21.07.10
Soapbox:Film vs digital
The professional photography market demands the speed and efficiency of shooting digital, but as Alistair Baird, director of photographic studio The Darkroom knows, there are times when shooting on film is just that bit more rewarding.
“Film is dead! Kodak quits the film business” trumpeted a headline last year. The truth was that Kodak had decided to stop manufacturing Kodachrome after nearly 75 years of production: not a bad run for a cranky old technology. Will the CCD sensor survive that long?
Opinion has been curiously polarised in the digital vs film debate. A couple of years ago someone pointed at our refrigerated stock of film and scoffed “Ha! You’re not still selling that stuff are you?” Since we were still selling it, the simple answer was: “Yes”.
More recently, however, the comments have changed: “Oh wow — I’ve been looking everywhere for 120 film and you’ve got it in black and white, too!” So what is going on? Who is ‘daft’ enough to still be messing around with analogue antiques and why? The first adopters of digital cameras were professional photographers, not necessarily through choice, but because clients needed to save the time of processing and scanning film. The pressure on all photographers to change became compelling: digital appeared cheaper (no more lab costs), images could be instantly reviewed (no more underexposures), unlimited exposures (no more running out of film). The manufacturers’ hype seemed convincing, but perhaps some non-professionals lost sight of the fact that the real reason for their photography was pleasure, not profit?
In the glare of technology it is easy to overlook the small print, and since new equipment offered better quality and less wastage, laboratories too felt pushed to change. The problem with computer-driven machinery is that it becomes superseded so quickly: a good enlarger will give a lifetime of use, but modern equipment must be paid for in a couple of years, and then replaced. The predictable cost of quality control was replaced with a less familiar one: obsolescence.
The Darkroom has been selective in its uptake of new technology and retained traditional services where there is demand. Our film-using clients fall broadly into three camps: those who have never given up film, those coming back to film and those who have never tried it before.
Many universities have excellent photographic departments and many students are taking photography back to its roots, even regarding digital as old-hat. Basic cameras such as Holga, Diana and pinholes present a very different experience to pixels because they give the user a sense of truly ‘making’ a photograph. Often they will have the film cross-processed to make the final image less predictable and dynamic.
Those coming back to film often comment that they are ‘fed-up’ with computers and miss the tactile nature of traditional methods, while those who never abandoned film have always been happy to assign the task of production to someone else. A typical returning client, for whom we have recently been making fibre base prints from 4 x 5 negatives, found his former enthusiasm reawakened when his son ‘discovered’ film at college. Although we hand process the film and prints, it is done in close collaboration with the client: we discuss the mood of the prints and their emotional impact. It is exciting to work in this way, and delightfully analogue. Digital clients, too, should rely on a laboratory to do more than just the printing for them.
A good lab technician has a wealth of experience in solving the common technical problems a client may run into, and through discussion, may suggest a different style or interpretation to a print that a photographer hadn’t seen. This kind of service was always the mark of a good traditional lab and still is today for the digital one.
www.the-darkroom.co.uk
This feature is from the June 2010 issue
Back issues can be ordered by calling 01858 438840 or by sending an email to photographymonthly@subscription.co.uk
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