To introduce my background in photography, I grew up taking pictures as a kid with disposable film cameras that you mailed in to develop. Then I had a cheap, plastic camera that I used for a darkroom class I took when I was about 8 ears old, then never really used it again. When I was in middle school, my mom got a digital point & shoot that I would borrow so often, I probably used it more than she did. (It fit in an Altoids tin, why not take it to school?!) After that, I was exclusively digital, and more and more addicted to photography, buying my own point & shoot, then my first DSLR, and now I’m on my second DLSR, and getting back into film photography for my black & white film class this semester.

And now onto my comparison:

I think digital photography is a faster and easier process but you don’t learn as much or get as in depth in the settings as you do with film. For example, my professor explains people who learn on crappy digital cameras today; they take the picture and if it doesn’t turn out, they keep taking it until they get what they like and just delete the bad ones. They don’t know the settings or what they do or why they work. They aren’t making the photographic decision. It’s trial and error with buttons and settings, not really knowing what they’re doing. With a fully manual film camera, you have to really know your manual settings and record them, so when you develop and see that you over- or underexposed, you can see what you did wrong and calculate how to fix that the next time.

I also really love the “magic of the darkroom.” It’s so much more hands on than digital editing, which is just pushing some buttons and moving your cursor around. Getting a good print in film requires so much more skill in developing the film, exposing the negatives correctly, having the right paper, using the chemicals long enough, burning and dodging right, etc. etc. It’s a much richer experience than “open this image file, tweak, save, close.” I’m not sure if they’re even too comparable. I’m beginning to think they are more like cousin art forms… sort of like comparing a watercolor painting to a printer print-out. Not that there aren’t some very high-end and beautiful art works that were printed on fancy printers, but painting is just a longer and older process that is much more hands on, get dirty in your raw materials as compared to the completely virtual process of digital imaging. You basically never have a tangible piece of art in digital photography until it is printed. Whereas with film, you’re working with tangible mediums with your negatives and your paper.

In the end, digital is a much faster and relevant process for today. Especially for portraiture, where you’re expected to have lots of images in a short period of time, and need a fast turn around and lots of options for paying clients. But I still see a use and a need for the film process as art and as documentation. Silver prints still last decades longer than ink-based digital prints. Personally, I would like to use film more, if darkroom and printing sources were more available after I am no longer taking classes.

Comments on your preferences in film vs. digital? What’s your experience?

So I haven’t been posting a lot, one reason being, I’ve been busy taking photos! I founded and currently run the GVSU Photography Club, so I’m always planning and participating in Photo Shoots for that, most recently being a night time photo shoot, and a walk though downtown Grand Rapids viewing Art Prize pieces on display throughout the city. The other event being a wedding I shot, as representative for the Photo Club. It was so much fun! I hope to do more weddings.

Click through the images below to see more on flickr!

Night

Art Prize

Wedding

(not available on flickr)

These are not all the photos lately. These are just the ones from the beginning of October. I’ve been so swamped with school and NaNoWriMo and other projects that I’ve been slow to get around to edit my photos. So expect fall photos round about when it starts snowing! Just kidding… I hope.

I’ve been lagging again on posting. But! I’ve been absorbed with life so I consider that a better use of my time, really. Haha! But to play a little catch-up now, here’s a bit about my trip to Chicago two weeks ago with the art department.

It was the usual trip to The Art Institute of Chicago, which in the past 2-3 years I’ve been to at least half a dozen times. I have the layout of the museum memorized for the most part. I feel like I could give tours and even speak on a few art pieces I know well. Nevertheless, it was a whole new experience for me this time because I had not seen the new, recently completed Modern Wing. Which was awesome. A whole new wing to explore, and whole new collections of recent art of this century to see, and current artists.

One current artist being Cy Twombly. First thing, how awesome is that name? It’s just so fun to say! Cy Twombly. Hehehe! There was also a photography exhibit under works, an audio/visual room for movies and sound pieces. Plus the architecture was just stunning. I highly recommend checking it out if you ever go to Chicago.

Anywho, the other stop on the art department Chicago trips is the Museum of Contemporary Art, a straight shot down Michigan Avenue from the AIC, next to Water Tower Place. We went specifically to see an exhibit that was leaving soon. The main exhibit was by artist Olafur Eliasson.

Olafur Eliasson is from Copenhagen, Denmark and is a very contemporary artist and deals with interactivity with the viewer, one of my favorite things in art. This guy makes you think about his art, without needing much explanation. I was struck with the simplistic beauty of his pieces, but then wondered at the complexity of making them. It was completely spectacular.

One piece, above left, is one of my favorite, a 360º Room of Color. It was a bare, round room, with slowly changing colors of light. It was another sabotage to my eyes, especially from blue to red, or pink to green. But again, it was so beautiful I wanted to stay. Even within the plain circular area, there were different ways to view this. You could stand in the middle and watch other people, and see the changes of color and their faces and follow the rotating colors around the room. Or, you could step in closely to a wall, and erase all trace of people so your vision was filled with pure color. Both were like entering a new world and took time to adjust to.

My other favorite piece, not pictured, is called Room for One Color where the hall of the Museum for Contemporary Art was bathed completely in yellow light. I loved the shock to your eyes as all colors left your vision and they strained to cope. And I loved that as my eyed adjusted while walking down the hall, I began to see that people in the hall looked monotone, yellow and greyscale. It was like looking at a beautiful photograph. I lingered for a while to look at my own clothing composition in greyscale, though I was originally trying to get out of the room as soon as possible to rest my eyes.

The name of Olafur Eliasson’s exhibit is Take Your Time. Basically a request from the artist to slow down and examine the different possibilities of the art around you. And I certainly took my time. I admittedly rushed a bit, but I went around the gallery two or three times, marveling more and more with the many new discoveries that kept coming out of such simple installations. Olafur Elisson is definitely a new favorite artist of mine.

So it’s been my first week back on campus. I’ve been reuniting with friends and wandering the campus again. And I’ve started a new flickr album for the many more photos sure to come this fall as I run the Photography Club for it’s first full year.

So I’ve been missing my weekly post quota since moving back to school. I figured I can relax a bit before getting blasted with school work. But I’ve been doing some work today, prepping for classes and renewing my photography club and I got buried in viewing one of my very favorite photographer’s websites, Richard Avedon. His portraits of people are just so oddly striking and captivating, I can’t help but be mesmerized by them.

His portfolio ranges from fashion photography in his early career, to capturing celebrities as “everyday” people. See this photo of Marilyn Monroe. In most photos, displayed as the happy famous celebrity. Here she seems dejected and depressed. Who else but Richard Avedon could capture this?

He could also make you just as interested in someone from the American West. This girl made it to the cover of his first edition book of his American West portfolio filled with people from the countryside and little towns.

And you might recognize these photos: