The Lost Images……
When digital start to swoop in on us in the late nineties there was great gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands! I even once said, :When the only way to make images is this new fangled digital stuff, I’m out!” I figured I would be dead and gone before we had to give up film! Guess again. Digital arrived much faster than any of us thought it would. I remember an article in Outdoor Photographer magazine in which a prominent writer said it would take 25 megapixels to equal the quality of 35mm film. I’m not naming names because we all made some wrong guesses back then! By the time digital had advanced to 12 megapixels the writing was on the wall, film was dying! By that time I had gone to work for Nikon and was experiencing the joys of the digital age, I’ve never looked back.
I remember saying a few years ago that if Nikon (my employer at the time) had told me I was going to be their film guy, i would have respectfully said, “so long!” I have fully and completely embraced digital. With the advent of 24& 36 megapixel cameras, even the view camera is obsolete (in my opinion). [That should start some cat fights!] Anyway I have over 25,000 color transparencies (slides) and over 10,000 B&W negatives in my files. What can I do with them?
For all practical purposes, with the exception of irreplaceable family slides and negatives, the rest are far inferior to my Digital production of the last 10 + years. I recently gave a company called Scan Cafe a shot at scanning a couple of thousand slides for me and the results were pretty much o.k. The two images in this blog post are from original color slides and they translated all right, but t hey are no match for a digital file! So I will have the invaluable family stuff scanned, and a few black and white negatives of significance, but he rest will be, eventually, thrown in the trash!
I will soon start producing some eBooks and I plan to do a retrospective on America From 500 Feet and America From 500 Feet II which will tell the back storya nd contain what I think are the best images from both volumes. Since the first book is only available as a used volume, I am anxious to put that project together!
So my countless slides are in many ways lost, they are a technology that is so distant that there relevance in today’s photography world is certainly limited by their technical faults. As photographs they still tell a story and so many will be preserved, but as time marches on hopefully we get better and our work from the past is less important to us, as we tell the story better both aesthetically and technically! The greatest joy is looking at the old images and remembering the fun you had producing them!
Blessings,
the pilgrim
* Both images were shot on Kodak 100Vs film pushed to 200 and that popped the grain which when reduced with noise reduction software further softens the images, one of the great issues with getting something great out of older film images.
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 1st, 2013 at 2:09 pm
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Those pictures are beautiful. Film reminds me of a different time. The world seems so different even from just a decade ago.
Be brave when you throw out all those negatives and slides! Don’t let them change your mind. 🙂
It may be hard, and it may not happen!
I don’t know Bill. I came into photography in the digital age and have never had any kind of 35mm film experience; the closest I ever came was my old Kodak Instamatic camera.
There’s a certain nostalgia and beauty to your film images. Frankly, I love the vintage look and us digital photographers have to manipulate in post to achieve the effect that was a given with film.
Actually, this post has inspired me to try out a little project; think I’ll try my hand and increasing ISO and purposefully softening the image focus just to see what I get! I’m actually a stickler when it comes to soft images; I’ll toss anything that’s not tack sharp, at the loss of some excellent shots! But then, I have seen some photographers pull off soft photos in such a way that it actually adds something to them.
I’m such a tech quality geek, it’s hard to see it, but you’ve made a good point!
Bill,
I think most of us like to look back at the old images and recall the good times making them. I know that is why I will keep all my film images, at least for the memories and the stories.
John
….and that is the whole point!!!!
And hey, when 3-D matures – then holographic comes of age – then circular 3-D (all around you), we will find ourselves outdated again! If anything is constant, it is change! We can’t stand still and proclaim we are an expert, because the ‘pert is always moving forward leaving us as an “ex”! The same hold true with God, while He is never changing, He is constantly revealing more as time moves forward (Paul says He is revealing “secret/hidden things”). We have to be ever vigilant not only in human realm but in spiritual realm!!
Grace to you and all you do!!!!
I can always trust in you Carl, to bring forth a great spiritual truth!
Open mouth insert foot, Bill I also said digital photography will never catch on. I was working for the Department of Defense, and still do, when digital first came out. Because of the budget at that time I was blessed to start digital photography gave birth. Digital photography seems slow and clunky. Boy it has come a long ways. I like the fact that I no longer have to spend hours in a dark and come home smelling like chemistry. However there is still something magical about placing piece of paper in chemistry and watching your image here.
It was a developing print that first hooked me for life!!!!