# RANT: The Sky was not Green....



## Ysarex (Mar 3, 2017)

The sky was not green when I was growing up. I got my first camera in 1961. For the past 40 years I've been either an enthusiast or made my living from photography in one form or another. Today in 2017 I am vintage. I have a lot of vintage photographs that I took 25, 30 and 40 years ago. In those photographs the sky is blue. And this you're going to find hard to believe but every time I loaded a roll of film in my camera I did not stoop down and pick up a handful of dirt to throw inside the camera.

I used to make prints in the darkroom. Here's another fact that might astonish you. Before I put a negative in the enlarger I would meticulously clean it. The prints I made didn't have dust spots and pieces of lint all over them. And believe it or not I didn't walk all over my negatives before I printed them. I've also continued to take good care of them.

When I bought a new camera and it didn't have a light leak I didn't return it and demand one that leaked light badly. And I know this is hard to believe but 35 years ago we had films that did a pretty good job of faithfully reproducing color.

This may be jolting but here's a vintage photo from a 35 year old 35mm color negative:




 

Yep I know it's hard to believe but the sky really was blue back then. Now just for the h*ll of it here's a similarly lit modern photo with a blue sky and green foliage taken with a digital camera:



 
So I added a little simulated grain to the digital one. I don't see a huge difference between the two otherwise.

RANT: So I have been bombarded this past week with "that vintage film look" and all I can make out from what I see is that the vintage film look means you used a 1970 Instamatic with a light leak. You stored the film in the car glove compartment all summer the year it went out of date before you exposed it and you tied the negatives to the dog's collar for a week before you had them printed. Then you aged the prints under a high intensity UV lamp.

I am vintage and I never did any of that to my film. None of my vintage photos have the "vintage film look"! I must have lived in a parallel universe or something for the last 40 years.

Joe


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## limr (Mar 3, 2017)

Or you were just a lot more careful than most, who used crappy cameras and crappy film and kept their crappy Foto-Hut prints in the attic for 40 years.


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## Derrel (Mar 3, 2017)

A MUCH better term than "vintage film look" would be...wait for it, waaaaaaait fooooor it......."vintage color print look". What so many people are looking for these days is not the look of vintage film, but of badly faded prints,or mistreated prints!


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## Vtec44 (Mar 3, 2017)

The grass greener on the other side...


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## zombiesniper (Mar 4, 2017)

I think you screwed both shots up and the sky was green. 

Seriously though it is funny that a lot of people think that all film shots have to be of poor quality. Even though they access to the internet where you can easily search photo's taken prior to 2000 which the majority would have been done on film and have perfectly acceptable IQ and colour.


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## limr (Mar 4, 2017)

Derrel said:


> A MUCH better term than "vintage film look" would be...wait for it, waaaaaaait fooooor it......."vintage color print look". What so many people are looking for these days is not the look of vintage film, but of badly faded prints,or mistreated prints!



Or the cross-processed film look.


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## Overread (Mar 4, 2017)

You know I always feel that film treats blacks in photos better than digital does. Sure digital can recover more detail from darker areas; but the way that film renders blacks generally appears more pleasing to my eye (granted in digital you can get similar effects by adjusting sliders but its not the default view it gives). 



And yes a lot of people have a strong nostalgic feeling toward older, rubbishier, film. A lot of it is nostalgia because those were the kind of prints that they used to make or got back from the printing shop. In those days I feel as if the divide between good and "point and shooty" was far greater - likely because to get good you had to structure your shooting (take notes, record conditions and settings etc... and wait days/weeks for results from the film) in order to see what did and didn't work. Back in them-days the pros were using godly machines that were unaffordable and unfathomable by your mortal common person. *

Also don't forget a lot of "vintage filter - $5!" ads kind of define what people see. They might not be anywhere near accurate, but they are a product; a fad and a thing that defines a certain type of look. 


* yes yes I know that's not true unless one gets into the medium/large format grounds where costs are more serious.


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## smoke665 (Mar 4, 2017)

Ysarex said:


> You stored the film in the car glove compartment all summer the year it went out of date before you exposed it



Or you left it in bag on the dash of the vehicle. Now that you reminded me, this happened a lot.


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## Designer (Mar 4, 2017)

Ysarex said:


> RANT: So I have been bombarded this past week with "that vintage film look" ..


If you check my "vintage" posts on here you will find one wherein I said the same thing.


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## Ysarex (Mar 4, 2017)

limr said:


> Or you were just a lot more careful than most, who used crappy cameras and crappy film and kept their crappy Foto-Hut prints in the attic for 40 years.





Derrel said:


> A MUCH better term than "vintage film look" would be...wait for it, waaaaaaait fooooor it......."vintage color print look". What so many people are looking for these days is not the look of vintage film, but of badly faded prints,or mistreated prints!



OK, but why look for it at all? Yep, faded and mistreated -- that's for sure. Topaz's filter will even put dust spots, abrasions and fake pieces of lint into your photos. Why do they like it? We worked hard to prevent all that.

Joe


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## alexis.alvarez (Mar 4, 2017)

Ysarex said:


> limr said:
> 
> 
> > Or you were just a lot more careful than most, who used crappy cameras and crappy film and kept their crappy Foto-Hut prints in the attic for 40 years.
> ...


Joe, I think it's all part of the "anti-craft" approach to photography. Living in the NYC area, I get the opportunity to check out the photography scene quite a bit, and what I see are all too many exhibits and BFA/MFA shows in which the photographs seem more slapdash than thought-out. I suppose it's meant to convey spontaneity? Or else they're (overly) conceptualized, to the point where the images either don't work unless they're "explained" or, more often than not, are simply no good.


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## Ysarex (Mar 4, 2017)

zombiesniper said:


> I think you screwed both shots up and the sky was green.
> 
> Seriously though it is funny that a lot of people think that all film shots have to be of poor quality. Even though they access to the internet where you can easily search photo's taken prior to 2000 which the majority would have been done on film and have perfectly acceptable IQ and colour.



What's really funny (weird and a little irritating) to me is that poor quality is a desirable trait they want in their photos. Some people still like to work with film. You can do good work with film. With a long history as a film photographer, and if I were a film photographer today, I have to say I resent the implication that film photos looked or now look like the "vintage film look" portrays them.

Joe


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## Ysarex (Mar 4, 2017)

alexis.alvarez said:


> Ysarex said:
> 
> 
> > limr said:
> ...



Yeah, I read "anti-craft" approach as "I tried but it was too difficult for me to learn" approach.

Joe


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## Designer (Mar 4, 2017)

alexis.alvarez said:


> .. the images either don't work unless they're "explained" or, more often than not, are simply no good.


Right.  Now if you're up to it, try explaining that here:

What is art? Volume 261

I predict that you won't change any minds.


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## limr (Mar 4, 2017)

Ysarex said:


> limr said:
> 
> 
> > Or you were just a lot more careful than most, who used crappy cameras and crappy film and kept their crappy Foto-Hut prints in the attic for 40 years.
> ...



Here's what I think: it's a lazy way to artificially inject nostalgia and feeling into a photo that might not have it otherwise.

Many years ago, after college but before grad school, I was staying with my parents and my two parakeets were with me. I came home one afternoon to find them sitting at the table, eating lunch, each one with a parakeet in their heads. They were all just casually hanging out this way. I happened to have a camera with me and I snapped a shot before the birds could fly off. I love this picture. It's underexposed, the print is all beaten up, and I couldn't care any kind of a rat's ass about fading or color shift or scratches. My parents are both looking at me with big silly smiles with birds on their heads. It's a crappy picture that is filled with emotion for me.

So, you see a picture that seems all roughed up, and you might think, "That picture must mean something to someone if they're still hanging onto it in that kind of shape." Okay, YOU don't think that, but others might - those same folks who don't care about the condition of the photo itself and store them in hot attics or damp basements. They only care about the memory that the photo captures.

I think these filters are trying to capture that sense of, "I don't care about the condition of the photo, but only the emotion or memory it captures" and forces a feeling of nostalgia by making it look old and worn. I think it's silly and lazy. You want to capture emotion? Then work harder at learning how to do that properly without a stupid filter.

Of course, this doesn't count all the dumbasses who just think it's 'cool' and who wouldn't even know a film camera if it bit them in the ass, but that's a whole different story


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## Ysarex (Mar 4, 2017)

Overread said:


> You know I always feel that film treats blacks in photos better than digital does. Sure digital can recover more detail from darker areas; but the way that film renders blacks generally appears more pleasing to my eye (granted in digital you can get similar effects by adjusting sliders but its not the default view it gives).



By default view you mean the camera generated JPEG and by film you mean negative film -- nothing cuts to dead black faster than a color transparency. I've gone round and round for years with many of my academic colleagues over this. There's a wide range of different media available for us and there are variations in character and performance, but it's our job to learn to use them all to advantage. For years so many of my colleagues resisted the transition to digital with excuses about how film looked better in this way or that or digital didn't give them as good this or that and my assessment of the bottom line is they didn't really want to take the time to learn something new. Not that that applies to you. We're craftspeople -- we learn our craft.

Joe


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## Gary A. (Mar 4, 2017)

I didn't know there was color film way back in the vintage era.


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## Ysarex (Mar 4, 2017)

Gary A. said:


> I didn't know there was color film way back in the vintage era.



Is 1910 vintage enough for you? (Sergei Gorskii)






And look at that! Sky was blue then too -- amazing!

Joe


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## dxqcanada (Mar 4, 2017)

Hold on ... yes, the sky was not Green. 
My collection of old family photo's are proof that the sky was Magenta ... and for some reason yellow blobs would frequently show up to photo bomb.

The faded/shifted colour dye effect is the same as the over use of sepia tone.


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## Derrel (Mar 4, 2017)

I thought Gorsky's photos were tri-color photos made from three, separate images, each one made through a different filter? I do however love looking at his color images of pre-revolutionary Russian and the surrounding areas. Fasicinating to see colors on things that we mostly have only seen in B&W. Rare Historical Photos Show 1910s Imperial Russia In Glorious Color

Since the 1940's, color images (movies, print, film, video,etc.) have become the normal type. I think, since we're about 80 years into the of color images, that maybe it's time we start being a bit more accepting of stylistic differences in how people want their color images to look. I mean, really, clinging to the past decades of strict, faithful, representational color seems like a desperate attempt to insist that ONLY the old styles are acceptable. Styles change over time. Music has changed since the 1950's. Cars have changed since the 1950's.Politics have changed since the 1960's.

I do not see much sense in continuing to denigrate newer ways of doing photos. It just makes little sense to celebrate the ideals of the 1950's and 1960's as being the only, one, true way. Do we still love Perry Mason, and consider that the ne plus ultra of courtroom TV drama? Do we all sit around smoking joints and going to Ginsburg poetry readings? Are we all cranking our *phonographs* and rocking out to Bob Dylan's Blown In The Wind, and considerering that every type of art or entertainment that came after these cultural icons is rubbish?

Sorry to respond to a self-described rant with such sincere questions, but, hey, it's a Saturday morning here.


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## Gary A. (Mar 4, 2017)

Ysarex said:


> Gary A. said:
> 
> 
> > I didn't know there was color film way back in the vintage era.
> ...


Most likely Photoshopped by Sergei.


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## Ysarex (Mar 4, 2017)

Derrel said:


> I thought Gorsky's photos were tri-color photos made from three, separate images, each one made through a different filter? I do however love looking at his color images of pre-revolutionary Russian and the surrounding areas. Fasicinating to see colors on things that we mostly have only seen in B&W. Rare Historical Photos Show 1910s Imperial Russia In Glorious Color
> 
> Since the 1940's, color images (movies, print, film, video,etc.) have become the normal type. I think, since we're about 80 years into the of color images, that maybe it's time we start being a bit more accepting of stylistic differences in how people want their color images to look. I mean, really, clinging to the past decades of strict, faithful, representational color seems like a desperate attempt to insist that ONLY the old styles are acceptable. Styles change over time. Music has changed since the 1950's. Cars have changed since the 1950's.Politics have changed since the 1960's.
> 
> ...



Yep the Gorskii images were tri-color and not technically color film. I grabbed one because they were just so good for the time. There was however color film at the same time:





Autochrome by Tournassoud.

So yes, I'm fair game to the criticism that I'm not accepting enough of stylistic differences for the sake of personal expression. But adding fake dust, scratches, lint and light leaks to a photo is too extreme for me. I've seen a lot of pushing limits over the years given my stint in academia. I can muster a long list of; "I remember the guy who used to lay out his negs on a wooden table and go at them with an ice pick before printing them" and of course "I remember when melting your negs first with a cigarette lighter before printing them was THE FAD" and etc. I have survived to see most of that stuff forgotten, but of course replaced by its latest reincarnation. It's a line to walk that encourages experimentation and expression and at the same time establishes some appropriate constraints where a logical argument for the departure from norms can be supported.

Joe


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## table1349 (Mar 4, 2017)

Actually the sky was green when you were growing up, your folks just didn't want to tell you that you are color blind.  

p.s. that is a blue smiley.


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## dxqcanada (Mar 4, 2017)

Wasn't the sky green in LA during the 80's ... or was that brown ?


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## table1349 (Mar 4, 2017)

Tan in the morning, mauve in the evening, except on rainy days.


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## limr (Mar 4, 2017)

Actually, smog can make for some really colorful sunsets, not just brown.


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## fmw (Mar 5, 2017)

At least we don't have to fool with color correction filters any longer.  How well are color temperature meters selling these days?


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## Gary A. (Mar 5, 2017)

Living in SoCal since birth.  The sky has never been green as a result of smog.  In the 60's and 70's the sky was gray and brownish-gray.  The summer smog would block the view of the 10,000 foot high local mountains which are less than an hour drive away. Walking around LA in the 60's, your eye would tear-up. By the 80's the air was getting significantly better.


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## mmaria (Mar 6, 2017)

My sky is green.
Sometimes it's red.
Sometimes it doesn't have any color to it.
Sometimes it has scratches, dirt blobs, clouds, grain, noise, rainbow colored creatures and sometimes it's perfectly clear.
And sometimes it's even blue! Can you imagine?


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## Ysarex (Mar 6, 2017)

mmaria said:


> My sky is green.
> Sometimes it's red.
> Sometimes it doesn't have any color to it.
> Sometimes it has scratches, dirt blobs, clouds, grain, noise, rainbow colored creatures and sometimes it's perfectly clear.
> And sometimes it's even blue! Can you imagine?



Yes, I certainly can imagine.

Joe


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