Does Digital have no soul?

[martolod]

.  Maybe digital photography needs a few more years and a few more legends before it acquires soul.

it's almost like film is the gentleman being chauffeured in a limousine and digital the young punk with the funny hair in a souped up Yokohama rice burner Import....one is all steady as you go, old school reliability long established values and a certain etiquette, whereas the other is fast , crammed full of technology that at times you need a doctorate in Quantum Mechanics to understand.
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another thought just occurred to me - more than any other techno gadget that i know, digital cameras really do symbolise the 'i want it know' generation...instant gratification ...the picture is there ready to be printed edited
(and it's not a criticism levelled at those of us who use digital...it's all about attitude to put it another way you can have a man of means that is not materialistic and a man of little means who is extremely materialistic)
i often see all these young kids with their digicams (either phone cam or p&s) and they snap away and  sometimes the picture is printed but all to often there is no permanence to the image-it's often quickly deleted  or left on a hard drive  and forgotten. Because their is no intrinsic cultural/historical/emotional value attached to image it becomes a 'throw away' item once it has satisfied the whim of the one taking it. so in that regard digital has lost it's soul by making things available right here right now, for very little effort.
film on the other hand...there is something tangible,something tactile (neg or slide) a moment in time frozen as a solid, not lost as a bunch of electrons in cyberspace- when Ron Bishop or Les get their images out from the cabin ron grew up in or Les' time in italy, these are are pictures 50+years old...i like to see one of the Gen Y kids do that with their mobile phones in 50years time.........get out one of their pictures from soooo long ago

[Alan Gage]

I'm sure every bad word being said about digital now was said about 35mm when it first arrived on the scene. The same is probably true for medium format as well.

The curmudgeons either get over it or eventually die of old age and then everyone can just go back to taking pictures until the next new thing comes along, then it starts all over again.

Alan

[LarryD]

I have a few years left and a freezer full of film but I will try Digital because it is also a tool it is just that to me the look is different. As for the soul in a picture my wife has always told me she sees in my photographs a piece of my soul that she can't get with photography but she can with her painting or sculpturing. I am seeing all sides here.

Mark As you said it is the person behind the camera You shoot film correct?

I would like to see everyone who has entered a thought on this tell me what medium they use most.

Still not trying to start any arguments just listening and setting myself strait in where I should go with my future.

Your friend Larry

[Alan Gage]

I have a few years left and a freezer full of film but I will try Digital because it is also a tool it is just that to me the look is different.

I didn't mean to imply that everyone had to follow suit. Just that eventually these conversations will end and photography will just be photography, whether it be film or digital.

Alan

[melek]

Digital is great for what it is. Technically excellent photos that you can turn around very quickly. Online newspapers love digital, because you can get a news photo up in minutes, provided the photographer can send into the system remotely.

Of course, digital makes photo manipulation much too easy. And the amount of sharpening that occurs with digital sometimes goes too far. It's possible for a photo to be too sharp.

I see it as 50-50 -- whatever floats your boat.

Digital isn't my thing, but I understand how it can be for others.

[martolod]

I would like to see everyone who has entered a thought on this tell me what medium they use most.

75/25 at the moment digital/film
digital when i need something quick or when i'm lazy
film when i want permanence and something tactile and when i am in Zen Mode

[mdcarma]

Approx 100 digital shots of the parade today, about half of them for the Funeral Home.
Two rolls of Fuji color thru the Z2X, and a half roll of TriX thru the XA.

[Todd G]

I once read a comment from Ansel Adams, that he wasn't initially drawn to 35mm due to the "unusually superficial approach that casual facility encourages."  The same could be said of digital, multiplied many times.  Especially when so many seem to be in awe of what they think computers can do and hold the attitude that all photos can be made into masterpieces with just the right PhotoShop technique.

A photographer shooting large format is seriously encouraged by its nature (and cost per shot!) to think before shooting.  Even a snapshooter, years ago, with a box camera lived with the reality they had only eight or maybe twelve shots on the roll, and many didn't have more than one roll on hand at a time.  So there was lots of incentive to think before tripping the shutter.  But with digital the incentive, reinforced by camera ads on TV, is to just shoot and shoot and shoot away.

I think digitally created images probably can have as much "soul" as those created with film, but only if the photographer takes the time to think before shooting.  Thinking seems to be becoming the rare exception, and not just among photographers.  

Is it someone here who has the quote on their posts, "Study to become learned, but observe to become wise"?

[Greg M]

Martolod said it really well.  There is really no film is better or digital is better, it's about what we value.
  Larry, this thread just gets better and better.

[omrobison]

Many good points. For me its the direction cameras have headed in the last 20 years. I think with the introduction of the Canon auto-focus cameras the landscape changed. Suddenly everyone wanted to emulate the free-form , slightly melted, push button/control wheel selection of exposure, plastic everywhere look of the Canon EOS series. I just cannot get used to such controls. The ideal digital SLR for me would be to unclip the removable back from my OM-1, and then, attach a digital back with necessary power pack and room for the computer chip to process the data. I would even consider an undersized image sensor, say 18X24mm. That would let my 24mm have about a AOV of about a 35mm on a 24X36 frame. I know.....all it would take is money, lots of it. But I, and, I suspect most of us here don't have lots of money and this thing would no doubt have to sell for three grand at least. So I think my idea won't happen.

[melek]

Every time I think that medium format is a pain in the neck, I take a look at some 6x6 prints and fall in love with it again.

I've never said that about digital. I've been wowed by technical specs, but the results are too sanitary for my tastes. Technical perfection isn't what I seek.

In the same vein, I don't want a Blackberry. I don't want to be that connected. The only thing more annoying than a Blackberry is trying to hold a conversation with someone who owns one. They're constantly looking at the damn thing, hoping they got an e-mail. The things are always beeping, blurping, buzzing.

Before I leave work, I stick my phone in my backpack. I never have the ringer on. Yeah, I miss calls now and then. Actually, I miss a lot of them. But I don't think my life is so important that I need to have that thing grafted to my ear.

Oh, back to digital. Yeah, I love digital.

[David Bedell]

Larry, I think you're seeing lots of boring or indifferent photography on the Internet because of digital: Digital makes it POSSIBLE for you to see pictures taken by hacks.  

Before the Internet/digital age you'd largely only see published photography in the printed media, which is (in general) taken by only the best photographers working in the most interesting situations.  Hence "soul".

Skip Flickr for a week and only look at the photography in newspapers and magazines.  I think you'll see plenty of GREAT stuff taken with digital equipment.

[GeneW]

I've always believed it's the photographer, not the gear. Digital doesn't change this.

I shoot almost all my colour in digital and most of my B&W with film. I honestly don't see any less 'soul' in my digital work than I do in my C-41 or slides.

I see a lot of bad photography done with digital, just as I used to see a lot of bad photography done with P&S film cams.

One of the things I like about digital is how it's encouraged so many people to try their hand at photography. Some will always be duffers and snapshooters, but others will blossom -- perhaps discovering their 'soul' via a DSLR.

I love shooting with my older film gear -- the feel and heft of mechanical cameras still does something for me. But I get just as excited when I pack my D300 and a couple of Nikkor primes.

It's all good, or bad, depending on your POV.

Gene

[LarryD]

Would you say this has soul? It was taken with the Vivitar Slim&Wide camera Elitechrome 200. I saw the empty play ground felt lonely and took this picture.

[Alan Gage]

I'll say no, but I can't say that I think of photography or any art that way, that it has soul.

Let me ask; Would you think differently of that photograph if it was taken with a digital? What if it was adjusted in photoshop and had the same "look" as yours?

Wouldn't that actually give it more "soul" since it required the creator to take a regular plain photo and alter it to fit his mood and what he saw in his mind at the time rather than just pointing and shooting? (Just playing devil's advocate there).

I believe most people who think their photography is more pure by saying things like, "I only use natural light, I only shoot B&W, I only shoot film, I only shoot digital, I only shoot XX format, I don't use any photoshop, I only use curves/levels in photoshop, I rely on photoshop for everything, etc..." are just trying to cover for the fact that they don't understand or know how to use all those other things; so they convince themselves that somehow it's better not to.

I'll be the first to admit that I've fallen into that trap before and still do to this day. But once I've gotten over it I've found great new possibilities open up.

I'll shoot film again someday. Not because it's necessarily better, but because the mechanical part of me likes the process of fiddling with all the little levers and knobs and I really like the "thwump" noise that a MF SLR mirror makes. It makes a different part of my brain happy.

But right now from a practical standpoint I know that a DSLR is just what I need and I love using it and the results that it gives. It's in K1000 mode 98% of the time; manual focus and manual exposure with a handheld incident meter. And we all know that the best way to suck the soul right out of a photo is by letting the camera automatically decide focus, aperture, and shutter speed.

Whoops, I did it again!

Alan