Given I'm a digital junkster shooting a mirrorless, I've not really thought about it before but it's struck me that unless you're doing MF, there's really not much of a place identified for filmsters to gather and share.... here, and in a landscape way rather than strictly "Street". I'm not saying so much, "Why is that?" as much as I'm saying, "I'd never thought about that before". Before that is... succumbing to the other counter-trend and picking up a film camera. And yes, it's like joining the Contras... or something similarly uncool. And yet... it's a hipster thing. "As if?" "Not!" But is it easy? No... if you think buying a digital camera is confusing, try wading back into a film market where collectors are distinguishing between the "haves" and "have nots" by serial numbers, markings on the lens barrels and all sort of other details. And I'm not sure it has anything to do with shooting so much as maybe it's what they think St. Ansel or St. Henri or St. Marian shot with. Maybe that sounds familiar? Sadly, probably so. Anyway, FWIW from a aging nobody geezin' Sony shooter, I know it's not news what I do, but it did seem news that the only place here for film is in MF... and it's decidedly MF. And MF is great and should be here, and I almost went there... pulled by the siren song of the Mamiya 6. But somehow I resisted. Maybe I shouldn't have....
But that's all I wanted to note. There is a movement to shoot film among some of us. There's even an effort to revive ("Ferrania" and/or "Ektar") brands or extend them ("Cine Still")... and it's not quite so underground or reactionary as at least I thought. Yes, there's the Rangefinder forum and it's very useful. There's even the analog group out there, too. But what stands out as noteworthy is that a serious site like this for (mostly?) professionals (which candidly I'm decidedly "not!"), isn't lifting an eyebrow at the "Film is not dead...yet...again?" movement (or is it?). The undead are still mostly dead, but maybe we'd be better off if the Zombie cameras and freezer film weren't the only choices? or if film actually was a capable choice? Hard to say. But if like me, you like to listen to the dog that didn't bark, and that's what I think I'm hearing. And mostly it seems to be barking that something's passing by but it's not sure whether it's coming to the door or just walking down the street and more easily ignored. My dog doesn't do this...consideration of possibilities is just not his way. "I'm not barking my fool head off. Really. Everyone really is trying to break in... cant you see? Let me do my job!" But we'd sure be happier if he pondered the mailman's course before raging. So I wonder when I go to a wedding and the bride's family has hired a photographer shooting a TLR, and my own daughter whose upcoming wedding looms lets me know, "There's even some photographers out there... the hipsters... shooting film...". Yep. Yes... and as has been noted surely here as elsewhere on completely different subjects, the Society for Creative Anachronisms is constantly looking for new members. And it's relatively easy to find the members - for a while, but harder to generate the "creative" part and keep them. And just because you stand out with a TLR that looks sooooo retro doesn't make you any better (or less ridiculous) than a photographer carrying a giant DSLR with a 300mm circumference lens 'cause that's what the wedding planner told them qualified. Yes, our wedding planner actually suggested, "The good ones are distinguished by how much time they spend in post processing." Really? WOW!
In the end to me, digital works because it's clearly a tool serving today as critically as film did earlier. FWIW, today's film seems to be a passion where it is harder to distinguish whether the passion is for the images made, or for the (vintage) technology, or the photographic process itself. Maybe the only thing different in that sentence is "Film" and "vintage"? And then there's the hybrid where the two meet, and film shooters digitize their negatives for post-production... which is where I kind of want to keep it. But what all this leaves me wondering about is less about the technology itself, and more the collective decision to move from chemical-based film to electronic-based digital... and was it really a choice, or a marketing led revolution turning proven tools for making art into another consumer good? Did it really, or is that just easy to say and the trashing and disposing of digital cameras no more true today than analogs were back in their day? Electrical instruments and rock'n'roll didn't eliminate analog instruments and Classical symphonies, but it did change something of the sense of their use and place in our culture, and today both co-exist and thrive side by side...even if it's uneasily and the money favors the simpler, more (often crass) popular sound. In the end, we might wonder with the crashing of the digital camera market (Nikon anyone?) similar to the collapse of incomes for the music industry, perhaps the prospects for art made with either film and digital ought to be about the same. And film landscape shooters welcome anywhere (as I'm sure they are).