Here's one I dug up a couple of weeks ago from a road trip from Atlanta to Charleston in the late seventies. This is when I lugged a Pentax 6x7 and a bunch of lenses around. I do miss that camera sometimes, especially the giant thunk that the shutter and mirror made with each exposure. Judging by the plates I think we were still in Georgia at this point.
Hi Peter, I appreciate you sharing these glimpses back in time of Americana. Part of my appreciation of film. I doubt anyone will be looking back at hard drives sitting in drawers much less able to do anything with them on future hardware (at least not the average person) 40 years from now as opposed to the stumbling upon a negative/s such as you have. Thanks again for sharing!
Yes Jon. Film is still a cheap and effective storage medium, but in many cases, you still have to digitize it in order to get the most out of it. I could never had made a print from the negative above that looked remotely like this, but scanning it to capture everything on the neg allowed me to work on the tonality to a point where I'm pretty happy with it. I do remember seeing a quote attributed to Timothy Leary - "If you want to immortalize, digitize" which is kind of interesting. As long as you migrate digital media at timely intervals going forward, there shouldn't be too much of an issue with long term storage. On a certain level, there's an elegant simplicity to ones and zeros. What's really too bad is that so many of the best emulsions are now gone for good - Kodachrome, Plus-X, Tech Pan, etc. And it still surprised me at how good film can look when you treat it right.
I too have been looking at some old shots recently but in my case I used a fuji digital camera to take snaps of some old prints thereby digitising them somewhat erratically when it comes to cropping etc.
The originals were taken with a film Nikon, I think an F70 and show life in the immediate aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, including in the Zaire border areas. I hitched a ride in from Uganda with the USAF and set up a clinic for a German NGO to come and run a month later so I wasn't a journalist or anything, they were just snaps as I worked.
Ian Boys wrote:
I too have been looking at some old shots recently but in my case I used a fuji digital camera to take snaps of some old prints thereby digitising them somewhat erratically when it comes to cropping etc.
The originals were taken with a film Nikon, I think an F70 and show life in the immediate aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, including in the Zaire border areas. I hitched a ride in from Uganda with the USAF and set up a clinic for a German NGO to come and run a month later so I wasn't a journalist or anything, they were just snaps as I worked.
Peter Figen wrote:
Yes Jon. Film is still a cheap and effective storage medium, but in many cases, you still have to digitize it in order to get the most out of it. I could never had made a print from the negative above that looked remotely like this, but scanning it to capture everything on the neg allowed me to work on the tonality to a point where I'm pretty happy with it. I do remember seeing a quote attributed to Timothy Leary - "If you want to immortalize, digitize" which is kind of interesting. As long as you migrate digital media at timely intervals going forward, there shouldn't be too much of an issue with long term storage. On a certain level, there's an elegant simplicity to ones and zeros. What's really too bad is that so many of the best emulsions are now gone for good - Kodachrome, Plus-X, Tech Pan, etc. And it still surprised me at how good film can look when you treat it right. ...Show more →
I am looking forward to do some analog pt./pd contact printing of my digital B&W negatives.Your B&W musician portraits would be great to see in a platinum/ paladium print.
Peter Figen wrote:
Yes Jon. Film is still a cheap and effective storage medium, but in many cases, you still have to digitize it in order to get the most out of it. I could never had made a print from the negative above that looked remotely like this, but scanning it to capture everything on the neg allowed me to work on the tonality to a point where I'm pretty happy with it. I do remember seeing a quote attributed to Timothy Leary - "If you want to immortalize, digitize" which is kind of interesting. As long as you migrate digital media at timely intervals going forward, there shouldn't be too much of an issue with long term storage. On a certain level, there's an elegant simplicity to ones and zeros. What's really too bad is that so many of the best emulsions are now gone for good - Kodachrome, Plus-X, Tech Pan, etc. And it still surprised me at how good film can look when you treat it right. ...Show more →
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wayne seltzer wrote:
I am looking forward to do some analog pt./pd contact printing of my digital B&W negatives.Your B&W musician portraits would be great to see in a platinum/ paladium print.
"Your B&W musician portraits would be great to see in a platinum/ paladium print."
Some of them might work for that. My good friend Frank Schlegel at Samy's Pasadena is an accomplished platinum printer and would no doubt help me out. Platinum has a completely different feel and tonal range than silver or inkjet simulating silver.
