that hasn't changed when I went to digital - but now, I catch my mistakes at the time of the shooting session, and not that evening or several weeks later, when I develop my images.


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## pgriz (Dec 23, 2014)

gsgary said:


> Village Idiot said:
> 
> 
> > gsgary said:
> ...



Media compatibility is an issue.  But then, there's good "housekeeping" that needs to be done in any case, in that you have to periodically recopy the older files onto new media and have a filing system that allows you to find stuff.  The real issue is in video, in that the cassettes and discs become obsolete and as the readers break down, you lose access to the video recording UNLESS you have digitized them and they already reside on hard drives.  I have several years of mini-DV tapes that documented my kid's growing up, which are inaccessible, until I find a mini-DV reader that will allow me to transfer the videos to disk.  There are studio mini-DV decks available, but they are very expensive, and I'm looking for a cheaper solution, for what will be a one-time transfer process.


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

I started making my first digital images 21.5 years ago, when I got my first scanner.  It was a hand-held black and white scanner with not a lot of resolution, but it was pretty whiz-bang to me in 1993.

The images I scanned with it have been easily moved and migrated, saved and backed up on redundant hard drives, from system to system, and on web servers and now cloud storage ever since, and because of that, I still have those first digital images, even all these many years later.

They are saved in so many locations, both locally and on the web, that the chances of losing them is pretty much zero.

The myth that digital images are subject to easy loss while shoe boxes full of negatives and transparencies are safe is just that - a myth.


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## bribrius (Dec 23, 2014)

pgriz said:


> Fred Berg said:
> 
> 
> > pgriz said:
> ...


still at the point I am using the exif data to look back on and for culling. without even looking into some photos I can delete just looking at the exif data. And this part is much better than film for me as I like manipulating the camera for certain effects on a shot and looking at the exif data occasionally makes it stick. with film I think it was all about getting it "on target". with digital it is about being able to waste five hundred shots to learn your camera more. something I never dared to do with film is blow through countless shutters just to learn something. "i wonder what would happen if I did this?" is something that didnt happen in film. In film I was just happy if I got the shot and it came out but like was mentioned, you didn't even know if it came out until later..


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## photoguy99 (Dec 23, 2014)

Negatives survive sloppy housekeeping and carelessness better than digital media. Digital media, especially 'cloud', survive house fires and moves better.

Why, it's almost as if the two media have different strengths and weaknesses.

Me, I embrace the ephemeral nature of life and art.


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## bribrius (Dec 23, 2014)

there is no limit to digital or film, you can shoot both. Have your negatives and have your hard drive and cloud. I have "lost" digital photos before ten years back. I actually ended up going back to a old online account I posted them on to get them (though small crappy sizes better than not having them at all).  On the other hand, I have scanned in photos years ago and long lost the negatives, but still have the photos because I had scanned them. so I have old film shots on my backdrive in which I couldn't even tell you what happened to the original negatives they were misplaced over the years.


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## Designer (Dec 23, 2014)

I don't know where this fits, but my wife's family's collection of historical B&W prints and negatives were in a shoebox until her eldest brother burned them.

Those pictures are gone.


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## Designer (Dec 23, 2014)

weepete said:


> Designer said:
> 
> 
> > weepete said:
> ...


My concern is that the BBC has become so PC (not police constable) that by the time the investigation is complete in two or three week's time people will have forgotten all about it, and the story will simply disappear.


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## bribrius (Dec 23, 2014)

Designer said:


> I don't know where this fits, but my wife's family's collection of historical B&W prints and negatives were in a shoebox until her eldest brother burned them.
> 
> Those pictures are gone.


my catastrophe came more in the form of marriage. My new wife deciding that a married man shouldn't have nude photos of other women took the liberty of discarding much of my prints and negatives of the nudes I shot in my early twenties. Not considering they weren't porn, she didn't quite comprehend that just that it wasn't "respectable", so a lot of my most prized photography went out the door which cant be replaced. I thought i was going to cry when she told me what she did i was REALLY upset. some she ran through my own shredder. I did maintain a few sessions I had scanned in to digital which she didn't know about. I wasn't happy for sure. "you did what?????????"


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## astroNikon (Dec 23, 2014)

snerd said:


> Digital ruined it for my soon-to-be-ex-wife. She hasn't shot in 10 years or more. Me, I just enjoy it. Laid-back enthusiast.


Odd because film cameras still work the same and are still available new.


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## bribrius (Dec 23, 2014)

astroNikon said:


> snerd said:
> 
> 
> > Digital ruined it for my soon-to-be-ex-wife. She hasn't shot in 10 years or more. Me, I just enjoy it. Laid-back enthusiast.
> ...


My sister quit photography with the advent of digital. She just didn't look at it the same again. I don't think It is really that uncommon with the change in the general atmosphere (if that makes sense?) a lot of shooters dropped out I think. she shot pro too (actually for money).  EDIT: I think she might have quit because of less money too. in speaking of digital when I started getting back into it she basically told me there is a lot of competition and it doesn't pay jack chit anymore.


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## pgriz (Dec 23, 2014)

Personally, I think photography went downhill when every phone became a camera.  And when the phone cameras could display your selfie while you were taking it...  that confirmed that the end of the world was nigh...


So who's up for a big Apocalypse party?  We had one for the start of the millenium, but the world didn't end on schedule, as we discovered that there were more pages to the calendar.  So maybe we can have another one.  Although when you party like there's no tomorrow, the next day hangover is pretty wicked.


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## Braineack (Dec 23, 2014)

photography went downhill when people here stopped posting pictures for me to hate on.


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## bribrius (Dec 23, 2014)

pgriz said:


> Personally, I think photography went downhill when every phone became a camera.  And when the phone cameras could display your selfie while you were taking it...  that confirmed that the end of the world was nigh...
> 
> 
> So who's up for a big Apocalypse party?  We had one for the start of the millenium, but the world didn't end on schedule, as we discovered that there were more pages to the calendar.  So maybe we can have another one.  Although when you party like there's no tomorrow, the next day hangover is pretty wicked.


personally, I don't really care. I don't have a dog in this fight. I do what I do, take some b.s. photos and photos of my kids. I don't do this for a living so it is kind of neither here nor there. If it came down to whether or not I could pay my house mortgage I might be a little more involved and care more. It is interesting banter however.


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## Didereaux (Dec 23, 2014)

Garbz said:


> Gary how is not looking after your bits and different from not looking after your negs?
> 
> A house fire will kill your negs, just like a lightning strike will kill your harddisk. If anything it is easier to now ensure your photos will last longer than ever before. Just use open standard formats, and use redundancy + backup + checksumming to store them, and diversify their locations to protect them from weather and environment.




Oh yeah?  Tried to get data off a 8" floppy lately?  How about the wee fact that data is continually changing the format that is is written in, and on.  Do those backups also store the OS's, and Apps used to create the data? 

Oh wait you said keep it backed up on the latest, so in effect to preserve your data it will cost you a small fortune, be a constant effort to convert it to the latest formats, and rely solely on the 'warehouse' to remain accessible.  That is the fallacy of the digital age...the belief that data is immortal.

True enough that paper burns, but have you considered the odds of your house burning down vs computer failure?  I respect your knowledge of photography, but in all honesty your grasp of technology sucks!


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## bribrius (Dec 23, 2014)

Didereaux said:


> Garbz said:
> 
> 
> > Gary how is not looking after your bits and different from not looking after your negs?
> ...


speaking of which. I have some old home movies, 8mm and the like. Eventually they are going to stop selling the adaptors so I can play them. I really need to figure out how to transfer them to digital. oh, and if my vcr breaks can I still buy another one? Again, more home movies..


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## limr (Dec 23, 2014)

bribrius said:


> speaking of which. I have some old home movies, 8mm and the like. Eventually they are going to stop selling the adaptors so I can play them. I really need to figure out how to transfer them to digital. oh, and if my vcr breaks can I still buy another one? Again, more home movies..



There are labs out there that will digitize 8mm. There's a few of them around - can't bring their names up from memory at the moment. I've actually got an 8mm camera and projector that I was thinking of reviving. The film is still sold and developed.

It appears that my personal response to each advancement in technology is to go further into the past and explore older and older technology.


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## Braineack (Dec 23, 2014)

I've gone back to magnesium flash lamps and  flashcubes catridges.


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## Ysarex (Dec 23, 2014)

Didereaux said:


> Garbz said:
> 
> 
> > Gary how is not looking after your bits and different from not looking after your negs?
> ...



Numbers (digital) can be copied with zero loss. Analog data can not. This is the one crucial difference.

Assuming you're like 99 plus % of film photographers, you have color film and prints. Your color film is fading. You can't stop it from fading. You can freeze dry it (can't imagine that will cost too much to do and maintain right) and that still won't ultimately stop it from deteriorating. Your color prints are fading. You can't stop them from fading. You can freeze dry those and enjoy them in your walk-in freezer gallery -- well not really because if you open the door you'll let in moisture. If you have a color film original and print from that film then that image has a fixed and short life and it's demise is guaranteed. The only way you can potentially extend it's life would be to digitize it. 

If I had data previously stored on an 8 inch floppy I would have transferred it by now to other media with no loss to the data. Something impossible to do with film. Yes, that's a maintenance job but at least it's possible and at a fraction of the cost involved in just trying to extend the life of a color film image. Your color film and prints come with an expiration date and they start to fade the minute they're created.

Joe


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## Ysarex (Dec 23, 2014)

limr said:


> bribrius said:
> 
> 
> > speaking of which. I have some old home movies, 8mm and the like. Eventually they are going to stop selling the adaptors so I can play them. I really need to figure out how to transfer them to digital. oh, and if my vcr breaks can I still buy another one? Again, more home movies..
> ...


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## PixelRabbit (Dec 23, 2014)

If you love photography you will find a way to continue to enjoy it whether it is go back in time or keep up with time or a combination of the two.  If there is a will there is a way.  

The more you lament about what other people are doing the less time you are spending on something you claim to love. 

Is it harder to stand out?  Yes, absolutely, and that puts the onus squarely on your shoulders to do it since everyone has the ability to take a picture and boy do they take pictures!


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## pgriz (Dec 23, 2014)

I'm going to agree with Joe.  Over the years, I've had stuff on 8" floppies, then on 5-1/4" floppies, then 3" floppies, then tape, then ZIP discs, and now on various capacity HDD external drives.  As long as I take the time to backup up the digital stuff onto newer media, I'm good (oh, and as long as the programs can read the legacy file formats).  The analog stuff is not so portable.  I've been looking through my slides and negatives (stored in a dry, cool place, in sealed boxes), and yet, some of them have been supporting fungus growth despite the precautions.  The photo albums are all changing colours and fading, despite being supposedly "archival" in terms of the backing paper and the covering acetate.  Interestingly, I've a lot of paper prints from the 1890-1915 period, and another batch from the 1930-1950 period that have aged rather gracefully.  My solution is to digitize everything (well, as I have time, which is another issue), and to copy the digital copies onto CD's and DVD's although these too are not "permanent", and pass them on to various family members.


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

I don't understand where this idea comes from that suddenly, practically overnight, technology will change so drastically that the files, media, machines, formats, etc., etc., etc., will change so drastically that we will lose all our digital images.  Similarly, that it's so difficult or expensive to just copy them over to new systems whenever we upgrade.

Can someone name an image file format from the past that can't be read or converted in any way today?


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## pgriz (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> I don't understand where this idea comes from that suddenly, practically overnight, technology will change so drastically that the files, media, machines, formats, etc., etc., etc., will change so drastically that we will lose all our digital images.  Similarly, that it's so difficult or expensive to just copy them over to new systems whenever we upgrade.
> 
> Can someone name an image file format from the past that can't be read or converted in any way today?



If the stuff was copied using one of the older backup programs, then sometimes you cannot access them, as the backup formats (depending on the compression algorithm used) are not all forward compatible.  However if one is doing file-to-file copies, I can access stuff that has been created under MS/DOS.  CP/M, however is out of reach.


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## Ysarex (Dec 23, 2014)

pgriz said:


> I'm going to agree with Joe.  Over the years, I've had stuff on 8" floppies, then on 5-1/4" floppies, then 3" floppies, then tape, then ZIP discs, and now on various capacity HDD external drives.  As long as I take the time to backup up the digital stuff onto newer media, I'm good (oh, and as long as the programs can read the legacy file formats).  The analog stuff is not so portable.  I've been looking through my slides and negatives (stored in a dry, cool place, in sealed boxes), and yet, some of them have been supporting fungus growth despite the precautions.  The photo albums are all changing colours and fading, despite being supposedly "archival" in terms of the backing paper and the covering acetate.  Interestingly, I've a lot of paper prints from the 1890-1915 period, and another batch from the 1930-1950 period that have aged rather gracefully.  My solution is to digitize everything (well, as I have time, which is another issue), and to copy the digital copies onto CD's and DVD's although these too are not "permanent", and pass them on to various family members.



Yep, it's a bit of a paradox, but if it's analog, no matter what form it's in, it's deteriorating. Once it's numbers you at least have the potential of duplication and media/format transfer without loss and without limit. Both require maintenance but in the case of analog no matter what you do the end will come whereas with digital there is at least the possibility of no end.

The yellow dye layer of color film shows measurable fading in less than 3 years. It shows visible fading in 5. No matter how carefully stored, a color film original will have faded enough within 10 years so that the original print image can not be recreated using analog methods. At that point digital restoration is required. In 20 years the required digital restoration job may be quite demanding -- in 50 years it will be demanding and only for some select film stock as others will be too far gone.

I started shooting color film seriously in the 1960s. I continued to shoot large amounts of color film through the 1990s. I have now survived in better condition (left knee is going) every color film image I ever took except the ones I was able to scan. You want to see a near impossible, tedious and expensive maintenance job start scanning a few thousand rolls of film.

Joe


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## photoguy99 (Dec 23, 2014)

I don't know the names of the formats but NASA has either lost imagery or come very very close to it in the past. This was of course due to a failure of diligence in copying things forward. But that's the point, absent diligence, digital is terrible whereas film can be pretty good.

Note the Joe spoke about color only, and stuck to impractical ways to preserve it. So his argument was rigged.

B&W media are quite stable, which is why color separations of color photos is the gold standard for preservation.

Or you can just embrace the ephemeral nature of art and life. It's not at all clear to me why people care if it lasts forever. I blame Ansel Adams.


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## Didereaux (Dec 23, 2014)

Ysarex said:


> Didereaux said:
> 
> 
> > Garbz said:
> ...




Completely ignoring the cogent part, "How about the wee fact that data is continually changing the format that is is written in, and on. Do those backups also store the OS's, and Apps used to create the data? "   Try again.


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## bribrius (Dec 23, 2014)

The biggest change in photography I think may have had nothing to do with digital but more on perceptions. Like if you post a simple photo of a street now you will get comments like "what is the subject?"  " what are you taking a photo of?" "this photo doesn't hold any interest"  "this lacks compositional elements"

much of this thinking I believed may have started out in the seventies and basically blossomed to a ridiculous level today.People basically looking for entertainment value in photos like it is video game. The "art " side of it taken to such a stupidity of proportions half the stuff in museums if posted fresh on here or many sites people would discount it as unworthy and lacking interest. But pre seventies expecially early nineteen hundreds a notable photographer could plomp down his camera on some generic street photographing the cars, buildings (or horses if early enough) and no one even questioned the legitimacy of it as a photo because that was much of what photography was.  I was reading about some more serious work with large format requirements (museum level) and I found it hilarious that some would discount it as not interesting if they saw it by "todays standards" yet the reality is that their best buy interesting, artistic dslr photo would see the inside of a museum when it is a cold day in hell. I equivocate this to being a poser (much like my 500px photo) and probably myself included to a extent in that. As we kind of got polluted with entertainment value and a billion semi artistic worthless shots.


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Didereaux said:


> Completely ignoring the cogent part, "How about the wee fact that data is continually changing the format that is is written in, and on. Do those backups also store the OS's, and Apps used to create the data? "   Try again.


Explain how exactly that matters?

Why does it matter what kind of media a TIF or JPG is written on, as long as it can be copied to other media when the time comes?  

Why does the backup have to store the program the TIF or JPG was created with, as long as other programs can read the files?  

Why does the backup have to store the OS, as long as other OS's can read the data?

This ain't the wild west of the very early days of computer systems, where we might need to get our hands on an Altair to read the files that were written by one.  Do you really think that suddenly overnight, no browsers will be able to read JPGs anymore?  Do you really think that suddenly overnight, no programs will be able to read RAW files anymore?  Or TIFs, or PNGs, or any other common image format?

Be serious for a moment and explain why we should panic about how we might all lose our digital images per your warnings.  Spell out a realistic scenario.


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## Gary A. (Dec 23, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> Negatives survive sloppy housekeeping and carelessness better than digital media. Digital media, especially 'cloud', survive house fires and moves better.
> 
> Why, it's almost as if the two media have different strengths and weaknesses.
> 
> Me, I embrace the ephemeral nature of life and art.


A few years ago I discovered a box full of prints in the garage that was laying around for decades. I doubt I would have retrieved anything if it was a hard drive.

A few from the garage circa 1970's:



























We can argue until the cows come home about hard drive versus prints/negs ... because it is all speculation ... but prints/negs worked for me.

Gary


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> I don't know the names of the formats but NASA has either lost imagery or come very very close to it in the past. This was of course due to a failure of diligence in copying things forward. But that's the point, absent diligence, digital is terrible whereas film can be pretty good.


Tell that to the boxes of negs and transparencies I used to have that succumbed to water damage, humidity, mold, mildew, and an ex-wife who simply threw tons of them away while getting ready for a major move from Detroit to Boston, where I already had secured a job.

No, I'd say that absent diligence, film is no better off.


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## Didereaux (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> Didereaux said:
> 
> 
> > Completely ignoring the cogent part, "How about the wee fact that data is continually changing the format that is is written in, and on. Do those backups also store the OS's, and Apps used to create the data? "   Try again.
> ...




Ok, last time. First I have a question for you.  Have you ever tried to open a Linux partition in Windows?  How about an early Apple? To recover that data requires someone to not only have all the old OS's, converters etc, but in many cases they also must have the hardware with the proper chips in order to do anything.  That is hugely expensive.  Some companies do that, but let me ask you this, Do you believe companies do not go out of business? 

 Those are trivial examples, but you have descended into the trivial with your ignoring the fundamentals behind technological data usage.  Go study up, or simply continue as you have been, but try and ease up on disseminating half-baked info about technology.


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## bribrius (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> photoguy99 said:
> 
> 
> > I don't know the names of the formats but NASA has either lost imagery or come very very close to it in the past. This was of course due to a failure of diligence in copying things forward. But that's the point, absent diligence, digital is terrible whereas film can be pretty good.
> ...


what is it with the wives tossing our photos out??????


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## Didereaux (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> photoguy99 said:
> 
> 
> > I don't know the names of the formats but NASA has either lost imagery or come very very close to it in the past. This was of course due to a failure of diligence in copying things forward. But that's the point, absent diligence, digital is terrible whereas film can be pretty good.
> ...




On that point I agree.  But the boxes require only the owners low tech diligence to preserve.  On the other hand tech data requires a hugely expensive and complex operation to preserve its data.


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## photoguy99 (Dec 23, 2014)

Good ol' Buckster. Always ready with his industrial grade 500hp hair splitter!

Where's that positive attitude you were goin' on about? Turn that furious face upside down!


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Gary A. said:


> A few years ago I discovered a box full of prints in the garage that was laying around for decades.


You "discovered" them, meaning you didn't even know they were there.  They could have been in a landfill, for all you knew.  How many that you haven't "discovered" might very well BE in a landfill or otherwise lost forever?



Gary A. said:


> I doubt I would have retrieved anything if it was a hard drive.


Why?

Nine years ago, my daughter went to Italy with her Senior class.  She took a TON of digital photos and stored them on a portable drive I gave her for the trip.  When she got home she moved them from the portable drive to her computer, and gave me the portable drive, cleaned.

She never backed them up from there.  (Insert ominous sound here).

A couple years went by, and then her hard drive crashed.  HARD.  Nothing retrievable.  Her Italy photos were gone.  FOREVER.  She learned a lesson about backing up her files, but it was a lesson learned too late for her prized Italy photos.

More years passed, and occasionally, she would lament the loss of her Italy pictures.

One day, I ran across that old portable hard drive she used for the trip; The one she cleaned before returning it to me.  I seldom ever used it myself, especially after Italy.  I just didn't have a reason to.  So, mostly on a whim, I ran a file recovery software on it, just to see if there were any Italy pics still recoverable on it.

It found every one of them.  Thousands of them.  And the videos also.  All intact.  I recovered them all.  I backed them up on two hard drives, and a couple of DVDs.  The next time I saw my daughter, I handed her one of the DVDs with a grin (not labelled), and told her to take a look.  She plugged it in, and had one of the best days of her life.

True story.


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## Gary A. (Dec 23, 2014)

I think we all to agree that tossing a box of prints or tossing a box of hard drives is no different. I suspect a hard drive and negatives caught up in a firestorm or in a flood would fair no better. But for me, I knew immediately what I had when I opened the box of old prints ... who know what a person would have thought or how would they have acted upon finding an old hard drive of other media which isn't easily and immediately readable.


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Didereaux said:


> Buckster said:
> 
> 
> > photoguy99 said:
> ...


No sir, it doesn't.


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

photoguy99 said:


> Good ol' Buckster. Always ready with his industrial grade 500hp hair splitter!
> 
> Where's that positive attitude you were goin' on about? Turn that furious face upside down!


I'm not furious at all.  I wasn't even furious when it happened.  I was disappointed, sure, but I got over it and moved on to bigger and better things.  Besides, I still had the most important of them in prints in the photo albums, which she kept.  (which I scanned later to digital, btw.   )

I'm just relaying some of my experiences that don't seem to jive with what you're saying.  And I've talked with a LOT of other photographers who've had very similar experiences with their boxes of negs and transparencies.


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## PixelRabbit (Dec 23, 2014)

So basically it comes down to one simple thing, the longer you leave your files/negatives without maintaining them the more costly it will be to "restore" them and you very well may pay the ultimate price of an unrecoverable image.


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## Didereaux (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> Didereaux said:
> 
> 
> > Buckster said:
> ...




Simple denial, sir, is not proof of anything!


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Gary A. said:


> I suspect a a hard drive and negatives caught up in a firestorm or in a flood would fair no better.


Here's the BIG difference: The box of analog is the ONLY copy of those negs and transparencies.  The hard drive is likely just one of possibly MANY copies, all exactly the same, of those DIGITAL equivalents of negs and transparencies.

One is easily recoverable by simply pulling up one of the copies.  The other has no copies to pull up.


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## Gary A. (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> Gary A. said:
> 
> 
> > A few years ago I discovered a box full of prints in the garage that was laying around for decades.
> ...


??????

If they were in a landfill I most likely would not have discovered them wouldn't I ... and there isn't much I can do about those that I haven't discovered. The same goes for digital media. If an old hard drive filled with old images makes it way to a landfill ... not much I can do about it.

If she had shot film ... the negatives would have been her back up ... end of story.


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## Gary A. (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> Gary A. said:
> 
> 
> > I suspect a a hard drive and negatives caught up in a firestorm or in a flood would fair no better.
> ...


Maybe ... maybe not. That is all speculation. I have multiple prints of the same thing, it isn't hard to copy slides or negatives. (Think about movies.)


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Didereaux said:


> Buckster said:
> 
> 
> > Didereaux said:
> ...


What more do you need?  It's just simply NOT a "hugely expensive and complex operation" the way you claim it is.


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## robbins.photo (Dec 23, 2014)

Didereaux said:


> First I have a question for you.  Have you ever tried to open a Linux partition in Windows?



Once.  I wound up in the hospital.  On the upside it was the first trip I took to the ER that wasn't proceeded by my once famous catch phrase, "Hey guys, watch this!"



> How about an early Apple? To recover that data requires someone to not only have all the old OS's, converters etc, but in many cases they also must have the hardware with the proper chips in order to do anything.  That is hugely expensive.  Some companies do that, but let me ask you this, Do you believe companies do not go out of business?
> 
> Those are trivial examples, but you have descended into the trivial with your ignoring the fundamentals behind technological data usage.  Go study up, or simply continue as you have been, but try and ease up on disseminating half-baked info about technology.



Non proprietary formats like JPG and TIFF will work fine on multiple platforms of course, but normally when your backing up a lot of files a lot of times you are using some form of backup program that also provides it's own compression, allows you to do sequential backups, etc.  This is where a lot of problems can arise, but as someone else mentioned previously all that's really required is a little due diligence.

Personally having shot some 35 mm back in the day, I much prefer a digitized format myself.  Thanks to a fire, a flood and at least one tornado I really don't have anything left from those days that is still in it's original film / negative format.  Fortunately for me I did purchase a scanner eons and eons ago that allowed me to scan all my negatives into a digital format - and as a result despite mother natures best efforts I still have most of the shots that I considered to be really important.  A few losses here and there over the years but for the most part the stuff I really wanted to keep the most, I still have - and I don't have boxes and boxes of stuff to store, it all fits on one portable device which can be really nice.  Trick is just to have an extra copy or two.


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## sashbar (Dec 23, 2014)

Digital is killing photography for those who are unable to raise above the average but want to feel special and belong to some "elite club". There were times when you could produce a couple of mediocre shots and still feel unique. Now every Tom and Dick and Harry can do it.  So the choice these days is simple - either you raise above mediocrity and do some really good stuff or just try to live with the fact that you are just one of those Tom-Dick-and-Harrys.

To say that digital killed photography is akin of saying that the law which allowed to write in other languages but Latin killed poetry.


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## Ysarex (Dec 23, 2014)

Didereaux said:


> Ysarex said:
> 
> 
> > Didereaux said:
> ...



Nonsense. OS and Apps aren't needed if the data is in a readable format.

Joe


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Gary A. said:


> Buckster said:
> 
> 
> > Gary A. said:
> ...


So, you're saying that having multiple prints from your slides and negs is the same as having the original slides and negs if they were lost or destroyed?  If that's true, then why hang onto the slides and negs at all?


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## robbins.photo (Dec 23, 2014)

sashbar said:


> Digital is killing photography for those who are unable to raise above the average but want to belong to some "elite club".



Wait, there's a club?  Cool.  So, is there like a secret handshake too?


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## Ysarex (Dec 23, 2014)

Didereaux said:


> Buckster said:
> 
> 
> > Didereaux said:
> ...



You don't recover the data you maintain it -- huge difference. Takes a little time and effort and very little cost.



Didereaux said:


> That is hugely expensive.  Some companies do that, but let me ask you this, Do you believe companies do not go out of business?
> 
> Those are trivial examples, but you have descended into the trivial with your ignoring the fundamentals behind technological data usage.  Go study up, or simply continue as you have been, but try and ease up on disseminating half-baked info about technology.



I used early Apples. I used early CPM machine. I work seamlessly now between Apple, Linux and Window. I run Linux and Windows on this same machine and all data is accessible to both systems. I have never had a problem transferring data.

Joe


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## sashbar (Dec 23, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> sashbar said:
> 
> 
> > Digital is killing photography for those who are unable to raise above the average but want to belong to some "elite club".
> ...



The WAS a club. It was called Darkroom Alchemy. Now it is closed for good.


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## Didereaux (Dec 23, 2014)

Well at this juncture it is a 'Mexican Stand-off'.  so I'm outa here, and will let future readers read the conjecture and my facts lol...and draw their own conclusions.  The whole thing is academic anyhow since not a single soul on here has the slightest clue what lies in the future for either tech or the universe.


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## robbins.photo (Dec 23, 2014)

sashbar said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > sashbar said:
> ...



Drat.  Day late and a dollar short, as usual.  Say, since they closed - did they have like a stuffed deer head and some of those really big leather chairs?  Might those be for sale then?


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Didereaux said:


> Well at this juncture it is a 'Mexican Stand-off'.  so I'm outa here, and will let future readers read the conjecture and my facts lol...and draw their own conclusions.  The whole thing is academic anyhow since not a single soul on here has the slightest clue what lies in the future for either tech or the universe.


You've yet to prove any of your so-called "facts".  (You use that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means.)

We know enough about the future of tech to know that it doesn't change rapidly enough to make our digital photos suddenly unreadable.  As for the universe, if it ends suddenly, our photos, in any format, digital or analog, will be the least of our worries.


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## sashbar (Dec 23, 2014)

Didereaux said:


> Well at this juncture it is a 'Mexican Stand-off'.  so I'm outa here, and will let future readers read the conjecture and my facts lol...and draw their own conclusions.  The whole thing is academic anyhow since not a single soul on here has the slightest clue what lies in the future for either tech or the universe.



There is one thing that I can predict: the number of truly creative and talented people per sq. mile will remain about the same whatever will be the technology.


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## Ysarex (Dec 23, 2014)

Didereaux said:


> Well at this juncture it is a 'Mexican Stand-off'.  so I'm outa here, and will let future readers read the conjecture and my facts lol...and draw their own conclusions.  The whole thing is academic anyhow since not a single soul on here has the slightest clue what lies in the future for either tech or the universe.



No it's not. You're points have been demonstrated incorrect.

Joe


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## sashbar (Dec 23, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> sashbar said:
> 
> 
> > robbins.photo said:
> ...



No, you just needed to smell the fixer and know all stages on initiation, aka K-14 Process.


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## waday (Dec 23, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> sashbar said:
> 
> 
> > Digital is killing photography for those who are unable to raise above the average but want to belong to some "elite club".
> ...


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## Gary A. (Dec 23, 2014)

sashbar said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > sashbar said:
> ...


You mean film is dead?


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Gary A. said:


> Buckster said:
> 
> 
> > Gary A. said:
> ...


You keep missing the point: With digital, it's insanely easy and cheap to have as many backups in as many places as you can imagine of EXACTLY the ORIGINAL equivalent of the slide or neg.  If the hard drive goes to the landfill, no problem, because there are PLENTY of other copies of it still available.

I don't know how to explain it any clearer than that.



Gary A. said:


> If she had shot film ... the negatives would have been her back up ... end of story.


If she had shot film, she wouldn't even have known until AFTER the trip if they turned out at all, were blurry, were over or underexposed, were shot with the lens cap on, if the camera was malfunctioning the whole time and not even pulling the film through, etc., etc., etc.

And if her film, including prints, accidentally went to a landfill or were destroyed some other way, there would have been no way to recover them - TRULY End of story.


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## Gary A. (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> Gary A. said:
> 
> 
> > Buckster said:
> ...


You know Buckster ... with no disrespect ... your arguments really are silly. There isn't any difference between sending a box of negatives to the landfill or a box of hard drives. The only difference is upon discovery, negs and photos are immediately recognizable for what they are ... while a hard drive may not be. It is the element of hiddenness and the effort to discover what is hidden that may spell the difference between life and death of your images.


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> photoguy99 said:
> 
> 
> > I don't know the names of the formats but NASA has either lost imagery or come very very close to it in the past. This was of course due to a failure of diligence in copying things forward. But that's the point, absent diligence, digital is terrible whereas film can be pretty good.
> ...


What is it about this post that you disagree with, *Didereaux*?


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> Gary A. said:
> 
> 
> > A few years ago I discovered a box full of prints in the garage that was laying around for decades.
> ...


What is it about this post that you disagree with, *Didereaux*?


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Gary A. said:


> Buckster said:
> 
> 
> > Gary A. said:
> ...


Feel free to enlighten me.  I'm always open to learning.


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> Didereaux said:
> 
> 
> > Completely ignoring the cogent part, "How about the wee fact that data is continually changing the format that is is written in, and on. Do those backups also store the OS's, and Apps used to create the data? "   Try again.
> ...


What is it about this post that you disagree with, *Didereaux*?  And why don't you at least try to answer the questions?  Enlighten us.


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## Gary A. (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> Gary A. said:
> 
> 
> > Buckster said:
> ...


And if my aunt had huevos she be my uncle.


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## Gary A. (Dec 23, 2014)

"Feel free to enlighten me.  I'm always open to learning."

Buckster: Let's start with this statement, "So, you're saying that having multiple prints from your slides and negs is the same as having the original slides and negs if they were lost or destroyed? If that's true, then why hang onto the slides and negs at all?"

Where is the logic here. Explain ... maybe I can learn something new.


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Buckster said:


> Didereaux said:
> 
> 
> > Buckster said:
> ...


I see that you disagree with this post, *Didereaux*.  Okay, well, since it's your claim that it IS a "hugely expensive and complex operation", it's your burden of proof to prove it.  Please do so at your earliest convenience, as I surely look forward to being enlightened, having done a lot of backups for a lot of years without encountering these aspects you speak of.


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## tirediron (Dec 23, 2014)

Okay folks, we're teetering on a slippery slope here.  I think we can all agree that digital files and physical negatives are different and require different techniques for preserving, and at the same time, represent the same thing, and that both require maintenance and preservation.


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Gary A. said:


> "Feel free to enlighten me.  I'm always open to learning."
> 
> Buckster: Let's start with this statement, "So, you're saying that having multiple prints from your slides and negs is the same as having the original slides and negs if they were lost or destroyed? If that's true, then why hang onto the slides and negs at all?"
> 
> Where is the logic here. Explain ... maybe I can learn something new.


We were talking about the possibility of losing boxes of slides and negs, and you said that you had multiple prints of them anyway.  I assumed you meant prints as in the things people hold in their hands or hang on their walls and look at.

If that's the case, then...  apply my questions.


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## Village Idiot (Dec 23, 2014)

Didereaux said:


> Buckster said:
> 
> 
> > Didereaux said:
> ...



Hmmm. We get 3.5" & 5.25" floppies in at work and can still read the data on them with Windows 8. They were probably created with Win 3.1 or Win 2000.

A file format is a file format. My OS X install can read the same .NEF .CR2. and .JPG files that my Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows Home Server can read. Chips and hardware don't have anything to do with that. And if by some extreme example the .JPG standard totally disintegrates, then the files can probably be converted. Even old .EXE files from programs 20 years old can be read by new OS's.


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## robbins.photo (Dec 23, 2014)

Umm.. folks, just sort of wondering here.  Do you think that any troubles involved in backing up files are really going to get people to switch from digital photography back to film?  Or that difficulties with lost/damaged slides, negatives or prints is going to convince anyone to switch from film to digital?

Ok, don't get me wrong, normally I'm all for a good holy war - but I have to admit this one just seems a bit silly for my tastes.  I'm also still trying to figure out why Mexico felt the need to get involved and why they are apparently just standing there staring at each other.  So yup, very confusing thread all the way around.


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## photoguy99 (Dec 23, 2014)

tirediron said:


> Okay folks, we're teetering on a slippery slope here.  I think we can all agree that digital files and physical negatives are different and require different techniques for preserving, and at the same time, represent the same thing, and that both require maintenance and preservation.



Yep. I can agree with this. Not sure we all can, but I'll sign the petition!


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## Buckster (Dec 23, 2014)

Gary A. said:


> Buckster said:
> 
> 
> > Gary A. said:
> ...


You can take every hard drive I possess, right now, drill holes in them and send them to the landfill.

Tomorrow, I will have recovered ALL of my images, EVERY ONE OF THEM.  And by that, I mean, EVERY scan, EVERY RAW, EVERY JPG, TIF, PSD, PNG.  Every.  All. The whole enchilada.

Do you get it YET?


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## photoguy99 (Dec 23, 2014)

This is a serious question, answer it or not as you choose:

Why do you care about the longevity of your photos?

It is certainly tradition, since Ansel Adams wrote his books, that photos should be made as permanent as possible. But why? And why, particularly, do _you_ care about _your_ photos?

There are probably many excellent answers. It's worth thinking it through though.


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## Microbois (Dec 23, 2014)

Not to mention that we've gone totally off topic with this discussion...


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## tirediron (Dec 23, 2014)

Microbois said:


> Not to mention that we've gone totally off topic with this discussion...


Yep, and since some people don't seem to get that, I think this thread will begin its Christmas holiday right about now.


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