p__2 Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Well, I felt compelled to write this for whatever it is worth to solicit the thoughts of this group. I never do this, but simply could not get it off my mind... What is photography about? Capturing the image and that is all? As a painter living and working in Europe, many people seem to forget how 100yrs ago the art of painting was to be abandoned and was now "replaced" and "outdated" (it was said) by this new developing technology of photography. the qualities or ease of this new method of capturing the image so much more accurately and quickly had been found. although many painters during the time including Degas, Picasso, Bonnard, et al. used photography as a tool, and many today still do (I included) photography of course cannot and will never compare with a painting...not until such time as when a photograph can be taken in Heaven or in Hell...there are many other aspects but beyond the scope of this forum. How interesting now another 100yrs later, photography is now to be (so everyone says) by the new digital age.. So, what was photography. An experiment? Why is the human race always so quick to eat itself? overtake and abandon...our technology surpasses our morality....but I digress... Are there no "old masters" of photography as well? I very much think so. Will there not ALWAYS be those who wish to practice the art of the old masters? Yes, definitely. No, I would like to make a prediction that film photography will never disappear..of course not in our lifetimes as there will always be film cameras around enough for companies to make a profit selling film, however, there will always be that niche for film photographers, just as there are those for old cars, etc. This may lead more into the romantic and subjective, but what is wrong with that! This is the only reason the human race is worth a sh*t (pardon my language) at all in many ways isn't it?! Is photography art? No, not really, but it is an art "form", it is expression, it is thought, it can be very powerful, and there are qualities in a film photograph that will never compare to digital photography. I believe in the future these qualities will be appreciated. And I hate to see the pendulum swing back and forth as it always does on so many things as to what is popular or what is accepted, how people go back and forth to extremes with all sorts of movements, etc. not to make mention of this, for whatever it is worth. These are merely a few of my thoughts on the subject I simply had to get out as strange as this sounds...and I would truly appreciate any other thoughts on the subject, however, it may run far too long/deep for a forum entry... As for Leica, I will always own a film camera for my own reasons, but applaud their development of a digital as long as they don't lose their soul. I hope it is successful. Per the posts below, their financial figures are not very good, and I can see it coming. If I may, Leica can be compared to a fine timepiece. The great manufacturers of the past such as Jaeger-LeCoultre, Lange and Sohns, Vacheron Constantin (the oldest watch manufactuere in the world and considered one of the big 3 of fine watchmaking), et al. are ALL owned by large conglomerates now within the luxury industry. Guess what, they are better for it. You know why a Rolex is popular and a symbol of wealth? Marketing. It is a mid range watch, in some ways less, but they have the same "mentality" (READ: mentality only) as Leica it seems...and retain their value as a result.. They have never followed fads, and they have never followed trends. The Rolex you buy today is very similar to the one you bought 50 years ago...this is why their values stay so high..and this is why in my opinion the M5 failed in it's day...people still preferred the M4...and I have seen writings to this effect. Leica has a difficult position...you have to feel for them...They NEED to change but they CAN'T change in many ways it seems.. Due to market demands and their own needs and beliefs they must walk a very fine line to stay above water, trying to please **everyone** with a product carrying such an historically important reputation and romantic/passionate following like NO OTHER. You cange something TOO much and it is a disaster, you change it NOT ENOUGH and it is criticized to DEATH and therefore a disaster...everyone is so impossible to please. Should Leica be bought out by another conglomerate in the near future, which will most definitely happen eventually (I feel it is inevitable) it would be a GOOD thing. These other manufacturers of fine timepieces, I mean fine timepieces gentlemen, should most of you not be familiar with anything other than Rolex, well, I feel sorry for you...(these other pieces can go for 10's of thousands of dollars and hand crafted, not assembly line made like Rolex who made 900k pieces as opposed to the others 15k) ...these timepiece manufacturers that were bought out NOW have the proper financial and adminsitrative support to do what they need...so would Leica...and they would have an even better "Digital M" as a result... AND these companies have complete autonomy to do what they like..These guys arent stupid...they know why people buy Leicas...and Leica certainly is not going to sell themselves to a Japanese company... At any rate, these are only my thoughts, and I for one feel better now having it all off my chest ...whew.. I had not seen these issues addressed in this way...hope it brings some interesting replies. Kind regards.Paul in Italy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
p__2 Posted February 11, 2004 Author Share Posted February 11, 2004 Excuse double posting this is my first time on a forum and the previous had grammar errors....hell, this one probably does too..so do try and read between the lines.. Regardless, curious of others' thoughts... Kind regards,PH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eric_. Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Paul ,as they use to say in Italy: you wrote a real pizza! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jake_tauber Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 You'll get some interesting replies alright, but I suggest you get a fire extinguisher, put it near your computer and stand back from the screen. Later, after I've eaten a couple of protein bars to build up my energy, I'll try to give you a more appropriate response :>] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
absinthe Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Where's that pancake bunny?<p> PH, don't take it too personally, but we here have been "film vs digital" to death lately. The horse that everyone is beating has been dead for sometime & is starting to stink up the place :^) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
________1 Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Film vs Digital? I thought it was Leica digital vs everyone elses digial now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay_. Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 No matter how craftily you try to make the paint:film film:digital analogy it falls flat on its face for the following reason which I would think should be obvious: Painter's consumables (paint, brushes, canvas, et al)has forever been a tiny niche market oweing to the fact that only a tiny number of people have the talent to do it to their own satisfaction let alone others'. Photography OTOH during the last half of the 20th century, burgeoned into a huge multi-billion-dollar industry and the cost of film and processing is based on that volume. The notion that it can successfully shrink down to the size of the painter's supply industry and still remain affordable is somewhere between overly-optimistic and utterly naive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandler Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Heather's right. And the Leica/fine watchmaker analogy that rears its head every once in a while doesn't really add all that much to the pot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crackers_. Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Better open a window before the neighbors get a whiff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
p__2 Posted February 11, 2004 Author Share Posted February 11, 2004 That bad??? Well, then I will say as it is my first AND MAYBE (grin) last time in a forum environment and I am going out of the country tomorrow morning anyway tomorrow and may not want to look when I return!!...(grin) I will reply now then as maybe I can see where this might go. All I am saying is that film has special qualities, the procedure of film developing deserves respect..it should not be so readily abandoned for ease... Remember your grandfather! He used his head, not a calculator! Why did you buy a Leica, partially to use your head instead and do what you want I am sure! It seems I see the same thing with the new digital ease..and I know this frame of mind can so easily be relegated to nostalgia, or romanticism...but it is more... I am very computer literate, and I feel capable of saying it is empty computer generated things. It is like too much TV, it numbs your brain... I am saying that the film process of photography is very much an art form..and this will last the ages and always have followers. I see later digital stuff, and it is plastic. read: plastic. You make something too perfect it loses it's soul. I am not saying it does not have a place, it still has a long way to go, however, to say film photography will disappear is wrong...that is saying as if it were all for nothing, and thatit had no merits of it's own...which is wrong. THERE ARE SUBTLE QUALITIES in a film/printed image that does not exist in digital... and the more perfect digital imaging gets I am happy as the further wrong I see their directions...just like computers, more pixels, more megabytes, etc. I do not need to tell you all what a marvel the film process is and what pains the inventors went through to discover these procedures..some committing suicide to find the proper solutions or having their fame taken from them, etc.. ...and that it DID as an art, craft, techonolgy, whatever you wish to call it make a great impact on history and will not disappear into the history books like other outdated "crafts". Photography is very interesting for this..there is really nothing else like it in history that compares...nothing that straddles different realms (for lack of better term) of art (that cannot be outdated) and craft (which is always outdated)... I am saying, I suppose, and to my first realization, that photography is an art form ..it is... Why do people spend $100k on an HCB print?? Or a Kertesz?? Not because it is an ancient relic, because it is an art form worthy of respect... This is an impossibility wit a digital image.. Only my thoughts and opinions, and when I have one, I usually have to express it...hoping to learn..not create a war of opinions..as they are all good... ...but I would like some insight here from everyone as the experience here is overwhelming. ciao Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobtodrick Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Jay...I'm still waiting on your thoughts on the 60,000,000 (Kodak alone, over 100,000,000 total) single use FILM cameras that will be sold this year. Interesting how other than flinging crap, you never answer those concrete arguments against the flights of folly your mind follows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ericd Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Why is there still some photographers using large format ? How long will it take before the movie industry turns digital ? Even if they were no film camera manufacturer alive, how long will it take before there's no film camera usable ? I think there will some films (at least a few B & W) alvailable for a long time, but will film photography be democratic in the future ? (Stupid question in a Leica forum isn'it ?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
octavio bustard Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Pancake bunny<div></div> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy m. Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 <i>"shrink down to the size of the painter's supply industry and still remain affordable is somewhere between overly-optimistic and utterly naive."</i><p> If people can afford multiple camera systems from the worlds most expensive manufacturers (many such people post here), they should be able to afford film for some time to come, if they so choose. At the end of the day, though, ths issue is probably more of a worry for camera collectors and investors than photographers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markci Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 The only reason to buy a watch that costs 5 figures is if you are an unbelievable snob, an incredible moron, or more likely, both. I certainly hope Leica doesn't use those companies as a model (though they are certainly some distance down that road already). I do, however, agree that Leica cannot and will not remain independent much longer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay_. Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 <<Jay...I'm still waiting on your thoughts on the 60,000,000 (Kodak alone, over 100,000,000 total) single use FILM cameras that will be sold this year. Interesting how other than flinging crap, you never answer those concrete arguments against the flights of folly your mind follows.>> My wife's best friend owns a wedding planner company with branches in Florida and NYC, that does somewhere between 800-1000 weddings a year. In the past year she has stopped placing single-use disposibles at tables at weddings because only two or three are used by the end of the reception. People bring their digital P&S's and the rest of the people she has overheard time and again asking the digital shooters to e-mail them some shots. So the disposibles are headed out the door too. And who is going to buy up a bunch of disposibles, rip them apart in a darkroom and spool the film onto reloadable cassettes just to shoot their film cameras? And what about medium-format? Quite obviously Bob your definition of "crap" is anything that doesn't emanate from your own distorted imagination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
p__2 Posted February 11, 2004 Author Share Posted February 11, 2004 @Heather / Aaron: I suppose you are correct. I am sure it has been...I apologize...should have known better, yet have not seen this tact before and always felt the need to add something I suppose. @Jay: you are incredibly cynical. You obviously know nothing about painting or the art market, and that's ok. That "little niche art market" is far greater than you can possibly imagine. We are not talking about mom and pop selling art supplies, we are talking the results and their value. The modern and thriving art market and artists can make more with one painting or drawing than possibly you do in a year. There is far more to the economics of these things than you can try to so easily put in your pocket. Besides this has nothing to do with what I am saying, or where I wanted to go with this...I am interested more in it's historical significance and why it can so easily be written off... however, with your response I see why. You see it as a multimillion dollar industry, and not an art form of expression and thought. Apologies to have wasted all of your time as I was looking for someting deeper or trying to touch on something else and could not find it myself... ..go on and shoot it all down, return to your status quo, talk about nothing then... honestly, (although I apologize as I realize perhaps this has been probably talked about a great deal,) I do not know why many of you are even here?? In fact, I dont know why I am even here..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
__jon__ Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
george_b1 Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Paul has an indisputable comment about paintings being different. Unless you're into holography, no photo - - either from film or digital - - can replicate the subtle "3-D effect" of a painting. A painting is built up, and the layers can be seen and appreciated. Look at a Rembrandt, a Monet, a Degas, or even a Vermeer at close range, and the 3-D effect is subtly noticeable, and in some cases, can even contribute directly to what the artist was trying to convey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug_landrum Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 I don't show up here much anymore and I rarely participate in film v. digital debates. But the EOS Digital Rebel just sounded the death chimes for film SLR's yet Canon just introduced an new film Elan. I would like Jay's thoughts on the black and white film market and the color transparency market. Those markets have not been supported by consumers for some time. The color transparency market will shrink further and processing will be in every town, but I think it will survive for a long time. And black and white will remain as a niche craft - no processing centers are necessary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob haight Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 PH, is anybody really supposed to read your long post and exactly what is your question in one short sentence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rab_l Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 I�ve been following the digital/film debate on this site for a few weeks now, and always look forward to Jays posts, as they are always interesting, and often amusing, but I always wonder why he has such a strong conviction that film is totally doomed. Is it based on some inside knowledge of the film manufacturing industry? I have no such knowledge, but can't see why it would not be possible to maintain a lower volume of film production [ albeit with a much reduced range.] in the same way as I am still able to get most new album releases on vinyl, and I can't see film use falling as low as vinyl record purchases, Surly when 35mm film was first introduced, it didn't sell in large quantities, but nor would it have been sold at a loss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Herbert Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Zzzzzzzzzs. Yawn. Must be near my hot chocolate time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
george_b1 Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Robert- 35mm film was used in the movie industry before the first Leica was invented. The camera was developed to use the standard movie stock . And, until the cinematographers switch to all digital - - and the movie houses are re-equipped to show the feature via digital projectors, the 35mm film supply, as an entity, isn't threatened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_perkins2 Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. As a publically listed company, Leica could well be bought out by a Japanese company, whether it wants to be or not. And it would probably do them a lot of good.They're already too late onto the digital party, most pros (including me) have gone for Canon or Nikon, and have too many lenses to move to a new lensmount. Whatever - it's only cameras. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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