Article: 'The zen feeling of shooting film on vacation'

[rodeo_joe1]

"And yet, I don't have to condescend and come up with names like "rank amateur snapshooting" for folks who don't think and act like me. "

 

'You press the button, we do the rest!'

 

Was that Kodak slogan aimed at professionals and anybody else that actually gave more than a tuppenny cuss about the end result of their photographic endeavours, or at rank snapshooting amateurs?

 

And that doesn't have to be a derogatory label. Many historically and socially important pictures have been taken by rank amateurs. Certainly more socially important than the output of certain highly paid professionals working in the fashion industry.

Edited August 7, 2017 by rodeo_joe|1

[Norma Desmond]

Rodeo, stop digging.

[rodeo_joe1]

"Rodeo, stop digging."

 

- Where's the fun in that?

 

So Ansel Adams should have stopped writing with "The Camera" then, and forgotten about writing "The Negative" and "The Print"?

Edited August 7, 2017 by rodeo_joe|1

[Norma Desmond]

LOL. Are you comparing your trash talking with Ansel Adams's writings? Anyway, I'm done. Have a good . . . day . . . life. You won't be hearing from me again.

[Karim Ghantous]

Then take your film and memory cards to a competant lab and you should be fine. Instant gratification is a tad over rated. Our fast food society.

I think I could agree with that. If a lab processes & scans film to your taste, it should be able to do the same for digital files. I wonder who would pay for premium lab services for digital files. It's relatively easy to put files through a RAW converter and get JPEGs at the other end. It's almost free!

 

I prefer delayed gratification wherever possible. Some clients don't, so I learned to be careful early on. ;-)

[eddy_d]

Many digital shooters go to the lab I go to. They get enlargements Some are commercial shooters and the lab gets them better results than doing it themselves. The ones who don't go to labs , that I know of, use their photos for the web/social media..

[JDMvW]

Too each their own.

 

THIS is time-honored and correct English. Its use is surely as relevant as film vs digital...

[glen_h]

I am now on vacation with a Canon IID2 (I believe), a roll of FX (with actual tongue), a roll of Ektar 25, and a roll of Elite Chrome 100. (The latter two kept cold as long as I have had them.)

 

I will show and tell the results when I get them.

[Karim Ghantous]

I am now on vacation with a Canon IID2 (I believe), a roll of FX (with actual tongue), a roll of Ektar 25, and a roll of Elite Chrome 100. (The latter two kept cold as long as I have had them.)

 

I will show and tell the results when I get them.

Sweet! Those old cameras are wonderful.

[allen_gara]

"That would be like telling a film user that he had to build his own darkroom to postprocess his film images."

 

- And that's a bad thing!?

My counter argument would be: "If you're only going to turn a film image into a digital one; why bother with film at all? And further; if you're going to give over half of the creative process to a machine or a technician who has no idea what image you pre-conceived (you did do that before pressing the button, right?), then that's just rank amateur random snapshooting and it doesn't matter what capture medium was used."

That might make sense if one were shooting B&W. If you read his article, and looked at the pictures (which are actually quite nice, and not "rank"), then you saw he's shooting Portra 400. C-41 isn't a variable developing process. Scanning might be though.

[allen_gara]

Mr. Ghantous, thanks for sharing. I agree with your sentiment, although I still take a digital full frame on vacation. There is something fun about seeing how film pictures turn out, weeks after the vacation is done. The pictures in the article are really nice, BTW.

[Robin Smith]

I think the analysis of this quite insubstantial web site is way overblown. If the guy is a "rank amateur", then he has at least taken some very pleasant shots and the Portra scanning and presentation are very nice and "professional". At the very least he has taken care to edit what he shows (a very big plus today), which shows he has critical faculties. I know exactly what he means about keeping it simple, and frankly, given his results, it seems to be working very well for him.

[bradleycloven]

I've been done with selecting my ~90 best Mongolia film shots (from among ~600) for over a month now. The digital guy on our trip took over 5,000 shots, and hasn't posted any yet on our common site. Huh!

 

Best of Mongolia by Brad Cloven | Facebook

 

I don't think I lost anything in quality. My wife was happy that I was mostly focused on having fun on the vacation, and was only intermittently a photographer.

[bradleycloven]

THIS is time-honored and correct English. Its use is surely as relevant as film vs digital...

Properly, it is "To each, his own." But language has been politically-corrected out of correctness. Ships and hurricanes were "she", for no reason of which I am aware other than historic usage.

 

But my whole point is so counter-zen, I'm really okay with anything. Dude. Like, wow, man.

[Norma Desmond]

Properly, it is "To each, his own." But language has been politically-corrected out of correctness. Ships and hurricanes were "she", for no reason of which I am aware other than historic usage.

Language has always adapted to change, despite the fact that some people aren't able to. The evolution of how we name hurricanes and ships and the more contemporary use of "to each their own" might just be simple signs of respect.

[bradleycloven]

Language has always adapted to change, despite the fact that some people aren't able to. The evolution of how we name hurricanes and ships and the more contemporary use of "to each their own" might just be simple signs of respect.

The thought police are everywhere.