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

[propaddict.livejournal.com]

I was always mystified by Doc's switch to digital, but dependence on hard copies. Always seemed to defeat the purpose to me. Then again, we're talking about a man who makes more legal size prints of photos in a month than most people make in a lifetime. His main outlet for and display of his work is in the hard print format.

I finally sold my trusty Canon AE-1 last year. My DigiRebel allowed me to do everything the old film eater could and more. It was also pounds lighter. It kind of hurt to see it go. Well over 1000 rolls through it (I was loading my own Ilford HP5 rolls), and inumerable miles trucking that thing everywhere. Camera was older than me, and still always took great pictures.

Film is dead, at least for me.