I prefer film cameras. A good film camera is a tool that has weight and balance unmatched by any digital camera I have handled. The low light capability, speed of capture and flexibility of digital open up possibilities that film shooters of the past could only dream.

The advantages of digital are obvious, the image quality is as good or better than most films. A full frame digital can easily match or even surpass the IQ of a medium format film camera.

Photography is ubiquitous. The tools for creating images are ubiquitous. You only need to choose the process that will achieve your vision.

A. Aubrey Bodine would travel to New England in the spring to shoot clouds. He would use those shots to add clouds to some of his shots of Baltimore and the harbor. One of my photography professors would shoot full moons on 4x5 plates with a long lens. He would take exhaustive notes on each shot. Later, he would double expose the plates when he felt a shot could use a 'big moon' in it.

Creating an image entirely in camera is a relatively quaint and naive concept. Historically the negative was only the starting point of the print. Spotting, cropping, unsharp masking, leveling, dodging, burning, most of the language of Photoshop has it's background in the wet darkroom.

I will give you that. The dependability and feel of my digital is nowhere near as natural and organic-feeling as my Pentax, current brokeness aside.

I like having a very wide range of possibilities to work with, and both film and digital provide them in different ways, with the overall widest being with digital methods, either with shooting or editing. And I agree, you use the tools you need or want to create the images you desire.

And that is a clever and fascinating technique! With similar augmentation techniques employed by contemporary Digital photographers, it is heartening to see a basis or early techniques in Traditional photography!

If I could afford it, I would most certainly spend more time experimenting in the darkroom. Once, I painted developing chemicals on a half-developed paper print and created a surreal effect that I am positive I can't create digitally. It's all about expanding your repertoire.

I miss flim cameras but

but economically digital is the better cause I can snap more for less money

Agreed, sadly.

Obviously digital has long reined supreme and will for a very long time, till whatever the next future form is. That said, one shouldn't forget the lovely ways of the past, the simplicities or lack there of. I personally am fine with both, but I'm not a photographer. Hardcore photographers I've long noticed get militant about these things and make it all or nothing. It's unfortunate people can't learn to be content in some form or another, with more than one thing when possible.

You're right about the militancy. I hear people on both sides telling me they (and I) are either not real artists, kitschy, or Hipsters.

It's kinda funny, because while Hipster is such a dumb thing to call someone, I actually do get really annoyed whenever I get called out for trying new things, listening to unusual music or checking out unusual ideas, or attempting my art in a different or a hopefully novel way.

I believe, in a philosophy that extends beyond my art, that having a wide range of understandings of ideas, concepts, techniques, influences, and everything else makes you a more well-rounded person with a greater range to draw from. A woman at my church one lamented her son being a Philosophy major because according to her "studying philosophy is the most Damaging thing to someone's religion". And she isn't wrong; if you only ever expose yourself to one thing, one philosophy, or one type of art, it will be all you can draw from and all you can regurgitate.

Personally, I think that especially in this age where I can have friends across America and across oceans and be able to talk to them with a few keystrokes, I don't think we have an excuse saying we can't pull that off.

Yep, and everyone has preferences which within reason are ok, though even then I question some people's reasonings as it's not entirely out of the question that those reasons are messed up. But to each their own. The photography nut jobs who take it too far and become so obsessed, annoy me to no end. There's plenty of them in Furry and locally believe me. The ones that are NEVER satisfied with what they do, no matter how well it comes out, no matter how much time and money they pour into it. When everyone and their mom tells you you're doing great, and you can only see or hear the opposite, there's something wrong inside your head.

Maybe a screw loose. That and being so one sided on things like digital or film. How retarded that is. Film is all but extinct so I don't get why they find it necessary to belittle the few who love the more 'older fashioned' method which produces beauty just as any other method. I mean for fuck sake, digital wasn't the dominating form till recent history. There's countless iconic photos and more, historical and then some that we all know and remember. Who cares if they were digital or not. As long as the photo looks good, decent quality, and captures a moment in time, a subject matter in that split second that brings something to everyone and or the photographer, what's it really matter? The point isnt' what the format is, it's what the subject matter is and or the history behind it. Anyway, rambling...

Ah well that's a whole different subject and can of worms. Religion, especially if being used ignorantly, hatefully and whatever other sick forms that pollute the basic purpose of good deeds and lives, has always been a target of such things, and thus why they dont' always mix so well. One could say the same of education, especially higher education, and what that does to people's perceptions of religion, again, mostly if it was the super negative, hateful kind. Go figure when they're exposed to much more truth and circumstance, they tend to break away from that which was used only to divide and hurt. It'd be great if all religion wasn't used that way but then humans are a funny little creature. We're capable of so much good and amazing obviously, at least on this planet, but they're also capable of such unimaginable stupidity and evil, both religiously backed and not.

Apples and Oranges. At the end of the day we're all still eating fruit *shrugs*:P.

Agreed! And while I have that feeling of "I can never be perfect" most of the time (something that in the right dosage can be both therapeutic and beneficial to your development as an artist), I feel that I (at least in terms of my role in Fandoming) know my skill level and my "place", for want of a better word. I'm a decent photographer with an entry-level camera and not a lot of Pro experience who has fun taking photos! I'm not going to say I'm awful and I'm not going to claim to be  ezwolf.

And you are right, Film as the commercial norm for photography is fading fast. Polaroid is almost entirely a thing of the past even with its brief but extremely intense presence in the art world. (I fucking miss polaroid, by the way. Look at dis dhit!) Rather than get into a marking contest, just face facts and move forward.

And you're right, that's a can of worms I am way too sleep deprived to tackle. And while my energy has just run out, I agree with your latter sentiments.

And I like fruit. It tastes like Yay *noms* =3

Ah I wondered who had done some of those photos, sweet. I'll have to add em to muh'watch list.

Heh I was havin that conversation just yesterday or today with Wolfbutt. I know it's considered beyond antiquated, but polaroid was pretty neat in it's own right and day, and it'd be fun to bring it back in a contemporary way. Old tech meets new tech, and see where it could go.

Sadly, the cost for continuing Polaroid art is exorbitant. That type of film, which is well-known for its gelatin base which allows incredible manipulations like the Gabriel album cover and the work of this incredible artist, is so friggin rare and expensive. You can actually heat the chemicals until pliable and then push the contents around to make watercolor paintings.

Traditional media is such an expensive process, even outside of photography. The time, the effort, and the materials make such a difference. I lust after traditional pieces from  wielder and  Luthiennightwolf, but the effort that good traditional media requires makes commissions too expensive for what I can afford (although they really do charge fairly for their work). That's the benefit and the drawback of digital. It is quick, faster, cheaper, and offers a greater range of possibilities but cannot truly replicate the giants whose shoulders it stood upon.

On to the future with stead fast assurance, while at the same time never forgetting those that came first.