"What Makes A REAL Photograph" (according to ForesthillFilmLab)

I still remain very worried about the effect all this is having on the kids...so vulnerable, so likely to be perverted and led astray. Next they'll be using their phones and calling it photography...the horror.

Dieter, I agree. I don't care about gear, digital or film, I am more concerned about the image the photographer produces. Gear collectors wring their hands over gear, photographers about the image. Gear is only a means to an end. Dieter gave me some great advice on a lens in another forum the other day, but that lens was not an end in itself, it was a remedy to issues I was having with other lenses that prevented me from attaining my vision for a shot. No offense to the guy who is the subject of this thread, but I am from that area and knew most pros and amateurs and I didn't know him so checked his website. Take a look and see if this is a guy you would rely upon for expert advice.

The restricted class of methods that includes photography is based on direct physical interaction between subject and picture.

See, I knew Man Ray was a dolt. He was one of the very few "real photographers" and yet he called what he made "rayographs." Now, thanks to Maris, we know that rayographs are truly photographs and most photographs taken by cameras are merely technology-assisted painting or some such thing. I stand enlightened. And, Man Ray, you are hereby vindicated and your work is henceforth and forevermore stripped of the name "rayograph" and divined with the superlative and very precise and unmediated, unadulterated, uncontaminated "photograph."

If direct physical interaction is required, then a print is no more a photograph than a printout. If the subject dies or flies away, have we lost our photograph? At some point, light rays hit something, and an analogue of those rays is translated into an image. What else does a photograph need to be?

Lets try for some common sense..... Just have to use that grey stuff between your ears.

 

You do not put yourself in a situation of conflict....Yes, its about common sense. If you must go there.. or ,caught in that situation try using something called personality.....chat and charm. If you struggle with personality and chat try train spotting, or, rocks and flowers like my mate Edward who is now Eddie.. Eddie.sort of feels more of a hip name and cooler than Edward.:) Could not resist Edward. Hope you find the humour my friend.

 

Be happy.

Edited April 29, 2017 by Allen Herbert

For your amusement and curiosity:

 

Photography - Original Manuscript - Sir John F. W. Herschel.

A facsimile by scanner of the very first time the word "Photography" was written down by the very first man to say it: Sir John F. W. Herschel.

The occasion was at a meeting of the Royal Society at Somerset House in London on Thursday 14 March, 1839. Meetings of the Royal Society were great social occasions where the glitterati of the day could meet famous figures of science and industry. The best part was a lavish banquet set for approximately 8.30 pm but before that lectures and presentations were on the agenda. The last presentation before the feast was "Note on the use of Photography or the application of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of pictorial representation." It is not known how many of the attendees realised that when they heard the word "Photography" it was for the first time.

Apropos of the taxonomic question of what to classify image making / capturing and preserving it for view. Memory. When I was in high school I got interested in one of Dr Edwin Land's inventions. Called Vectography. Which sort of translates if I recall to images created by something like vectorial inequality in a polaroid field. Full range of tones. Iodine chemistry involved when we played with imbibition printing films.( It got pretty messy and costly fast).. So the image was not silver based nor dye based, but still an image that looked great. Come to think of it holography is another means of light capture. Is a puzzlement if one looks at it with that kind of squint. Pictorial representation casts a large web I guess.

The first response to this thread should have been "The man's a jerk". That would have saved everyone a lot of writing.

Dieter, I agree. I don't care about gear, digital or film, I am more concerned about the image the photographer produces. Gear collectors wring their hands over gear, photographers about the image. Gear is only a means to an end. Dieter gave me some great advice on a lens in another forum the other day, but that lens was not an end in itself, it was a remedy to issues I was having with other lenses that prevented me from attaining my vision for a shot. No offense to the guy who is the subject of this thread, but I am from that area and knew most pros and amateurs and I didn't know him so checked his website. Take a look and see if this is a guy you would rely upon for expert advice.

He has no website other than YouTube(www.youtube.com/channel/UCbDG7XYhdWuSrRvhMcFxSeQ www.youtube.com/user/bobcat802003), Flickr(www.flickr.com/photos/photosbytravis), Instagram(www.instagram.com/killindreams), and Facebook(www.facebook.com/travis.mortz).

You are right, I forgot, in trying to be as tactful as possible, deleting a couple of initial uncharitable comments, that his website listed, Pause photo is non existent. I ended up looking at the photos there. Looks like the I have a camera therefore I am a photographer concept we see today, the gwc guy/gal with a camera. Perhaps the question should be "what is a real photographer?"

Dunno. - I did not make it through his entire video. But to be honest: I am neither shocked nor at all concerned about kids under his influence. Like many others here I have been around when digital wasn't an as viable option as it is by now. - I had my own darkroom but his looks posher than mine....

To summarize: Film photography used to be a nice hobby, so everybody sticking to it has my full understanding.

Have you recently looked at any religion from the outside? - Where is the big difference between it & Mr. Mortz's ramblings?

I'm admittedly biased, but I feel closer to any, no matter how nutty, film shooter than to cellphone only photographers.

Why should we worry about Mortz's kids? - Either he teaches them how to make ends meet and be happy or they'll find their way on their own. - Its easier to get into digital photography when you have a somewhat solid film base. The only slightly sad thing might be that their peers could be permitted to capture more memories of their toys etc. with a handed down elderly digital. - I think I was 13 when I was first time able to occasionally take pictures of my toys. - I survived, so no big worries.

 

Upon his economic ramblings: I honestly don't know. Yeah, film gear is cheap. But film and paper are more expensive than HDD space. So some day digital should break even. Or even more simple: It doesn't really matter on what exactly one spends all the money as long as it is photography related.

I just found this:

Foresthill Film Lab

I just found this:

Foresthill Film Lab

His web site

Why drive traffic to him?

What part of the word Photography includes "light sensitive materials" ? Hey wait a minute, isn't a digital sensor a light sensitive material?

I have watched a couple of his videos and enjoyed them He did one on the Hasselblad 500cm and i enjoyed it.

 

I think he missed the boat on the real photograph thing but it does not bother me at all. I guess if he used the term realistic photos then i would say my cell phone photos are more realistic then my medium format B/W film. I probably will not watch more of his videos as the content is not what i am trying to do. I like Ben Horne as he hikes with his gear and he says stuff that enfluences my hiking with gear. Also i like Matt Day as he is a family photographer with b/w film which i enjoy.

 

Anyway even if Travis used a term incorrectly i think his videos will reach kids and encourage them to shoot pictures. I figure he put himself out there which is awesome.

Fred when you say stuff I always listen. However the thread is about name calling and insults towards the kid. I do not want to call a fellow photographer insulting names because he has an opinion that differs from mine. Anyway I am not going to post again. Good luck.

You mean a fellow film-only photographer like yourself?

Now I'm asking myself if non-pigment-based imaging exists, or does an image have to be created by a painter on a canvas?

You mean a fellow film-only photographer like yourself?

 

No, because he seems reasonable, knowledgeable and adult. I am not a film only photographer anyway. I have a Mirrorless system actually and just added a new prime lens to the kit because I saw it on sale at BHPhoto. Nice lens, sharp as a tack. . I also enjoy shooting my cell phone. However my hobby is MF B/W film. I have been shooting it with a 10 stop ND filter lately and it's been a lot of fun. Anyway enjoy your thread. I am headed back to classic camera's where I belong. I just saw this because it was in my alert's when I logged in.

He definitely should be burned at the stake like those Salem witches.

He definitely should be burned at the stake like those Salem witches.

Who, of course, were hanged and not burned.

While I love to use film his arguments for using film is plain BS.

The First Amendment outlines the right to free speech, but does not compel anyone to listen. Nor does it give the right to quash the free speech of others. Mortz is free to spout his nonsense, and others are free to contradict his claims, as long as neither party physically bullies or threatens the other.

 

It is ridiculous to argue that film is cheaper, other than you take fewer photos because of the high incremental cost of images. In the two years I've owned my Sony AyRii, I've taken over 25,000 images, equivalent to nearly 700 rolls of 36 exp film. In fairness, the image quality significantly exceeds that of medium format film, which would represent nearly 2100 rolls of film. That represents a cost of $15 to $20 per roll (color) for film and processing, for a total of $10,500 to $42,000 - far exceeding the cost of my cameras, lenses and memory cards.

 

Then there is time - the only component you can't purchase. Post processing is generally easier for digital, due to consistency. Even considering that fewer film images would normally be processed in the same circumstances, the time of scanning and post processing is substantially greater, due to the uncertainties involved. When I shot 6 rolls of film for an event, it would take me the better part of a week to scan and produce deliverables. Now I can do it the same evening.

I like shooting film but most of the pictures I take are digital. I don't even consider myself a photographer, -just a hobbyist. So maybe that disqualifies me from even answering this question. But that won't stop me. :)

 

I could see how somebody who is a serious photographer and shoots digital would be bothered by that video. But there are lots of people claiming lots of things to be facts that aren't necessarily so, - on youtube and other places. Things that I consider to be a lot more harmful that what he's saying. As far his influence on kids goes, well, I'm not too worried about it. When they were 5 or maybe even 10, my kids took what I said seriously. But as teenagers, they definitely don't. They (playfully) make fun of my film habit.

 

And to the extent some younger people might take him seriously, they'll have lots of influences steering them in the opposite direction. What I will say about film is that I learned a lot more about photography from shooting film than I did shooting digitally. It's not so much because of the film as because of the cameras themselves. My old film cameras don't do as much for you so you have to learn how to do it yourself. There's no reason you couldn't learn those things on a digital camera, I just never did.

No, because he seems reasonable, knowledgeable and adult. I am not a film only photographer anyway. I have a Mirrorless system actually and just added a new prime lens to the kit because I saw it on sale at BHPhoto. Nice lens, sharp as a tack. . I also enjoy shooting my cell phone. However my hobby is MF B/W film. I have been shooting it with a 10 stop ND filter lately and it's been a lot of fun. Anyway enjoy your thread. I am headed back to classic camera's where I belong. I just saw this because it was in my alert's when I logged in.

I'm sorry, but I have to take any millennial who wears really tight pants, flannel, and vintage style shoes who tells his friends to shoot him in the butt with blow darts with a ton(not a grain, a tot) of salt.