Life in the Time of Virtual Photography

What you're looking at is a scan of a straight print I made from a black and white negative I shot roughly 15 years ago. The model's name is Julia Posey. Ironically enough, it's easier for me to get a neutral gray on my LCD display (and hopefully yours) than on my Epson R800 printer. That's what happens when images are translated from tangible to virtual.

For all its inconvenience and challenges, the one thing film photography has going for it is that an image on film is unambiguous. The tones and colors are all right there in front of your eyes. Even if they aren't a perfect match for what you saw when you released the shutter, they serve as a fixed point of reference for any future generations. You can look at a negative and tell how much shadow and highlight detail you've got. With experience you can tell how easy or difficult it will be to print and what type of paper will produce the result you're looking for.

The same is true of color transparency films, with the added benefit that you have a clear visual reference for color. Even if you choose to alter the color, at least you can see what it originally was in the transparency.

This is not true of digital images. Conceptually, a digital image is not a tangible object but rather a description of something tangible. It becomes tangible only if and when that description is translated by something that has the ability to emit light (such as a digital display device) or to create a print that reflects light.

This approach to imaging works remarkably well--that is, until you start getting particular about how accurately your image is being interpreted from one display device to the next. Then you begin to notice that the image on your camera's display looks more green than the original scene but more yellow than your computer display. You begin to notice that the perfectly balanced 128,128,128 middle gray on your monitor looks a bit magenta when you print it on your six-color inkjet printer. Try to correct the gray and the other colors go bad on you.

And then there are the problems you don't notice, such as out of gamut colors. Simply put, if your display or printer can't reproduce it, how do you know it's there? How do you know how much better an image would look if you see the full range of colors described in the digital file? How will it look if you send it to someone else with a different display device, one inferior or superior to yours?

To be sure, strict color management, a consistent workflow and high-quality displays and printer will mitigate most of these problems--as long as the original digital description stays intact. If it's ever corrupted or altered then all bets are off.

So am I nostalgic for the golden years of film photography? Not exactly. I'm fully up to speed on digital photography and I have no trouble producing high-quality images. I'm just aware that it's not all wine and roses. There's a satisfaction in being able to refer to a piece of processed film that no virtual image will ever replace.

Comments

[George C]

That's why I'm always so happy to wet print my black and white negatives in my throw together darkroom (which is only dark enough when it's dark outside!) It's so nice to switch off from sharpening, resizing and curves and to watch those blacks appear under the safelight. Maybe I'm lazy not to learn PS inside out but as long as I can avoid it where printing is concerned, I will...

[Jerry Kircus]

Yea well, variations in film, development, lens, and camera cause variations in the results of film photography, variations you can never change. I gave up my wet darkroom after 40 years and will never look back. Use the medium that makes you happy.

[Gianni Galassi]

The first time I got in a darkroom I was twelve. The last time I was fifty, five years ago. I don't miss it at all. White spot retouching, for instance, was a real nightmare. Are you sure that referring to a piece of processed film is a more "focused" approach to the imaging process than looking at a well calibrated monitor? Perhaps we are still too young in our Photoshop learning curve, which is clearly shorter than our darkroom experience so far. But time is on our side...

[Gordon Lewis]

Gianni,

What I'm saying is that the quality of a piece of processed film is self-evident. You can easily tell whether it is under- or over-exposed, scratched, faded, whatever. But how do you know you have a well-calibrated monitor? Because you calibrated it yourself? Will your well-calibrated monitor display an image as accurate as a monitor that costs $3000 and has a much larger color gamut? The answer is "It depends." And that, at it's most basic, is my point.

[Aubrey Silvertooth]

After two and one-half years of digital photography (and loving almost every minute of it) I find myself setting up my analog darkroom again. I simply miss it. I love the results I get from my DSLR, but I miss the technical side of analog photography. I miss the feel and smell of the chemicals. I miss watching the print appear in the tray. I miss the enjoyment of slowly, methodically exposing film, processing and printing. I don't miss cleaning up the mess, however!

[Timothy Bates]

“Simply put, if your display or printer can't reproduce it, how do you know it's there?” I find this statement to be profoundly true. Film is just there, not just virtually there. Many of us don’t print much anymore for many reasons which is a huge and potentially regrettable shame. My reason is because I share similar frustrations and observations. Now I resign myself to viewing photos mostly on the highest quality display I can afford. My hope is that displays will improve over time and one day soon I can view my scanned negatives and digital photos on a screen that comes closer to accurately revealing as much information from the digital file as possible. Or maybe one day, hopefully soon, in all seriousness, we can easily and inexpensively, with 100% accuracy, burn our DNG files onto slide or negative film for true long term archival and printing purposes? In the meantime, I’ll continue to get out there everyday with my Canon A1 and 5D MKII and enjoy both for what they are.

[JMR]

I don't know Lewis... I know we can't go back to the film days, but some days all this emphasis on technology really gets me down and it is relentless to boot. DNG, JPEG, TIFF, special monitors, calibration units and software, computers and back-ups, image manipulation and conversion software, lens software, specialty software for portraitists and BW- sounds really complex and expensive to me. Compare that to camera and lenses, some slide or negative film and a used projector. That's it. All of us, and no matter what site you go to, sometimes sound more like technologists rather than photographers. I confess to not printing my images very much, but when a print was needed we simply went to the lab. Most of the people I know who were any good sold their images (slides)through stock agencies and didn't really care what tinge the buyer placed on the images, as they were going to alter them anyway. So I agree, the slide is a better indicator than all this new technology. All one really needs to know, is the relative pallette of the film being used. Oh, I almost forgot, now I have to get my slides scanned professionally because a good scanner costs quite a bit. So do I feel nostalgic...you bet! And with good reason. Fortunately, some sites like yours predominantly deal with the art of seeing and the aesthetics of photography as well.

JMR

[Rick]

I wonder if the same can be said for typing (you know, on a type writer) out a manuscript.