Progress
15/02/09 19:18 Filed in: photographic culture
The best method to expand your intellectual horizon and to progress in your thinking is to read books and articles that do not support your vested interests and contradict your current thinking and opinions. Most people do not wish to indulge themselves in this exercise and the internet forums are the best example where you can find persons defending their cast-iron views. I did read a very recently published book by Fred Ritchin, After Photography, who claims that the digital revolution in photography can only be appreciated and implemented after abandoning the classical notions of conventional film based photography. This approach is defined as post-photography, in analogy with post-modernism. I did suggest a similar idea a few years ago and was not taken seriously by most photographers who erroneously assume that digital photography is conventional photography with other means in analogy to the famous words by von Clausewitz who noted that politics is a continuation of war by other means.
Conventional (classical) photography is film based photography, like it or not. Recently I visited a well-known Dutch photographer, Rutger ten Broeke who stills works exclusively with film, he has a huge darkroom with 5 enlargers, from small negatives to 8x10 inch. His view is quite sensible. He knows how to work with chemicals, the results are what he expects and what customers want. So why change. His recipe: developer D76 and FOMA printing paper. Compare this with the interminable options that are facing the digital worker. The true craftsman is only interested in the results not in the tools, but tools are needed to create the results. The simpler the tools, the more attention you can give to the result.
My first results with the new Spur DSX32-64 developer and Copex microfilm are very promising. The useable sensitivity of the film is EI 50, where you get excellent densities over a range of ten stops. The curve looks quite normal and brings a good CI value. This is a much improved result compared with previous attempts to introduce the Gevaert Copex film into pictorial photography. I would prefer ISO32 as exposure index, but that is a matter of taste.
Resolution is outstandingly good with 140 lp/mm, twice what you get with the M8 and the current crop of digital top SLR cameras.
A full report is in the making, but the results show that film has a deep potential compared to digital. But you need patience and a sense of craftsmanship to appreciate the results.
Current research shows that people in this period of recession and crisis want a combination of quality and classical values. The Leica film loading cameras are prime examples of this combination and the new DSX technique delivers astonishing good results.If you are interested in classical vales, read Sir Kenneth Clarke's, The Nude, (1956). You will learn more from this book than from attending the internet forums for a year.
Conventional (classical) photography is film based photography, like it or not. Recently I visited a well-known Dutch photographer, Rutger ten Broeke who stills works exclusively with film, he has a huge darkroom with 5 enlargers, from small negatives to 8x10 inch. His view is quite sensible. He knows how to work with chemicals, the results are what he expects and what customers want. So why change. His recipe: developer D76 and FOMA printing paper. Compare this with the interminable options that are facing the digital worker. The true craftsman is only interested in the results not in the tools, but tools are needed to create the results. The simpler the tools, the more attention you can give to the result.
My first results with the new Spur DSX32-64 developer and Copex microfilm are very promising. The useable sensitivity of the film is EI 50, where you get excellent densities over a range of ten stops. The curve looks quite normal and brings a good CI value. This is a much improved result compared with previous attempts to introduce the Gevaert Copex film into pictorial photography. I would prefer ISO32 as exposure index, but that is a matter of taste.
Resolution is outstandingly good with 140 lp/mm, twice what you get with the M8 and the current crop of digital top SLR cameras.
A full report is in the making, but the results show that film has a deep potential compared to digital. But you need patience and a sense of craftsmanship to appreciate the results.
Current research shows that people in this period of recession and crisis want a combination of quality and classical values. The Leica film loading cameras are prime examples of this combination and the new DSX technique delivers astonishing good results.If you are interested in classical vales, read Sir Kenneth Clarke's, The Nude, (1956). You will learn more from this book than from attending the internet forums for a year.