"hi. i just wanted to let you know how much i enjoy you're work. i read that you are using film and i believe that you're pictures are very remarkable. i looked at each one of them in the photography store.
i am in my freshman year at [xyz] college and i really want to study photography but they don't teach anything about film anymore and one of my teachers' mr. meadows who teaches digital photography said that i might contact you. is that okay?
do you think that a newbie is better off with film or digital? i'm not sure. film seems more beautiful to me.
also, could you advise about film and scanner combinations? there's so much to ask. what film camera would you use to start with? what do you think about the cost? is it expensive to develop film? i know this is a lot to ask but i am so impresed with you're work that i think you would be a good person to ask. " - norma
This is a composite of three e-mails from the last three days. But there is some weird confluence going on out there where students are getting interested in film again. Remember how black and white was dead once? Is it possible that there will always be an interest in film? That it will go in and out of fashion with say 10% of professionals? Letters like this make me feel ancient.
4 comments:
I've been pursuing an interest in photography for 18 years now and up until 2 years ago swore I'd never buy a digital camera. I now have only digital but something about film is beginning to gnaw once again. Digital is convenient, Photoshop a godsend but I've yet to see digital output that comes close to b&w film. My future may lie in self processed B&W film with scanning, manipulation and printing with digital technology.
I like Film too...
I don't think I'll ever go back to film myself, but I do like the idea of film, paper, and chemicals staying around and even making a comeback.
Maybe it's like the whole rangefinder rebirth phonomenon - who would have thought in 1999 several companies would actually be manufacturing newly-designed, serious rangefinders and lenses!? or that there would be an incredibly active web forum like rangefinder.com
-- SteveR
I live in Edinburgh, Scotland (a beautiful city, visit it one day!) and use a mixture of Contax G2 and Pentax 67 for different stuff. It was snowy here yesterday and I was working in the Old Town using the 67, looking for patterns on the roofs of the old buildings. Camera was mounted on tripod when a tourist (American) looked at me in wonder, and asked was I using "a new type of digital camera", and looked totally bemused when I told him that no, it was film, and black and white too! He kept looking at me as if he'd just seen a relic...!
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