A Pocket History of the Status of Film Today

[Walter Glover]

http://darkness.robertburley.com/gallery/

And this article by Robert Burley from The Economist:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/ ... logue-film

[Maris]

The Robert Burley article, from an Associate Professor no less, reflects the usual confused, sloppy, and shallow scholarship that prevails in popular commentaries on photography and the rise of alternative picture-making technologies. It's too late to send him back to undergrad school and in any case he'll only bump into like thinkers rather than encounter new insights.

The existence of Large Format Photography Australia and the activities of the people in it confound Burley's treatise.

[hoffy]

The Robert Burley article, from an Associate Professor no less, reflects the usual confused, sloppy, and shallow scholarship that prevails in popular commentaries on photography and the rise of alternative picture-making technologies. It's too late to send him back to undergrad school and in any case he'll only bump into like thinkers rather than encounter new insights.

The existence of Large Format Photography Australia and the activities of the people in it confound Burley's treatise.

I disagree. The Burley article paints a pretty accurate picture of where the film industry is now and where it will be in 3 or 4 years time. There was no talk of Alternative processes, so I don't see how this can be part of the argument.

Its interesting to note that one of the 'Period' Cinema's in Adelaide, The Capri, had an article written about them in the paper the other day. They have been given a grant to purchase and use a digital projector in their theatre, simply because they are already starting to struggle to get film prints any more.

[Ray Heath]

Thanks for the interesting links Walter.

G'day Maris, could you possibly expanded on your comments?

[sharperstill]

I disagree with Hoffy. The article makes no mention of Fuji, Iflord or any of the small European manufacturers. So I don't see how it can be an accurate reflection of the current state of the film industry. Also, to omit any mention of Lomo, which is increasing profitable, is a flaw.

Jon

[Maris]

Thanks for the interesting links Walter.

G'day Maris, could you possibly expanded on your comments?

If you are in the mood for a polemic here goes:

Robert Burley continues the confusion between pictures and photographs and falls into the naive view that the art and value of an image is manifest in what it looks like. I suggest that the art and value of a picture is generated by the inspiration and creativity carried forward in the work-flow of the making process. The final appearance, in the medium of choice, merely certifies that the value generating steps have been faithfully carried out.

As usual, commercialism rules over art in terms of volume and activity in most places at most times. Pictures showing what things look like are universally powerful in attracting attention, modifying thought, and maybe turning a dollar. People have always wanted pictures but getting them was difficult.

In the old days there were only paintings. Paintings were slow to produce, skill intensive, and expensive. People didn't really want paintings, they wanted pictures, but paintings were all that was available.
The invention of photography changed that. Commerce ditched paintings and adopted photographs. But photographs were still somewhat effortful to produce and still cost money. Again, pictures were what was desired and photographs were the least nasty form available at the time. Digital picture-making is now more facile and cheaper than photography and it is currently the preferred choice for generating pictures. Unfortunately digital still takes some work so it in turn will be superceded by an easier cheaper way of getting pictures into people's heads. Maybe that will be by WiFi brain implants or telepathy.

In a fundamental sense digital pictures do not support the qualities inherent in photographs made out of light sensitive materials.

There is a deep and somewhat abstract philosophical reason for deliberately choosing not to look at digital pictures but rather to actively to seek out genuine photographs. It is precisely the same reason for preferring photographs over paintings, drawings, and digital print-outs of one kind or another. All those non-photographs (paintings, drawings, digi-pix) have the identical property that they are assembled piecemeal by a mark maker device working according to coded instructions. The coded instructions may be entirely or partially synthetic and their relationship to the subject matter of the picture is in the nature of description or testimony. We believe the picture only if we believe the picture maker.

There is a very small set of alternative image making processes that do not use coded instructions. These include life casts, death masks, brass rubbings, coal peels, wax impressions, and photographs made of light sensitive materials. In every case the relationship between image and subject is direct and physical and has the nature of evidence rather than testimony.
I believe photographs, the real ones, the ones generated by light altering a sensitive surface, because I believe that the laws of laws of chemistry and physics run their course reliably when no hand or mind intervenes. Testimony doesn’t come into it because a photograph has a genuine indexical relationship to its subject. In consequence of this a photograph constitutes an existence proof of the thing photographed. Not so with digital...or painting, or drawing.

Importantly, none of this well founded belief in the indexical qualities of original photographs grants me leave to be foolish or simple minded about what I think I see when looking at them. As for Robert Burley, he doesn't dig nearly as deep as he could and ends up with an article confusing photography and digi-pix; all this driven by what's going on in rumour-mills, press releases, commercial trends, and pop culture.

[Lachlan717]

So, what you're kinda saying, is that people want to hear David Gilmour create magic with his black 1969 Fender Statocaster with Seymour Duncan pickups than to listen to Kajagoogoo tackle a Casio Keytar? http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WPMByjAlgyU/T ... _front.jpg

[Alastair Moore]

So, what you're kinda saying, is that people was to hear David Gilmour create magic with his black 1969 Fender Statocaster with Seymour Duncan pickups than to listen to Kajagoogoo tackle a Casio Keytar? http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WPMByjAlgyU/T ... _front.jpg

You're probably not far off the truth there, certainly in many circles. How many times do you hear "But x/y/z doesn't even play their own instrument?" when dismissing the latest boy/girl band sensation.

I must admit, I'm more drawn to music played by musicians that are technically brilliant players as well as great song and melody writers. I do have a few guilty pleasures who I won't mention but mainly I'd far rather listen to the David Gilmours of the world rather than the Psy's (of Gungnam Style fame). And I'd say the same goes for art for me. I'm more attracted to giant, complex pieces of art - be it huge paintings, installations or sculptures - rather than three blank canvases.

And from a personal point of view, I know much of the photographs I've shot with my large format camera, I could have shot in less than half the time with a DSLR or iPhone. Sure, the images wouldn't be as sharp or detailed and wouldn't have the same "feel" and I wouldn't be able to print them as big either but I could at the very least capture the same subject. However, when I'm out shooting with my large format camera and subsequently coming home to develop and print the image, I feel like I'm actually creating something real rather than just "taking a picture".

Whether or not my photography is top or bottom of the game (I like to think somewhere around the middle) is besides the point. There has been genuine effort involved in capturing my photographs and printing them, and I wonder if that's part of the point Maris is making?

[Ray Heath]

Interesting responses Walter.

Maris, certainly polemic though I'm not convinced your response confirms any truths.

How is a "digi-pix" more like a painting than a "genuine photograph"?

How can a photograph, unlike a "digi-pix", be "generated with no mind or hand intervention"?

How can one deliberately choose to not look at something?

[Walter Glover]

Perhaps my title for this thread was a tad misleading.

I see Burley's blog more a chronicle of events than as a philosophical treatise — I could be wrong ..... again.

From my perspective the film/digital transition has seen a great deal of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Just consider for a moment the absolute ZENITH that film technology had attained by the cusp of its demise, and compare that with the nadir of the future giant that digital presents. And those wonderful attributes of film could be experienced for a fraction of the cost of comparable attempts at equality in digital.

But, sadly, the world of manufacturing, supply and distribution does not seek its motivation in scintillations of art, but in the gnashing cogs of volume markets and scales of economy.

I shoot digital. I have to shoot digital in order to attempt attaining (or continuing) commercial expedience. Having spent my life since 1965 as a working commercial photographer I am well schooled in the notion of selling out and opting for obedience to the demands of the market.

I prefer shooting film — and more narrowly than just shooting film, I self-limit myself primarily to Black & White film.

Undoubtedly there is an element of schizophrenia to this and each facet of my photographic involvement informs the other. Sometimes in a welcome way, and sometimes in a bothersome way.

Is it really the stuff of a split personality? Or is it, perhaps, just another of the dichotomies that surround us?

I have a Kodak publication on the manufacturing of film which illustrates explicitly the extraordinary levels of technology involved in film. But it was all technology taken care of on our behalf by labs full of geeks in little white coats with pockets full of coloured Biros. Film imaging had gotten as complex as anything could get. And now all that has been detonated or moved into land-fill. Burley has, in my opinion, done little more than provide a relatively close-by peep hole into that industrial process of destruction.