Settling for Less or Seeing it for more...

helen.HH

helen.HH

A smile & a wink…
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May 31, 2008
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Settling for Less or Seeing for more...
glass half Empty, glass half Full

Choices we make, things we choose, be it out of necessity, desire, will or sheer madness

I have sold my last film camera, decades coming to an end, been shooting film since 13...

No remorse,
like all things in Life the wheel keeps turning. All that is constant is change

I'm sure You have Tales to tell how change molds You...
Buying a new lens, a new camera, new developing mixtures, post processing formulas, a new way of seeing in a Masked World

or giving it up in Pursuit of 'something', something More

where are You at now ?
 
Is that a 356 by your name? My 911 and Boxter go to my son when they prize the keys
from my cold dead hands. Great picture by the way. Cheers Dan
 
Wow. I just can't enjoy photographing with a digital camera. I just bought the most expensive camera in my life, and I wasn't even exited. I left it in the box for a week, took it out and when I found out the manual is more than 800 pages, I put it back again.
My photographs are better with digital, I just don't enjoy it.
I will keep my film cameras even if they make me a worse photographer.
 
Wonderful photos, Helen! I’m not ready to leave film behind, even though I’m shooting more digital these days. Instead, Covid and quarantine have forced me to concentrate on photography I can do on my own, away from crowds, out on the coast, in the trees, or in the mountains. As much as I love street photography, the concentration on a narrower range subjects and settings has changed the way I see the world photographically.
 
Still have my film cameras but only occasionally use them. Besides an emotional attachment to an imaginary past, I’ve had to be honest with myself and admit that the very mechanical nature and ‘beauty’ of brass and glass are what appeal to me.
Never been an artist and have stopped pretending. Yes, the instant feedback of digital has sucked me in, but the instruments themselves? No more feeling for them than my toaster or coffee maker. Just another appliance made to last to the end of the warranty and then, when it dies, be discarded.

Edit: More often nowadays using paper negatives and found/adapted lenses on 4x5. Cheap, easy with minimal equipment, windowless laundry room serves as darkroom, can work under safelight, and results, if not instant are at least ‘same day’.
Cardboard, masking tape, and rubber bands. Fascinated by what can be done by bare minimum of photographic tools.
 
Lovely images and poetic titles. I gave up film too, many years ago. 'Just too lazy I suppose. 'Miss it some, but only black and white and then mostly the way it can sometimes handle highlights when exposures are just right.
 
I find myself going backwards in my choice of cameras. I shoot dslrs for work. For myself, it’s all black and white film. Nikon F and F2 with first generation Nikkors or Leica IIIa cameras with pre-war lenses. It helps that I have a purpose built darkroom that has been a refuge this past year. I’m still working at a job I enjoy, running a weekly newspaper in a rural community, so I have been out almost every day during the pandemic.
 
I have not shot film in years. Retirement is a short time away for me. I plan on setting the darkroom back up and shooting B&W again. Until then - I have the Nikon Df and Leica Digitals to use with my lenses. I miss shooting the Nikon S-Mount lenses, hence the need to do film.

As far as letting change mold me: I was writing code to process digital images 40 years ago. I shot nothing but film the 15 years before that. I still get paid to write code, but anything written for my digital cameras is just for fun.

Helen- good choice to keep MS 246.
 
People change. New needs arise. New user experiences get satisfied.

I do think creative types get bored easy, needing new stuff or new experiences every so often. Google it; actually been shown. Ha, ha, that's probably the genesis for GAS.

Anyway, if someone moves away from film, or even photography, I'm sure there's some "new"creative something filling the space. Unfortunately only 24 hours in a day.

Simplicity is good too. Makes us concentrate on the important.

I still enjoy the process of B&W film. Bulk loading, developing ect. It's a nice contrast to how much the world has become computerized and electrified. But ultimately, it really still is only a means to an end -- getting out and seeing something new. Guess you can do that with a digital camera too.
 
I don't think digital/film needs to necessarily be an either/or proposition. Personally I get just as much enjoyment out of shooting with my 907x as I do with one of my stereo glass plate cameras or one of my old Graflexes. I thought I was done with film too a number of years ago, but something compelled me to bring it back into the fold despite my continued use of digital. Who knows Helen - you might return to it somewhere down the line. And if you don't, well that's okay too.

To me it's all photography, no matter the recording media.
 
I would photograph regardless. Film, digital, or whatever comes next. I prefer digital these days but who knows; might slip on the ice and wake up wanting to do albumen prints. As long as the photos get the brain working, I'll be out there doing whatever.
 
Where am I now? -

The past decade and a half have been a process of trying to convince myself that I enjoy working with digital cameras. I've owned a number of them and still own two. Some of them have had teething pains, but the look of the images was enough to look past the warts. Some have been incredible shooters, but the files lacked in processing flexibility.

No matter how much I've enjoyed the results, I've kept coming back to my original (true?) love of film. Specifically black and white film. A combination of the process and the results keeps me engaged and happy that I can make images that reflect some of the beauty in this world.

Digital serves purposes. Film serves desires.
 
As I age my radius of operations seems to shrink. I sometimes think I'm going out to photograph the same old same old. And yet . . .

Each time I visit the well-worn venue I seem to find some new aspect that I overlooked before. Or, I can treat the same subject in a different way. The constraints are in our minds.

(Helen, that's a nice 356 in your avatar. A, B, or C model?)
 
Helen, I stopped using film completely in 2008. My first digital camera was a Canon DSLR bought the year before. I had undergone neck surgery and had plenty of down time to read and learn about digital gear, methods and the "how-tos" during my recovery. At first I hated it. New trick, old dog. I was resistant to change. Tri-X and HP5 had been my standards in photography for 35 years and I didn't want to give them up. But the fact is the Tri-X and HP5 had changed over the years, the printing papers were different and I had been deluding myself there was any consistency in the world anymore.

So eventually I came around to accept digital photography for what it was--just another method of taking pictures and making prints.

I sold my Leicas, gave away all my film (a lot of film) and closed down my darkroom. I tossed out the chemicals and remaining partial boxes of paper and tried to find someone to take my enlargers--but no luck there. I made a clean break from film. It wasn't as hard as giving up cigarettes but it wasn't easy either.

In my opinion, I confused the love of photography and light and the creative process with the methods and tools. Once I got over that, I really began to love photography again. Now you couldn't make me return to shooting film, processing film, printing negatives and working in the darkroom.

You're a creative person, Helen. Your nature is to make art. You have to have an outlet for this creativity. At some point you chose photography. How you do photography is not the point. Photography is the point. Or knitting, writing poetry, drawing pictures or any of a gazillion other practices. As long as you're creating, you will feel at least somewhat fulfilled in life. Film, digital...? Not important.
 
I like your black and white photographs.

About the only photographs I make any more are of family.

Priorities change.

Currently I’m shredding old papers that go as far back ss the 1970’s!

I did receive my first covid shot. Pfizer. Next one pretty soon.

Currently I have about half dozen rolls of film I need to process. Been using Ilford’s XP-2 Plus lately.
 
Dogman said:
Helen, I stopped using film completely in 2008. My first digital camera was a Canon DSLR bought the year before. I had undergone neck surgery and had plenty of down time to read and learn about digital gear, methods and the "how-tos" during my recovery. At first I hated it. New trick, old dog. I was resistant to change. Tri-X and HP5 had been my standards in photography for 35 years and I didn't want to give them up. But the fact is the Tri-X and HP5 had changed over the years, the printing papers were different and I had been deluding myself there was any consistency in the world anymore.

So eventually I came around to accept digital photography for what it was--just another method of taking pictures and making prints.

I sold my Leicas, gave away all my film (a lot of film) and closed down my darkroom. I tossed out the chemicals and remaining partial boxes of paper and tried to find someone to take my enlargers--but no luck there. I made a clean break from film. It wasn't as hard as giving up cigarettes but it wasn't easy either.

In my opinion, I confused the love of photography and light and the creative process with the methods and tools. Once I got over that, I really began to love photography again. Now you couldn't make me return to shooting film, processing film, printing negatives and working in the darkroom.

You're a creative person, Helen. Your nature is to make art. You have to have an outlet for this creativity. At some point you chose photography. How you do photography is not the point. Photography is the point. Or knitting, writing poetry, drawing pictures or any of a gazillion other practices. As long as you're creating, you will feel at least somewhat fulfilled in life. Film, digital...? Not important.
Click to expand...

Nicely expressed :)
 
Helen— you do you! I could make light of it and say more film cameras for the rest of us, but I know how enlightening purging, simplifying and unburdening can be.

I could certainly echo other sentiments on shooting digital for 'day job' work, not being able to comprehend the manuals (hello, D810!), feeling a connection with film.

A year ago (for the third time in my life), I'd just taken the leap back into doing photography full time. What timing! Both the paid gigs and the exhibitions have dried up. Thankfully I still have a roof over my head and a full refrigerator.

The time has left me a little more energy to focus on chemistry and experimentation again. Been diving headlong into tests with a few new film and developer stocks—the sort of work I'd find tedious otherwise, but is keeping my brain busy. I've always been more of a 'go out and shoot, and worry about processing later' sort of photographer, but now I've got the time to dial in post techniques I didn't have patience for.

Far more excited to for FX-39 to be back in stock than any piece of equipment.

It's also given me the time to dig deep in scanning and organizing nearly 20 years of negatives, revisiting work I hadn't seen outside a contact sheet or didn't feel worth scanning or printing. There's a lot of hidden gems, and even those that aren't are often of a mundane scene of a Seattle long gone.

The pandemic and quarantine life has made it hard to focus and a little stir crazy, and has me questioning life choices many times over, but giving myself a few goals to focus on that aren't directly related to going out and shooting has kept me (somewhat) sane.
 
I am trying to force myself to enjoy and understand shooting digital. I fear the end of film will come in my lifetime. Manual focus lens adapted to X-Pro1 is okay, but it feels like so much more effort to get a good image.
 
steveyork said:
People change. New needs arise. New user experiences get satisfied.

I do think creative types get bored easy, needing new stuff or new experiences every so often. Google it; actually been shown. Ha, ha, that's probably the genesis for GAS.
Click to expand...

This resonates with me—less about GAS and more switching up my process. I could never be a one-lens/one-camera/one-film sort of person. Not that I'm the sort that brings every lens imaginable to every outing, or shoots with so many film stocks they can't keep track of it.

More that I'll shoot one film/format exclusively for a month, attempt to master it, and then need to revisit the same subject with, say, medium format reversal film.

In counterpoint, I'm reminded of someone I went out with a few times back in college: I was in photojournalism school, and she was studying fine art photography. All she photographed was a single room in a family vacation cottage, shot on 4x5" HP5. Hundreds of shots. Nothing else, not even snapshots.

The end collection was actually fascinating in a way, and I admired the dedication, but I couldn't do something like it. I have to have variety for inspiration; I just love photographing everything, really. Winogrand's quote on shooting to see how something looks resonates with me.
 
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