The Empty Mind -- film vs. digital

If one is looking to examine their personal art photography using a buddhist framework such as the 'empty mind' concept, one might want to consider examining the "Noble Eightfold Path of Photography" first:

First, this assumes that photography is something that you find rewarding, and it makes you happy. Since this is obviously the case...

1. Photographically, what method or combination of methods do you feel is most likely to reflect what you feel is the right or correct vision, perspective, view, and understanding for your work?

2. Photographically, what method or combination of methods do you feel is most likely to reflect what you feel helps you execute the right or correct thought, resolve, and conception for your work?

3. Photographically, what method or combination of methods do you feel is most likely to assist you in producing images that are true to your style, and to yourself?

4. Photographically, what method or combination of methods do you feel is most likely to allow you to physically produce the images that are right or correct for you, your style, and your enjoyment?

5. Photographically, what method or combination of methods do you feel most enables you to best engage in your livelihood? Note that this is not necessarily in terms of monetary income, but in the quality of your livelihood, and the enjoyment you derive from it.

6. Photographically, what do you feel is the right method or combination of methods that brings out your best effort?

7. Photographically, what method or combination of methods do you feel helps you bring the right or correct attention and awareness to your work?

8. Photographically, what method or combination of methods helps you engage in the highest level of focus and concentration in your work?

Just as Buddists (which, in the interest of full disclosure, I am not) follow the noble eightfold path as a method of reducing suffering, you might be able to reduce a bit of the photographic angst you are experiencing by honestly answering these questions to yourself. Also, don't necessarily expect every one of those questions to only have one answer. Life and photography would be too easy if they did.
 
Ara Ghajanian said:
Seriously, I used to hem and haw about which camera to use and had all these idealistic phases where Mamiya ruled, then Hasselblad ruled, then Nikon manual ruled, then Leica ruled, etc. I don't really think the camera matters at all, it's all in your mind. It's your mind's eye that captures the image initially. All the camera does is record it. Your skill refines it. My work hasn't gotten better or worse due to the camera I use, my mind just adapts to the medium and I have an image. How you work it (i.e. film, digital, photoshop, darkroom) is irrelevant to the final image.

I don't expect people on a film forum to be open to such a suggestion, in fact, most here would consider not putting a camera on a pedestal to be blasphemy. The camera is not important, the mind is the key. This is not to say that you shouldn't master your tools, but one tool is not the key to unlocking anything Zen-like. It's when you accept that these tools are just extensions of your mind, then you will become a photographer and not a camera stroker.
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& what's so wrong w/camera stoking?
 
Merkin said:
If one is looking to examine their personal art photography using a buddhist framework such as the 'empty mind' concept, one might want to consider examining the "Noble Eightfold Path of Photography" first:

First, this assumes that photography is something that you find rewarding, and it makes you happy. Since this is obviously the case...

1. Photographically, what method or combination of methods do you feel is most likely to reflect what you feel is the right or correct vision, perspective, view, and understanding for your work?

2. Photographically, what method or combination of methods do you feel is most likely to reflect what you feel helps you execute the right or correct thought, resolve, and conception for your work?

3. Photographically, what method or combination of methods do you feel is most likely to assist you in producing images that are true to your style, and to yourself?

4. Photographically, what method or combination of methods do you feel is most likely to allow you to physically produce the images that are right or correct for you, your style, and your enjoyment?

5. Photographically, what method or combination of methods do you feel most enables you to best engage in your livelihood? Note that this is not necessarily in terms of monetary income, but in the quality of your livelihood, and the enjoyment you derive from it.

6. Photographically, what do you feel is the right method or combination of methods that brings out your best effort?

7. Photographically, what method or combination of methods do you feel helps you bring the right or correct attention and awareness to your work?

8. Photographically, what method or combination of methods helps you engage in the highest level of focus and concentration in your work?

Just as Buddists (which, in the interest of full disclosure, I am not) follow the noble eightfold path as a method of reducing suffering, you might be able to reduce a bit of the photographic angst you are experiencing by honestly answering these questions to yourself. Also, don't necessarily expect every one of those questions to only have one answer. Life and photography would be too easy if they did.
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Oh no! Homework.;)

There is a lot of work and reflection in answering those questions. I appreciate you posting this and I will spend some time with them while I am in the darkroom, for me a great time to reflect on things.
 
mojobebop said:
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& what's so wrong w/camera stoking?
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with camera stroking, there's just a big difference between being a visual artist and a camera lover. The original post seemed to me to be a struggle with creativity, not a struggle with which mediums to choose. I may be wrong. I'm sure someone will correct me.

Steve,
Just shoot and stop thinking about how a camera is going to make you a better photographer. Shoot both mediums. Draw, paint, sculpt. Write a short story. Stop thinking about it and just do it. The more time you spend on rangefinderforum means less time you spend behind any camera, film, digital or otherwise.
 
If you want a real perspective on Zen, read Zen in the Art of Archery. The point of the whole book is that when you do something so much, it becomes a part of you and you do it effortlessly without thinking. I don't think the archers in the story sat there and wondered which bow and arrow combination was going to make them a better archer. They just did it.
 
Ara Ghajanian said:
There is absolutely nothing wrong with camera stroking, there's just a big difference between being a visual artist and a camera lover. The original post seemed to me to be a struggle with creativity, not a struggle with which mediums to choose. I may be wrong. I'm sure someone will correct me.

Steve,
Just shoot and stop thinking about how a camera is going to make you a better photographer. Shoot both mediums. Draw, paint, sculpt. Write a short story. Stop thinking about it and just do it. The more time you spend on rangefinderforum means less time you spend behind any camera, film, digital or otherwise.
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i know. sorry, i was being facetious.
 
Not sure I agree the tools doesn't matter to the final output. For example when woodworking - I may finish the wood with a hand tools (smooth plane/scrapper) or use a power tool and sandpaper. Each result in two totally different finishes. I choose which to use depending on the finish I am after. The tool has attributes which I use to develop my vision.

This also is true for photography. The camera is important because the medium isn't perfect. However, I agree it is up to the user to decide when to use what tools to develop your vision.
 
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Ara Ghajanian said:
Just shoot and stop thinking about how a camera is going to make you a better photographer.
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Hello Ara,

I smiled when I read that sentence. Your recent posts have pushed me ahead I think. For years I shot and shot and did not think a lot of what I was doing or why I was doing it.

Then graduate studies in an art school. An experience I carefully avoided for over two decades, something I dismissed as mindless mumblings and worse. There was no place in my life or in my thinking for artistic nonsense. It was, however, nothing like I thought it would be. I discovered so many more paths in front of me.

In school began intense, personal shooting, more than I was doing professionally, and on top of that a lot of thinking. They want to make teachers and professors there and really do embrace critical thought as much as art making. So it wasn't the craft experience I imagined.

I still work professionally and shoot constantly. And work is regular on personal projects. As you've said Ara it is absolutely essential to keep working. Nothing happens if you sit around thinking without any action. What I have found though is that the more I shoot the more questions I have. I don't shoot the way I did when I was 30 or 40 relying completely on technical skill and intuitive process. I still use those but I am more methodical and efficient. I can see pictures now in a way I could not before. But they arrive wrapped in ideas, questions and revelations. One of those personal revelations is the machinery does matter and at a level beyond what kind of image it can make. If I want to continue to improve I can't dismiss anything. And let go of ideas that don't help or don't make sense.

Like the camera not mattering. Or the computer. Or the chair I sit in. Or the glasses I wear. They all matter. It's just up to me to make the right choices for me.

It's been so long now since I first posted this thread and thinking back to my friend and the empty mind comment. He was right. I needed to let go. He just didn't know what letting go would mean for me. And it took me awhile to understand.

The camera is sitting in front of me. Time to work.
 
Hmmm...A Vespa enthusiast with an M6, a D200 and an existential crisis. I could be describing myself. I've used my Leica almost exclusively for the past 6 years. Love it. I recently picked up a used D200. Love that too. But my favorite PHOTOS of late have been made with my grandfather's Hawkeye Brownie. Go figure. So to build on Ara's thoughts - the practice of shooting, whatever the format, is key. Though there's nothing like a new or different piece of equipment to motivate oneself to get out and shoot.
 
The Empty Mind

The Empty Mind

Steve, I am currently taking pictures with both film and digital. Digital has got me taking many more chances that I would with film and I am enjoying this. It is also easier and cheaper to do this and post them on the net and it keeps me practicing photography. I use film in the M4 and Hasselblad when I think something wiil eventually make a good b&w print.

These are two shots in Paris which I would not have done using film. The flouro shot was whilst waiting in a queue so I borrowed my wife's digital point and shoot to pass the time. Sorry to talk about myself so much but hope it helps.

Regards,
Gary Haigh
Australia
 

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Jonnyfez said:
Hmmm...A Vespa enthusiast with an M6, a D200 and an existential crisis. I could be describing myself. I've used my Leica almost exclusively for the past 6 years. Love it. I recently picked up a used D200. Love that too. But my favorite PHOTOS of late have been made with my grandfather's Hawkeye Brownie. Go figure. So to build on Ara's thoughts - the practice of shooting, whatever the format, is key. Though there's nothing like a new or different piece of equipment to motivate oneself to get out and shoot.
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So, what kind of Vespa are you riding?

A friend just dropped off a small box camera for me to admire and put on a shelf. He thought it required 620 film but when I opened it I was happy to see that it ate 120 instead. The camera seems to function fine so I hope to put it to good use for something.

I agree with you and others --- shooting is the key. And god knows I have pursued all shapes and forms of motivation including new cameras...
 
Haigh said:
Steve, I am currently taking pictures with both film and digital. Digital has got me taking many more chances that I would with film and I am enjoying this. It is also easier and cheaper to do this and post them on the net and it keeps me practicing photography. I use film in the M4 and Hasselblad when I think something wiil eventually make a good b&w print.

These are two shots in Paris which I would not have done using film. The flouro shot was whilst waiting in a queue so I borrowed my wife's digital point and shoot to pass the time. Sorry to talk about myself so much but hope it helps.

Regards,
Gary Haigh
Australia
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I definitely take more chances with digitally. Or so I thought. What I found was I may just be taking more of the same pictures I do with film. At least compositionally. Big difference between the B&W film and digital color.

I will just keep shooting and see where I end up.

Thanks for your comments!
 
I last commented on this thread in February of 2009. A lot has happened since then photographically. And the years have taken a toll on my body. The Vespa has remained the same throughout and I continue to pile on miles.

Sadly, I surrendered my Leica M system a few years ago when the projects I was using it for came to an end. Not long after my third 8x10 system departed and I shut down the darkroom. Professionally I'm dunked in digital though there some changes -- abandoning decades of Nikon use for Canon -- brought on by the acquisition of a Canon C100 for video and it just didn't make sense to buy two of every sort of lens. The C100 uses the same lenses that the 5D Mark III does.

So I've been wandering the digital landscape, making prints with an Epson P800, and feeling disconnected from just about any subjects save for the Vespa on my travels.

And then a Hasselblad fell into my lap. And a few rolls of film exposed and I'm replumbing the darkroom. And processing film, making contact sheets, and watching 8x10 prints appear in a tray of Dektol. It was the same feeling I had 45 years ago -- thrilling magic.

Even though my wife said, "You can always buy another Leica," when I sold mine on eBay I haven't told her I've been searching for Leica cameras and lenses. And pondering a Bessa R2M. And a Zone VI view camera.

Damn, the world changes unexpectedly sometimes. But I can happily say that the darkroom has provided a welcome, perhaps critical, escape from the rat race I've been part of.

I retire in five months. I won't be playing golf or wandering the park feeding the squirrels, but I may be making photographs and giving away black and white prints -- all with a quiet, empty mind, except for the nagging regret of selling the Leica...
 
These days I get young people in my photo classes who are familiar with digital cameras and phone photography. I have to teach most of them how to focus a lens, or they seem to be oblivious as to why their images are blurry. Here's what I have found about digital capture and film capture for them. With it's immediate feedback, digital capture confirms all of their preconceptions and is an obstical to their developing personnal vision. Film capture, because the feedback can be hours or days later, especially if the capture is in B&W, forces them to reorient their way of thinking about images, because they will often not resemble what they remember photographing. It's a powerful way to get them to see what they are actually looking at when they shoot again, instead of seeing what they expect to see.
 
Steve,

I also appreciate your follow-up post.

Thanks for sharing.

If you really want a Leica M, a high-value deal will surface at some point.

In my mind 135 format film negatives are just too small to be worth the trouble.

I have really enjoyed my retirement. Circumstances evolved such that I could retire at a (relatively) young age. It seems you are well on your way to enjoying yours. My only comment would be it it takes months to reach a new world-view equilibrium. Enjoy the journey!
 
Nice to see how OP takes care of readers after so many years!

In 2008 (this thread started) I went huge on digital with Canon DSLR. This year I'm getting good pigment ink prints from Leica M-E files by Epson C88+ printer. But no plans to quit from darkroom, lith printing on old FB paper is great experience. Also mixed Dektol for first time and it seems to be better than Ilford paper developers.
Few days ago I reprinted some of 6x6 negatives and no regrets of getting rid of it and using 135 film instead.
 
A couple of years ago I got into film, and film cameras, with enthusiasm after starting with digital about eight years before. To give an idea, I have my own darkroom where I do black and white prints and develop 4x5 sheets and 120 rolls. What I've found is I don't have time to take a lot of photographs, develop them and print them. I have time for just a few photos. So, naturally it becomes necessary to make those count, and that leads to either being more conservative, or wasting my limited time in the darkroom.

So, after awhile, I felt my work getting sparse and stagnant, so I decided what I needed was to open up my creativity. I bought a micro 4/3rds camera and have put cheap adapted lens on it. I'm able to photograph a lot more now, play around, take good photos and bad, and generally just enjoy the process again. Back when there were photo processing places in town, things were a bit better since I could snap off a few photos and not have the effort of development and printing in the back of my mind.
 
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