Pictures and film

[urbpan]

My friend Bruce, a professional photographer and media specialist (and art photographer outside of his day job) and I get in touch with one another off and on every few months. He just sent me this email:

so old friend.
tell me.
is film dead?
does it matter if the image is captured on film or a chip?
what do you think?
b

I answered:

Film is certainly dead for me. I picked up my old Pentax K1000 a few
months ago and stroked it gently and wished they made digital backs
for old SLRs. They're such great machines, but who wants to pay for
film, not know what the pictures are on it, and then pay to get the
pictures back?

I'm glad there are still pros using film, but for how long? It's
kinda spooky to imagine the process dying out. I suppose it will be
relegated to fringe craftsmen, like lithographs and wrought iron work.

I love the fact that I'm not accumulating boxes and boxes of photos
any more, but if anything happens to the great digital archive out
there, I'm totally fucked. The electromagnetic pulse will erase all
my writings and photos back to 2003.

My dad uses a digital slr and brings the card to walgreens or
photowhatever in Enfield, and gets back a cd and a packet of prints.
He's quite mystified by the fact that I have no hard copies. As a
historian I think it freaks him out.

What are the historians of the future going to have to go by? A
dwindling amount of print and film images, and a vast digital dung
heap that may or may not even be accessible.

In short: dunno.

Answer poetry with blather, that's my approach!


So how would you answer?

Comments

[godorion.livejournal.com]

I seem to have read not too long ago that many of the companies that make film are quietly closing shop. There simply isn't the demand for it. In some ways that makes me sad. I think there are truly artists in the print field. Perhaps the real artists will learn to make all they need to continue their art just as earlier artists had to know how to make their paints.

I personally, however, love digital. I am more willing to take risks with a shot now that I don't have to pay for processing to see if it is even worth printing. Add in the ability to manipulate images with Photo Shop, programming significantly cheaper than a darkroom and supplies. I do make print images, so I have a small print archive, but I keep most of my images on disc...

I'd like to hope that technology will be able to carry itself forward, sort of like the saving of old celluloid movies by transferring them to digital. Yes, the celluloid is gone, but the image is saved.