Well, film or digital manipulation of film, you only need to look at some 16"x20" black/white prints from the 60s, shot on 4"x5" and printed on real, SWG b/w single-grade paper, not the plasticised quick-wash, multi-everything rubbish that replaced it, to see very clearly that film was special, in the sense of unbeatable by later techniques...
We've gained convenience and lost other qualities. We can now make computered prints more crisp, exercise greater minute control over how they might look, but overall, it isn't, to me at least, as rewarding a final product. But then, unless you were there at the time, you neither know nor have reason to care; it wasn't your baby went down the tubes with the bathwater.
I'm convinced that my view is sound because of one, simple proof: I sometimes reopen an old paper box that contains seldom seen bits and pieces from my past days; the shock of what I see is sobering. I think my A3+ things on Hahne papers are great, safely stored within their archival print sleeves, and then I pick up one of those 8"x10" prints from my F3 and I despair, even though I know that those prints are on plastic papers that I despised but had to use due to water shortages here. They just have a feel that digital doesn't. Yes, I can be, and usually am accused of being out of touch with this world, but that doesn't, yet, make me deny the reality I can still see.
Rob C
