The Empty Mind -- film vs. digital

An alternative idea is to stop taking pictures for a while and see what happens; it's nothing to do with photo gear...

Regards, David
 
Today I shoot more film than digital when I'm not diving (then I take my micro 4/3 rig). For film I just shoot b/w and develop at home. To me it comes down to having the option/ability to make darkroom prints when I get a photo I really like. If I had a way to make nice, high resolution transparencies that I can bring into darkroom, digital photography will have bigger place in my heart. I've been looking around, but haven't found a feasible solution just yet. I know what modern inkjet printers can do. I have R3000 and happily print my underwater photos and casual snaps with it. It's just that I like b/w wet prints as almost a different hobby/activity from shooting photos itself.

Maybe one day I can figure out a way to make good "digital negatives" on my own and shoot more digital.
 
Steve Williams said:
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...
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Nice to see your post, and have fun in retirement. I am starting into my 3rd year, and it is tough "work" being retired, especially if one has a working partner.

I am still searching for a little part time work, I find structure the thing I miss the most. Deadlines are alarmingly useful in life.
 
nikonhswebmaster said:
Nice to see your post, and have fun in retirement. I am starting into my 3rd year, and it is tough "work" being retired, especially if one has a working partner.

I am still searching for a little part time work, I find structure the thing I miss the most. Deadlines are alarmingly useful in life.
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Yeah! And no one realises that, once you've retired, you don't get all the public holidays you had at work but I don't complain...

Regards, David
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Bill,

This is not an argument against Porsche manual gearboxes; it is an argument against going to Chicago. Worse still, going to Chicago with the wrong car.

Cheers,

R.
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Don`t take a car to Chicago. They are a revenue source for the city.

Even better, don`t go at all. Stay in the suburbs with me.
 
Film v Digital a very deep vein at RFF. ;)

It really is what ever makes you want to take a picture. You get better with practice. I don't care what we are taking about.

However, improvement even with practice is not a given. I watch people who ski all the time for 20 years and don't improve. Most of them, actually. You know what made the most difference? Explosion in ski options. They may still have their quirky styles but they can go places they never could before.

What a M9 offers over a M6 is practice. You can play around faster. Results are not identical. Film has a look, which you are not going to get. Workflow on the camera, M9 is simpler. Less camera to deal with. Because it had has the "A", and no winding.

Workflow post camera? Way more simple, way more control. But same thing, not the same look. Film is just a different medium. If it inspires you more, it doesn't matter why really, you should shoot film. I shoot old flawed lenses all the time. I'm just too ADD for film, but I admire those who love it....till they give me a hard time for my choice ;)
 
@Steve Williams - great that you've come to update this thread. May you have a happy and fulfilling retirement!

C100 + 5D Mark III + Canon lenses just makes a lot of sense. What will become of this gear after you retire?

Leica gear: the lure of the M is strong. Why not just get a nice Bessa body, or a beater M6 and a couple of secondhand Voigtlander lenses?

As for your original questions: 'empty mind' in photography for me is about being fully immersed in the shooting experience, seeing images and making them happen with very little verbal thought. It's a matter of looking at a scene and seeing the images that can be taken. This can happen with film or digital. Digital just makes it possible to get corrective feedback in the moment, especially if you're using the LCD or EVF.

In 2008. I was hammering it out with the Canon 30D, G10 and Sigma DP1. The Zeiss Ikon entered my life but the Leica M9 was just a twinkle in the eye of group of men in Solms. I stopped shooting film regularly by 2009.

Since then, I went full frame with the 5D Mark II and Leica M9, then back into smaller sensor cameras like the Ricoh GXR, Fuji X100, and now micro four thirds. I now understand how much of my photography is satisfied with smaller sensors, although the M9 and 5D II still make the occasional appearance. I'm shooting a bit more film these days, too, although I'd only shoot a roll in a year for the past few years. Funny how things can go in cycles and return to older ways.

Again, good luck with your retirement, and may your art be rich and fulfilling.
 
I have shot couple of rolls with my Big Mini now and it has been very interesting. Normally I shoot aperture priority but as the Big Mini has no controls (really my options are flash or no flash), I have been mostly shooting snaps, focusing more on composition and leaving the rest to the photographic overlords in program mode heaven. Is this what is meant by an empty mind?

P.S. Its odd that I shoot like this ofc on my iPhone and have done so for years but don't think twice about it but with a "camera" it feels odd and different. Go figure!
 
Two years have passed since I last posted a comment on this thread. And a year and a half since I retired from Penn State. The idea of the empty mind has floated to the surface more than once.

Mostly I've been exploring the breadth and depth of my laziness. My wife supported the exploration with the statement that I had worked professionally for 44 years. Longer if you include the car wash, gas station, ship welder and other odd jobs on top of that. No wonder I want to explore nothingness of activity.

But laziness has its limits. And it interferes with the empty mind as the guilt of things undone accumulates.

There has been good though. From the malaise emerged some clarity regarding photography. I've finally given myself permission, or acceptance, that it's ok to work with film rather than digital for most of my personal work. It's not about resistance to technology, change or the future. It's just the most comfortable, reliable and satisfying path.

The change started with a Zone VI view camera and a wandering documentation of where I live and the things that occupy the landscape. The darkroom was functional and comfortable as I worked at processing and printing 4x5 TXP.

After some months the desire to shoot 35mm film surfaced. My regrets at surrendering my Leica M6 and lenses to others needled me. The only bright spot was that Sally Mann bought my 90mm Summicron lens. She was interested in the fog and fungus in the lens.

Sticker shock, and not yet fully convinced my desire to work with 35mm film would last, I could not bring myself to buy another M6 and lenses. Instead I purchased a Nikon F3 HP and a 50mm and 35mm lens. While it's not a Leica, it has been comfortable to use. My fingers still have a lingering fragrance of fixer from printing last night -- the same full frame images in the middle of 11x14 fiber paper.

I'm planning to revive my 3 Prints Project -- expose a roll or two of film every week and make three prints. Here's a link to the 3 Prints Project Index. It has some of what I was doing.

Despite the collapsing temperatures at the moment due to the polar vortex, I'm in a good place photographically. My mind continues to empty as I focus on what's important to me now...
 
Thanks Steve for updating this thread! I never had one but I read many times the F3HP is an excellent camera . And you know it is not the camera, is the photographer :) and for sure with your commitment too shoot develop print on a regular basis you ll make a good work with the Nikon!
robert
 
robert blu said:
Thanks Steve for updating this thread! I never had one but I read many times the F3HP is an excellent camera . And you know it is not the camera, is the photographer :) and for sure with your commitment too shoot develop print on a regular basis you ll make a good work with the Nikon!
robert
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Going through boxes of silver prints made from 1990 until 2010 convinced me that I was doing far better and more consistent work than when I looked at my digital prints from 2010 until recently. For whatever reason, the sort of personal work I was embracing just works better for me with the film process.

Don't get me wrong, it's not about which is better, it's just about what works. I would never want to shoot film for my scooter blog. And while shooting for Penn State, I would never want to go back to film. Digital was so much easier and reliable.

Different tools for different needs.
 
lns said:
I think, in the nicest possible way, you should ignore your friend. Doing something purely for enjoyment is enough. In fact, it's the height of good sense. It's the best use of your time..
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Personally my photographic process involves film processing and analog printing. Neither of those have anything to do with my photographic vision.
Digital photography doesn't feed those needs for me. In a musical analogy, it would be like telling a fine acoustic guitarist, that he should do electronic music....
 
Steve Williams said:
Two years have passed since I last posted a comment on this thread. And a year and a half since I retired from Penn State. The idea of the empty mind has floated to the surface more than once.

Mostly I've been exploring the breadth and depth of my laziness. My wife supported the exploration with the statement that I had worked professionally for 44 years. Longer if you include the car wash, gas station, ship welder and other odd jobs on top of that. No wonder I want to explore nothingness of activity.

But laziness has its limits. And it interferes with the empty mind as the guilt of things undone accumulates.

There has been good though. From the malaise emerged some clarity regarding photography. I've finally given myself permission, or acceptance, that it's ok to work with film rather than digital for most of my personal work. It's not about resistance to technology, change or the future. It's just the most comfortable, reliable and satisfying path.

The change started with a Zone VI view camera and a wandering documentation of where I live and the things that occupy the landscape. The darkroom was functional and comfortable as I worked at processing and printing 4x5 TXP.

After some months the desire to shoot 35mm film surfaced. My regrets at surrendering my Leica M6 and lenses to others needled me. The only bright spot was that Sally Mann bought my 90mm Summicron lens. She was interested in the fog and fungus in the lens.

Sticker shock, and not yet fully convinced my desire to work with 35mm film would last, I could not bring myself to buy another M6 and lenses. Instead I purchased a Nikon F3 HP and a 50mm and 35mm lens. While it's not a Leica, it has been comfortable to use. My fingers still have a lingering fragrance of fixer from printing last night -- the same full frame images in the middle of 11x14 fiber paper.

I'm planning to revive my 3 Prints Project -- expose a roll or two of film every week and make three prints. Here's a link to the 3 Prints Project Index. It has some of what I was doing.

Despite the collapsing temperatures at the moment due to the polar vortex, I'm in a good place photographically. My mind continues to empty as I focus on what's important to me now...
Click to expand...

Have a look at Daniel Klein's In Search of Epicurus. It is about growing old and what to take from it. He returns to Greece. He admires the old men there who can enjoy doing nothing, drinking free coffees and looking out to sea.
 
uhoh7 said:
However, improvement even with practice is not a given. I watch people who ski all the time for 20 years and don't improve. Most of them, actually. You know what made the most difference? Explosion in ski options. They may still have their quirky styles but they can go places they never could before.
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I have even seen people get worse with practice. An older volunteer plays the guitar in the corridors of the local hospital. He might once have had lessons, but he seems self-taught to a great degree. When I first noticed him I listened for a bit and he made a nice sound (the guitar always makes a nice sound.) He played familiar pieces by Albeniz and Tarrega and Lauro. After several months I found my patience for listening to him even for a half a minute had diminished, and it seemed that I only ever heard him struggling with a difficult passage.

I think he is practising his mistakes. By putting himself out there and having to fudge a solution in public he is actually getting worse. If he stopped coming for a while, slowed down and did some actual proper private practice he could fix those difficult passages and start to improve again. But I don't have the heart to tell him, neither the courage nor the cruelty.

I think this happens in photography. My first major improvement in decades, ten years ago, came with quite an impetus from the very expensive roll of Velvia I had just bought: a dollar per slide. That slowed me down.
 
Richard G said:
Have a look at Daniel Klein's In Search of Epicurus. It is about growing old and what to take from it. He returns to Greece. He admires the old men there who can enjoy doing nothing, drinking free coffees and looking out to sea.
Click to expand...

Sorry for the long, slow, delay in responding.

Thank you for the suggestion of the Daniel Klein book. Our local library has it and I'll try and pick it up later today.

I may already be one of those old men. I often sit in cafes and do nothing other than look out the window. I credit my wife with teaching me the power of sitting still and experiencing the world in that way.

Still, there are things to do. Have continued, albeit in fits and starts, to shoot film. Though no serious project or passion has emerged. And I abandoned my Fuji XPro-1 system for a Fuji X100F. That was a good choice. The X100F is a perfect companion to me. But still, no focus on a project. Just continually doing the search for greatest hits.

It's a new year. Who knows what the day will bring.
 
Steve Williams said:
Sorry for the long, slow, delay in responding.

Thank you for the suggestion of the Daniel Klein book. Our local library has it and I'll try and pick it up later today.

I may already be one of those old men. I often sit in cafes and do nothing other than look out the window. I credit my wife with teaching me the power of sitting still and experiencing the world in that way.

Still, there are things to do. Have continued, albeit in fits and starts, to shoot film. Though no serious project or passion has emerged. And I abandoned my Fuji XPro-1 system for a Fuji X100F. That was a good choice. The X100F is a perfect companion to me. But still, no focus on a project. Just continually doing the search for greatest hits.

It's a new year. Who knows what the day will bring.
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The Daniel Klein book sounds interesting ... I'll pick it up too. :)

I do the same thing with cafes and photography: I ride my bicycle around, stopping to sit and watch, and think. I have ideas for projects and sometimes I get a project of five or six photos going. I am An Olde Man and have no driving need consuming me, but I don't set down my cameras because seeing with them is how I see, and I like to see.

I shoot film, I shoot digital. I enjoy the differences between them; in the end, they're just recording mediums. I shoot, and process, them both at about the same pace. One week I'll enjoy my Minox subminiature, the next my Hasselblad, the next my Leica digital. Each affects my eye differently, and subsequently makes different photos. It's all good.

I visit my old friend Don every month or two. I mean old friend ... Don is thirty years my senior, and the finest photographer and printer I've ever known. "What do I do with all this?" he asks me, pointing to the mountains of fabulous photographs, books, and gear his home is full of. "No one wants it, no one is interested! Why do I still do it?"

"Because it is you, Don. It is your heart and soul and life in vision and joy. And when you depart, I will not be sad to hold some fraction of it and remember you." We smile together.

"You keep me young," he says at age 94, "but it can't last forever."

"You keep me young," I say back, "and forever is beyond our ability to comprehend. Lets just enjoy the moment while we have it." And I make another photo of us together.

49322135637_6484a18eeb_b.jpg

This week and some it's a Minox 35GT-E I'm using. Next week ... I don't know yet.

onwards! G
 
May I say Godfrey, apart from your utterly superb recommendation of the 80mm R Summilux, I love what you write, your positivity and your attitude. Keep enjoying life and doing what we enjoy! Lovely story too. I have a film mentor and superb photographer, an Ilford Artisan Partner from whom I've have learned so much and is now a close friend. He suffers from Ankylosing Spondylitis, which is a horrible degenerative condition and there are days when the pain and tiredness overwhelm, he can't work and has tiny benefits, yet he gets out and shoots as often as he can, and has recently been learning wet plate collodion. As he says, if you give up, you die.
 
A good post Godfrey, thanks. At 71 I'm slowing down my photography but I do not stop it!

I'm giving more time to editing and printing, hand making small booklets sometimes in "limited edition" for special friends, organizing the family archives being my wife a passionate photographer too.

As you do I like to use everything analog or diglital, Polaroid or 120, Leica or Holga (please do not be scadalized) and even I like trying, experimenting "wrong techniques" just to see or evaluate if anything interesting could result. It all depends on the mood, circumstances, eventually project where my photos could be placed.

I was just thinking in these days that I prefer to photograph when I have a project in my head, but this is or can be subject for a different thread!
 
Sixteen years have passed since I first posted this thread. Four since I last commented. It's strange to read through it all and see where life and choice has brought me. Two things have persisted -- riding my Vespa scooter and photography. But change is relentless. There are two Vespa scooters in the garage and three motorcycles. And just last night around this time I decided to leap once again into shooting film. My Leica M6 is long gone and I could not bring myself to pay for another along with the ever dear costing lenses. Searching my memory there was a camera that had triggered unfulfilled fantasies decades ago -- the Pentax MX.

With reckless abandon I purchased one from Japan along with two lenses and immediately followed that action with a visit to B&H Photo for sticker shock at the prices of darkroom chemicals. And this afternoon while blowing the dust from my dormant darkroom I discovered the need to replace the Fantech F100 fan on my exhaust system. Labors of misery and love I suppose.

There's no shortage of digital film and video gear in the house which support my ongoing projects including the addition of a YouTube channel. It's on my Scooter in the Sticks channel where I'll be using the Pentax MX. A slower look at the landscapes in which I ride as documented in black and white. I've tried doing it digitally but something wasn't right. Perhaps working in film for this aspect of the work will make some stupid sense...

As age 70 approaches there's a natural physical slowing of my body. But my brain still swirls and turns in chaos and distraction. Maybe the Pentax will be the necessary drogue to calm myself and bring my mind and body into sync. A bow to the Empty Mind...
 
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