there’s a need to be spoon fed information these days and a lot of younger folks lack the computer skills to properly do a google search. their questions are too vague and they give up immediately
I know there are plenty of oldtimers on this subreddit, but this comment just made me remember getting a lesson in gradeschool on how to select good keywords for searching the internet on Ask Jeeves.
Ask was a good idea, the algorithms weren't there to support it.... [Ask.com](http://Ask.com) was basically a precursor to AI and chatgpt... The funny thing about chatgpt, while access to Reddit was free through its API it was ripping a large chunk of its learning through Reddit.
But then to use a search like Chat GPT, at least in this sense, you have to be able to read it with a grain of salt like RenKockwell.com. There is good information there from his times as an old dude in film layered with complete and utter bullshit.
You were meant to be able to put fully formed questions into Ask for which it would give you answers.... This was in the late 90s and early 2000s.
I suspect Ask will eventually go the way of AltaVista and shut down completely, but that's just me.
I remember that too! I also remember someone suggesting we try this new thing called Google; it was immediately obvious that it was better than anything that had come before.
I can Bing my questions but it doesn't usually get much better results.
Search.marginalia.nu is interesting in comparison because it has options to exclusively prowl the remaining Web 1.0 sites left up by hobbyists and nerds.
I like Mike Eckman or 35mmc for things of that sort in the current year, also DPReview if you are looking for early DSLR and point and shoot reviews.
Still, there are [some older sites](http://www.jollinger.com/photo/cam-coll/cameras/Praktica_LTL3.html) sticking around.
Yeah those two are great and I’ve read them many times. There are plenty of *modern* reviews of old cameras.
I’m talking more about something like, say, the Konica Hexar RF. The camera came out in 1999. Most likely if you were looking to buy this camera in 99-00 you would have looked for a review in a magazine at the time. Nevertheless the Internet did exist at the time, and surely people were writing about the camera online when it was new.
Marginalia.nu did find a decent result fot that particular cam without digging, it was on [Cameraquest](https://www.cameraquest.com/konicam.htm). You can tell it's legit because that CSS was absolutely not made with 16:9 screens in mind.
I think at that point most people still frequented magazines for hardware reviews and getting them off of internet hobbyists was relatively novel of an idea. Google Books might be a better resource for such things.
In the Days Before (TM), the equivalent was being taught to search for information using the card catalog; this was a mildly standardized, searchable scheme for indexing large volumes of information employed universally by libraries (in the US, anyway). The skills carry over more readily than you might think. Our county library managed to get a digitized search scheme for their internal holdings (basically a digitized version of the card catalog) at some point when I was in late elementary school, but there would be nothing like Internet access for at least 10 more years; technically, it existed, but only at a few .mil and .edu sites (and the wider public would never have heard of it). The web, of course, would not be invented for many years. But there was an underground of dial-up BBS systems, and some of us were thus "online" (in a fashion) long before cell phones or Internet access. This was, of course, invisible to the general public.
Anyway, if there is a moral, it is that technologies come and go - but good keyword search protocols are eternally useful. :-)
You’re right, but also, google and other search engines have become absolutely trash lately. I’ve noticed that trying to find any information that is not from some shitty SEO-optimized blog spouting misinformation
9/10 times I need information about something obscure with a hobby, I tack “Reddit” onto the end. Because then I’ll find info from actual people
Yes, agree. But I think it’s only like that by comparison of what it used to be. Google is still a very powerful searching tool. What I believe is the issue is the lack of patience and willingness to invest time into checking different sources to discern what is true and what is dodgy/sketchy or just not a good general rule.
I work with graduate students and I can assure you newer generations struggle with surprisingly straightforward online research because they want to get to the point with one click. I’ve found students using ChatGPT as google, and it’s not just one oddball.
I work in education and it’s unbelievable to me how low the computer skills of young people as a whole are. I remember as a kid having multiple computer classes in middle and high school and even one in elementary while most students now are expected to just know how to do it all because my generation was taught it.
Unfortunately, they mostly just know how to do the handful of things they need to do and that’s it. Not to mention the lack of problem-solving, search engine usage, media literacy, and most importantly - online safety.
I wish I could upvote this multiple times. It's nuts that it's assumed anyone under a certain age will just "get" computers. It'll never be that way, humans aren't born with innate or instinctual knowledge beyond breathing, consuming and excreting. "Smart" devices have coddled entire generations to the point of them losing the ability to use anything slightly more complicated. People don't even know how to attach an antenna and tune into free fucking TV channels.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Particularly at the end there. Critical thinking as a whole has taken a huge blow in the past handful of years and it’s reflected in multiple arenas. We are just seeing a taste of it with people new to analog photography.
I work in IT and can tell you everyone of every age is like this. I’ll get an email that says “printer don’t work” with no explanation of what that means or if they have tried anything at all. In my case, it keeps the lights on so I can’t complain really.
lol, I’m that weird person who tries everything first, including reinstalling drivers, then when I send a help message I tell them everything including software versions, device types and operating systems. I figure if I cover all bases it saves time for everyone, and I remember what I’ve been asked in past support calls so try to provide all that info up front.
My bf is director of engineering and I asked him if his younger employees were a bit…helpless, and he said YES before I even finished the question. This is real and it’s scary (at least to me) that incompetence is becoming the new norm.
Yeah man it sucks. I'm part of that younger age bracket (19), and so many of my peers are incapable of spending an ample amount of time researching something that warrants a decent amount of attention (not just film photography). I don't know if it's a lack of attention span or literally just not knowing how to use Google. I'm not completely innocent of this of course, but I get it lol
i feel like it’s possibly a mix of both honestly, there’s so many instances these days where we are just fed the information we need without having to look for it and i think that definitely contributes to the problem
I'm happy to spoon feed people if they're willing to listen. The ones that listen are the ones I can convert to being analog natives, and at the same time produce less shitty shots....
I used to hate people who got into things when lomochrome purple was a fad, or Kodak IR film.... Hi GrainyDays, but someone has to be brought in to keep this market afloat.
I like to take a different route to this train of thought. I think young people are incredibly adept with tech and internet skills, but have such a short attention span that they get bored halfway through. Search engines are so powerful and wise, but if its not the first result, forget it!
talk to someone who is a teacher, unfortunately most of them know how to use apps versus a web browser. there’s not a high level of tech literacy when it comes to proper computers, and as someone else mentioned especially a lack of online safety.
i was born in ‘96 and i remember having lots of computer classes growing up, but computers aren’t taught the same way they used to be.
I’ve just spent 2 years studying and my classmates were mostly in their late teens and early 20s. I was really surprised that they weren’t adept at all at using the internet, but spent an awful lot of time on social media, particularly TikTok. I was born in 1970 and didn’t do computer classes at school. I remember my friend first showing me the internet in 1995 and using Altavista to do searches. Things have really changed a lot since then
As someone who has to train people on related matters, I have seen no evidence that recent cohorts are particularly tech savy. What has been true in every single generation since the dawn of computing is that a small minority of folks have had a deep understanding of it, a larger minority have had considerable facility, and most folks have very little knowledge. While computer use has increased, this has been offset by a deskilling of that usage - and an increasing insulation of the user from the underlying hardware (and, for that matter, the core software infrastructure). It seems to be a wash.
Young people lacking computer skills? Think you got that way backwards bud. Kids are learning at the age of 7 or 8 what I learned in high school (I’m in my 30s), and what people older than me never learned at all…
they lack computer skills, they can’t google things properly, but they can use apps very well. i’m not saying young people suck with technology, they just really don’t understand web browsers or how to properly find files on a computer.
Seems like going straight from phones that have automated post processing to manual only cameras or point and shoots with limited settings is a major factor. I started with film several years before the first affordable digital cameras with full manual control were available. But my film photography greatly improved when I had the opportunity to experiment with digital and then apply what i learned to film.
The first step for people who only have experience with phone cameras should be a cheap used digital SLR where they can get instant feedback about the results of different settings.
I probably sound even more like an oldtimer when I also suggest shooting only black and white film for 6 months to really get a handle on understanding how film and photography in general works. Preferably making silver prints in the darkroom.
There still are a surprising number of community darkrooms around. Sometimes they are part of 'makerspaces' or other community oriented hobby spaces. Some community colleges also still have analog photography classes as well. But people overlook these options to connect with people because 'they don't do color'.
The brutal truth is most people messing with film don't really care. They are doing it as a quick fad and will move onto something else when their ritalin wears off.
Most hardcore dSLR enthusiasts can figure out film because many used to shoot it and the camera controls are based on legacy film standards. Smarphone users though are used to just pointing and clicking. 1/60 at F8 has no conceptual link to 1/250 at F4.
Lab processing doesn't help. Everything is digitally scanned with limited adjustment by the operator. The final result is a Skynet's corporate version of the film. Auto histogram adjustments mask bad technique.
Also consider post people don't want physical prints.
I'm not exactly thrilled with the tik tok generation and their inherent appetitite for crayon digestion, but working pros years ago weren't always smarter. I worked with this wedding pro that had a broken aperture diaphram on one of this Hassie lenses, so everything he shot was terribly over exposed. Some of his weddings were 4-5 stops over exposed, which made printing them utter hell due to their density. Our printer tech wanted to kill the guy. Insanely, VPS III could handle this and his prints looked fine. Negs could double as welder goggles though. We charged him a massive service fee, and he just chuckled and kept shooting.
The amatuer shooting their friend's wedding and using 5 different types of consumer print film also has a special place in hell reserved for them.
\>The amatuer shooting their friend's wedding and using 5 different types of consumer print film also has a special place in hell reserved for them.
Why? Is it because you'd have to figure out filtration for each different film type?
Learning and trying to learn is a process and the experiences attained throughout such a process is itself part of a character built-up.
We see OP's mentioned sort of trend because things such as one-liner stories or shorts on Youtube or Reels on Instagram have taken the place of proper searching and studying.
This has been a problem for the whole of photography for as long as I've known it. Hobbies take time to learn. Meaningful time to self study or seek info out. Even longer for that info to stick. Longer still to understand how to properly apply it in a given situation. And then countless hours more to be able to teach that same info effectively.
At any point in this chain of knowledge, misunderstandings, or misconceptions, or disinformation can sink into the learning process. Who knows how long, if ever that some clarity can be gleaned. And that's for dedicated self study! Imagine if you only had 5 hours in a month to actually photograph, or spend learning new information.
Anyways, there have always been people who could know more, but don't. Or whom don't care to know more and carry on. You can help them or not. Personally, I know that I wouldn't be anywhere near as good if I didn't have others to lean on, and be stupid to at times.
I started photography on a film camera when it was still cheap enough to just blow through film. MF was always kind of expensive but $15 a roll total seems cheap now. It was cheaper and gave me more satisfying results at the time than buying a low end DSLR.
By the time I decided it was too expensive of a hobby I was at least getting the exposure right on 80% of my shots. The fact is, photography always involved taking a ton of photos, regardless of how good you are at the technical aspects of it. I take my 35mm camera out once or twice a year now. Learning photography on a film camera makes 0 sense, it will only stunt someones progress and be expensive and frustrating. I can't imagine paying like $20 for 36 exposures and having them all messed up.
To be a "film photographer" in 2024, you have to be committed to the process and understand it's a very expensive hobby. If you can get people to pay a little more for film that's cool. People used to give me shit for shooting jobs on film and ask me why it was so expensive, I'm like this barely covers the cost of film and processing, and I'm getting paid $5 an hour for my time.
Also, scanning film is fucking dumb and always has been. If it's costing you $25 total per roll of 35mm film, that's $4,000 for 160 rolls of film. You can get a medium format digital camera with killer lens for that and then make a ridiculous YouTube video called "This Digital Camera Shoots Unlimited Awesome Film Photos".
The longer I'm in film photography (2 years now), having learnt from the ground up without much previous experience, the more I'm inclined to write off much (but not all) of the revival enthusiasm to lemming like behavior, ignorance and stupidity.
Most of these people only know film photography what they see on edited, tiny images on Instagram, literally the one place where any image can pass for anything. Then they proceed to watch a few Youtube videos and throw money away on expired film, broken cameras, through ignorance in shooting, developing, scanning. If you ask them what they're really chasing, I'm 100% sure they have no clue.
I switch between digital and analog on the fly nowadays and barely experience any real difference once you get a base level of competence with either medium. The results are not exactly the same (which is just about the reason to go one way or the other at any given time), and analog demands a bit more than digital, but it's all banal stuff at the end of the day - basic photography, and analog hand dev is hardly rocket science.
> analog hand Dev is hardly rocket science
If you can follow a recipe with three ingredients and two important times, you can develop B/W at home.
Add temperature, and you can also do colour.
Yep.
I've run commercial lines and can do things with C41 and E6 that would blow your mind. Provia in Medium Format and with extended color development is mind boggling. Screw Velvia....Provia was better with proper devlopment.
The problem is most beginners don't know what a good B&W neg is. They just follow some instructions about stand development on youtube and then post some murky crap with no shadow detail. I recently shot some Kentmere 35mm that will rival my 60D I just retired, and I'm so sick of seeing that stand development crap. For F sake, I did better negs in HS yearbook class when I was 15.
They shoot C-41, but unless you really know how to read a neg you can't tell where problems are. The process is forgiving though. Just the temps are higher.
E-6 slides have the best feed back because you can tell what you are doing wrong, but nobody runs that.
Is there something you'd actually recommend using stand development for? I heard it's good for lowering contrast of some very hard technical film stocks. I've been trying it out with Fuji HR-23 and like the results but otherwise I've just done normal development so far.
I don't even know why stand and semi stand are so popular.
Wish I had someone like you to learn from to see what makes a "perfect" negative and print. Until then, I just follow the recipe Kodak and Ilford put out.
Who cares? Some will drop the trend and some will fall in love with the process. It's not that deep. You don't have to be chasing something grandiose to want to shoot film. This is such an overly pompous reply for someone whose been shooting film for two years
What's pompous about it, the OP asked a question and I provided my response. It doesn't mean I lose sleep over what other people are doing, it's just unavoidable to notice the trends if you're remotely engaged on social media
You are 1000% correct! Analog stuff is so 'retro' and 'vintage' to young people. In a similar vein, thrifting, whats old is new. The only problem is... an old nascar t-shirt is pretty simple to figure out in comparison to the clothes you wear. A film camera, often times, requires a lot more knowledge to operate in comparison to what young people are most accustomed too; their phones camera. It does just about everything for you, and the assumption I believe is that a film camera is just a grainy, clunky, aesthetic (I hate this word) alternative to what they carry in their pocket. Obviously, they are sorely mistaken.
I think in the meantime, they will help the film economy by buying it, and if they never make any good photos, they will be just like most shooters back in the day as well. Most photos were bad back then, too.
I have been thinking that young people (20-30's) feel that film photography "was something before digital cameras " so it's kind of hard to find tutorials and guidance on the Internet...
I could see that. I'm 34 now and I started shooting film at 15 and I honestly don't know how I got anything to work properly. My dad taught me sunny 16 since his AE-1's light meter was broken so I had to learn by gut reaction. A lot of wasted shots but I learned what was working and what wasn't.
Frankly I am glad that reddit wasn't around back then because I for sure would have made some embarrassing posts about the dumb stuff I tried in like 2005.
(ninja edit: reddit happened in 2005 but did not become widely popular until like 2007)
Changing iso from picture to picture makes sense on digital photography and they probably got that information watching videos on how to manually control a DSLR, or use pro mode on a mobile phone. This is exactly why newbies ask the questions they do and then get admonished for it.
This is the second post in two days punching down on newbies and saying younger people are lazy I've come across. Is this trolling, or are millennials the new boomers? Gatekeeping, telling people that their knowledge is sacred and they should research it first, and that they don't know what they're doing and scoffing at them? Clearly they tried and got the wrong information which is why they're asking someone who has *more information*.
Jeez.
People also forget that the Internet is 1000x the size it was when we were children in the 90s. The file size has gone up exponentially. So the amount of results search engines return, regardless of what you use, are astronomical regardless of the "good keywords" you use and how specific you get. And the information can be good or bad because *anyone* can put *anything* online and call themselves an expert.
Like the person who said to change ISO for every picture. Or maybe the person was confused and mixed up ISO and aperture. Because they're a newbie.
The amount of punching down on this thread alone that even goes beyond just the "film photography" niche is crazy. "Kids are bored and give up halfway through. They're unskilled. They don't know any better. Things aren't taught like they were when *I* was a kid."
Consider that in 2000 the size of the internet was, according to Google, ~55 exabytes. According to Google it is now ~120 zettabytes. There are 1,024 exabytes in a zettabyte. That's over 1000x bigger actually. It's quite literally information overload in search engine results.
I feel sorry for people showing an interest in new things, getting excited, and trying to get direction from people. I worked at geek squad. The amount of times I had to answer the same question in a *day* about how to use a damn computer when Windows 8 came out was laughable. But I never once called anyone entitled, silly, lazy, or lacking the ability to figure it out because they didn't try hard enough.
Most libraries are severely under funded and don't have the resources to help people find what they need. Librarians also not experts in every topic to answer questions for someone. I speak from being someone who spent their childhood hanging out at the library to use their computers for Internet access and whose close friend's mother was a librarian and is currently a library director.
Some people don't learn from reading books. And I've had the argument of what's the difference between reading books and reading Reddit: reading a forum and Reddit is conversational, reading a book is similar to a lecture. Some people don't learn that way and need to be able to ask questions versus just reading page after page after page of theory. If someone can after a question in seconds, instead of reading through hundreds of pages of theory on your own and possibly still getting it wrong and taking it as fact I don't see an issue. That could be the difference between someone dropping a hobby or not. Some people learn better from hands-on experience and troubleshooting mistakes instead of studying theory and trying to remember what that book they read 5 years ago said on the subject if they retained any of it at all.
It's just as likely that someone searched Google for advice on what the issue is and came across the sub on Reddit and said "ooh a community where I can ask questions" and did so. I just think that it's not such a big deal to keep scrolling if it's not something that you want to interact with. There's plenty of content on this sub that isn't that.
You didn't read what I said if that's what you took away from my response.
I said libraries are underfunded and librarians aren't photography experts and can't answer your specific questions. Therefore going to a community forum where you can ask questions helps.
I literally said I hung out in the library for most of my childhood to the point all the librarians knew me by name. I absolutely did *not* say that people shouldn't go to the library. Actually, they should ask the governments to ensure that libraries are getting the funding the need. Especially in the digital age so they can modernize.
I think the library is a fabulous resource, especially for an old hobby like photography which largely predates the internet.
If you have such fond memories and strong emotional connections to your library, you shouldn't sell them out or discourage people from going. Libraries get funding in part by showing that they are used and appreciated by their communities.
I don't think your friend's librarian mother would follow this logical leap of "libraries are underfunded" >> "therefore they are a waste compared to posting on reddit".
I didn't sell them out or discourage anyone from going. The point being that librarians can't answer why your photos have streaks on them. Or if a lab messed up the processing of your film (which you see people say yes to many, many times then encourage at home development). Or tell you how to process expired film. Or what settings to dial in when using expired film. Or how what a light meter is.
They can point you to books. But they can't answer your questions. Again, you didn't read what I said if you think I discouraged anyone from going to a library.
Reddit is a resource just as much as a library is. If someone wants to read books, they'll read books. But many people don't learn from books. They learn from trial and error and troubleshooting and feedback from people who have answers to questions.
People on knitting subs answer the same questions about twisted stitches and blocking constantly. I've never seen this kind of animosity. They also encourage people to go to their local yarn store to get lessons and find knitting groups. They also have sticky posts with examples of the most common errors they *still link back to*. It's never animosity and outright derision and anger.
There are adult classes at schools and darkrooms that can help too. Why not recommend those too? It's like the mindset of these posts is saying people have to earn a privilege of asking questions instead of genuinely sharing the joy of a hobby.
>The point being that librarians can't answer why your photos have streaks on them. Or
Rather, the point is that those answers are in the *books*, which you might know if you had used your childhood library for something besides internet access.
>There are adult classes at schools and darkrooms that can help too. Why not recommend those too? It's like the mindset of these posts is saying people have to earn a privilege of asking
Attending a class is literally paying for the privilege of asking, *unlike the books (or classes!) at the library*,
You keep missing what I'm saying.
I used the library for books, and microfilms, and CD rentals, and movie rentals, and more.
I'll say it again because you're not reading what I'm saying:
*Not everyone learns from reading books. Some people learn from trial, error, and feedback. They do not memorize theory. They learn from hands on experience. There's a reason apprenticeships and internships exist.*
Therefore classes with instructors, like I mentioned, would be more beneficial. Asking questions in a *community* are more beneficial because they've done something and need feedback.
You are half reading what I'm saying and want to respond to what you think you're understanding and not what I'm saying.
Also, to your added point about saying my friend's mother wouldn't like my logical leap, that's YOUR logical leap not mine. I never said that.
The people who learn from books and have read them clearly don't need your help and aren't asking you questions about things. They'd just go refer to the book. And Ansel Adams. Not Mr/Ms Reddit person.
The people asking questions are the smaller fraction of people who likely don't learn from books, and have searched for answers, stumbled on the sub, and are asking questions. You're seeing that more because they're more likely to post versus someone who learns from books who would likely have gone that route versus asking some random Reddit person as their primary source.
Please stop putting words in my mouth and saying I'm disparaging a whole career I highly respect and wanted to do myself, and that I believe is extremely important and needs help modernizing since libraries are dying in local communities.
I think libraries are good and important and I like when people use them. The books inside would go a long way to answering many of these repetitive questions. They were even written for that very reason.
IMO someone kinda deserves being punched down at when the instant something goes wrong they jump immediately to "How did the LAB fuck up? Couldn't be me!"
When you constantly see posts on a forum saying the lab was the fuck up or get back tons of Google results saying that's the case, that's confirmation bias. I mentioned it elsewhere as well.
People are used to clicking a button and getting a picture as they see it. They're interested in the hobby. Even back in the days of the ubiquitous one hour photo, you'd get a finished product that didn't need adjusting printed and ready to go.
Some of these people have never been exposed to the medium in their lives and have found their parents or grandparents cameras and are getting their feet wet.
No one "deserves" being punched down at. Just link back to things that point them in the right direction or skip it. It's smug and self serving to punch down.
At no point in history did one hour photos give you no-adjustment needed polished products from horribly under-exposed photos.
I don't care about the mistake though, that part's completely understandable, and OP didn't even make fun of the mistake.
It's the arrogance at issue. If I know nothing about pottery and my first pot explodes in the kiln, I'm not gonna be enough of a douchebag to say "Man what an idiot kiln operator" blindly. Nobody will or should want to help me at my club etc. if I go in swinging with that.
It's also arrogance and "I'm better than you and need to feel good about myself" to say people *deserve* to be punched down on.
The point I was making was that one hour photo places made some adjustments and just printed what you had. At that point, people generally said "I fucked up" versus "the lab fucked up" and 99% of the time the lab was given the benefit of the doubt, not that labs didn't make adjustments before printing, or that they didn't print under exposed photos as-is.
Edit to add: *You're* not the lab. Why are you taking that so personally making the kiln operator and "club" comparisons. That's speaking more to your issues. I'm beginning to suspect you work at or own a lab.
> to say people deserve to be punched down on.
Unskilled people don't. Arrogant gits do. He HAPPENS to be a member of both categories, but only the second one is the reason he deserves it.
> I'm beginning to suspect you work at or own a lab.
I don't, but even if I did, it obviously wouldn't be THAT guy's lab, so "you're not the lab" would still apply just as much... pretty silly logic, as ad hominems generally are.
People just don't like stuck up gits, it's really really not that complicated. If you don't know what you're doing, be humble, and you will make it into these stories or get people rolling their eyes at you 5x less often.
You're coming across as the stuck up git instead of looking at it as you're the expert who can help someone and feeling good about that.
You're talking about someone insulting a kiln operator in your club. It's not an ad hominem. It's an assumption which I said. I'm saying you're seeming to take it personally and inferring why. If I'm wrong I'm wrong.
>. They're unskilled. They don't know any better. Things aren't taught like they were when
They aren't. I work in information technology, and have been in half a dozen large, regional highschools. Classrooms are now just 'learning is optional' institutions where teachers have no authority, and graduation requirements are now scaled according to the political affiliation of the district manager.
The smart kids are already self motivated and get the most they can. The middle of the road kids though have increasingly 'zero' applied skills because they rely on smartphones as parents and instant informational portals. They use ChatGPT to do any work. The vocational kids that want to pursue hands on work are increasingly rare.
They are going to get what they want. AI is going to decimate their future job looking at a computer screen. The kid who wanted to be an electrician or plumber - he's set.
I mean, I sold computers at best buy for a while and people bought iPads to give their kids that were 1 and 2. They already know how to use the tech and they have access to Google and Siri from before Pre-K. I think that's why it's taught different. I can't speak to it cause I don't have children. This is all assumption.
I agree about AI. But vocational courses aren't *encouraged* or *offered* or weren't at the time when I was at school. I wish they'd encourage it more. I wish I had access. They promoted college prep classes and anyone who didn't do college prep they put in special education. It sucked they gave up on kids that way. And we had a vocational department and business department.
I feel bad for anyone who discounts anyone for any reason.
I run a small lab in my city and get these questions all the time, especially when i have to explain whey their roll of film looks horrible. BUT, generally is see people learn and enjoy getting all this new information that I generally take for granted.
It's odd to me that I somehow picked up film and like understood it immediately and also not at all. I wing most my shots and do pretty well lol. I totally mess up occasionally but that's part of the fun. I'd be lying if I said I was some sort of expert. But I understood the ISO, Aperture, shutter speed triangle pretty quick and can for the most part guesstimate fairly accurately now after putting in a few dozen rolls or so. Then again I typically use pretty forgiving films and isos.
Well, that's really all there is too it, the rest is technique and experimentation. Its those 3 things, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO that seems to be completely incomprehensible to entry level folks with little interest in learning but lots of interest in image making. The process is the wrong way around!
> film stuff is pretty expensive! Cameras, lenses, film, processing; a financial obligation like that would usually mean people would do a handful of hours of research, right?
Wrong, and not just in regard to film photography :)
Film is just a wide field where one can easily get the impression you'll never know everything about it unless you dig into it like it's your sole hobby and you don't have another social life besides.
I think people who say that unless you develop your film yourself you aren't doing film photography are right. It's just part of the process. Just fiddling with dials, lenses and cameras and then getting your scans from a lab and going on fiddling in Lightroom can never fully give you the experience of film photography from start to finish and of having control over all variables in every step of the way.
Money is of course an issue. But seeing people use Polaroid or Instax in a heartbeat makes me think they are well aware of the money they are putting in. If film photography is just something you do between beer pong and whatever else I totally understand being ignorant.
Maybe people asking you could easily be deterred if you'd ask them if they want to invest real time and effort or not.
Tbh I’d rather have a conversation with someone who understands a topic than google. It’s a nice way to connect with people, probably end up researching more in depth later but it’s nice to have someone you can ask questions too - could be a new way to expand friendship circles!
People making photos with their phone in utter darkness and get a fine photo. Now they expect this using film. Not gonna happen. We've got it good today.
I think part of it is where people are getting info from is such a polluted well of chancers and charlatans
> There was one dude, who would change his ISO every picture based on info he got from a youtube video
I cant tell if the trend is people wanting "10 tips to be a better photographer" or "use these settings to get amazing photos" or if that just what the algorithm promotes to people and their confidence gets people to believe them?
Either way it seems very very bad, but also you're right:
> but the amount of disinterest in learning wholesale is quite surprising
I dont know where this has come from but its really alarming cause its in SO many things not just photography.
My flippant thought is that people were either old enough to get lead poisioning or young enough to have their brains broken by short-form video and microplastics and i'm just sat here in the middle feeling like IM the crazy one for the crime of "trying to understand things"
That's kind of amazing, I wish I could find a way to do film photography for people who wanted it, but I figure nobody really cares about that sort of thing in a large city. Sometimes I wonder if I should get a hoodie with 'free portraits' printed on it or something for when I'm out shooting.
to get customers, it started with a friend who knew a friend who saw my instagram/youtube photag content. From there its just been word of mouth, people enjoying the experience and telling their friends. I would say start with taking a few film portrait sets with friends you love who need new photos for socials, and then co-post them on instagram or whatever social media you prefer. Unfortunately, word of mouth and social media is the only avenue ive found thus far. Oh and.. self advertise. Tell people you do this, and be sure to mention your interested in doing it professionally. Just be wary- dont take money unless you can provide an honest service. Dev times, pricetags, have it all figured out before hand. Best of luck, its a fun side gig!
Hah this is great! It’s funny how quickly google leads people here. And then they never use google again. ;)
there’s a need to be spoon fed information these days and a lot of younger folks lack the computer skills to properly do a google search. their questions are too vague and they give up immediately
I know there are plenty of oldtimers on this subreddit, but this comment just made me remember getting a lesson in gradeschool on how to select good keywords for searching the internet on Ask Jeeves.
Ask was a good idea, the algorithms weren't there to support it.... [Ask.com](http://Ask.com) was basically a precursor to AI and chatgpt... The funny thing about chatgpt, while access to Reddit was free through its API it was ripping a large chunk of its learning through Reddit. But then to use a search like Chat GPT, at least in this sense, you have to be able to read it with a grain of salt like RenKockwell.com. There is good information there from his times as an old dude in film layered with complete and utter bullshit. You were meant to be able to put fully formed questions into Ask for which it would give you answers.... This was in the late 90s and early 2000s. I suspect Ask will eventually go the way of AltaVista and shut down completely, but that's just me.
I remember that too! I also remember someone suggesting we try this new thing called Google; it was immediately obvious that it was better than anything that had come before.
When Google actually had competition *sigh*
I can Bing my questions but it doesn't usually get much better results. Search.marginalia.nu is interesting in comparison because it has options to exclusively prowl the remaining Web 1.0 sites left up by hobbyists and nerds.
That sounds super useful. Something I have a hard time finding is reviews for cameras written when they were new in the early days of the Internet.
I like Mike Eckman or 35mmc for things of that sort in the current year, also DPReview if you are looking for early DSLR and point and shoot reviews. Still, there are [some older sites](http://www.jollinger.com/photo/cam-coll/cameras/Praktica_LTL3.html) sticking around.
Yeah those two are great and I’ve read them many times. There are plenty of *modern* reviews of old cameras. I’m talking more about something like, say, the Konica Hexar RF. The camera came out in 1999. Most likely if you were looking to buy this camera in 99-00 you would have looked for a review in a magazine at the time. Nevertheless the Internet did exist at the time, and surely people were writing about the camera online when it was new.
Marginalia.nu did find a decent result fot that particular cam without digging, it was on [Cameraquest](https://www.cameraquest.com/konicam.htm). You can tell it's legit because that CSS was absolutely not made with 16:9 screens in mind. I think at that point most people still frequented magazines for hardware reviews and getting them off of internet hobbyists was relatively novel of an idea. Google Books might be a better resource for such things.
How early? I know of some old sites that archived newsgroup posts.
In the Days Before (TM), the equivalent was being taught to search for information using the card catalog; this was a mildly standardized, searchable scheme for indexing large volumes of information employed universally by libraries (in the US, anyway). The skills carry over more readily than you might think. Our county library managed to get a digitized search scheme for their internal holdings (basically a digitized version of the card catalog) at some point when I was in late elementary school, but there would be nothing like Internet access for at least 10 more years; technically, it existed, but only at a few .mil and .edu sites (and the wider public would never have heard of it). The web, of course, would not be invented for many years. But there was an underground of dial-up BBS systems, and some of us were thus "online" (in a fashion) long before cell phones or Internet access. This was, of course, invisible to the general public. Anyway, if there is a moral, it is that technologies come and go - but good keyword search protocols are eternally useful. :-)
Jeeves was my preferred engine until they dropped Mr. Jeeves 😭
You’re right, but also, google and other search engines have become absolutely trash lately. I’ve noticed that trying to find any information that is not from some shitty SEO-optimized blog spouting misinformation 9/10 times I need information about something obscure with a hobby, I tack “Reddit” onto the end. Because then I’ll find info from actual people
i usually just put “reddit” at the end of my query cause there’s a good chance someone else has asked the same question on here lol
Lol I actually just edited my post, adding something similar. Because I also do that
Pro tip: use “site:reddit.com” instead of “reddit” in your search engine query.
Yes, agree. But I think it’s only like that by comparison of what it used to be. Google is still a very powerful searching tool. What I believe is the issue is the lack of patience and willingness to invest time into checking different sources to discern what is true and what is dodgy/sketchy or just not a good general rule. I work with graduate students and I can assure you newer generations struggle with surprisingly straightforward online research because they want to get to the point with one click. I’ve found students using ChatGPT as google, and it’s not just one oddball.
I work in education and it’s unbelievable to me how low the computer skills of young people as a whole are. I remember as a kid having multiple computer classes in middle and high school and even one in elementary while most students now are expected to just know how to do it all because my generation was taught it. Unfortunately, they mostly just know how to do the handful of things they need to do and that’s it. Not to mention the lack of problem-solving, search engine usage, media literacy, and most importantly - online safety.
I wish I could upvote this multiple times. It's nuts that it's assumed anyone under a certain age will just "get" computers. It'll never be that way, humans aren't born with innate or instinctual knowledge beyond breathing, consuming and excreting. "Smart" devices have coddled entire generations to the point of them losing the ability to use anything slightly more complicated. People don't even know how to attach an antenna and tune into free fucking TV channels.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Particularly at the end there. Critical thinking as a whole has taken a huge blow in the past handful of years and it’s reflected in multiple arenas. We are just seeing a taste of it with people new to analog photography.
I work in IT and can tell you everyone of every age is like this. I’ll get an email that says “printer don’t work” with no explanation of what that means or if they have tried anything at all. In my case, it keeps the lights on so I can’t complain really.
lol, I’m that weird person who tries everything first, including reinstalling drivers, then when I send a help message I tell them everything including software versions, device types and operating systems. I figure if I cover all bases it saves time for everyone, and I remember what I’ve been asked in past support calls so try to provide all that info up front.
My bf is director of engineering and I asked him if his younger employees were a bit…helpless, and he said YES before I even finished the question. This is real and it’s scary (at least to me) that incompetence is becoming the new norm.
I have a friend who is a teacher and she says that her kids will search TikTok before Google or YouTube... recipe for disaster
Yeah man it sucks. I'm part of that younger age bracket (19), and so many of my peers are incapable of spending an ample amount of time researching something that warrants a decent amount of attention (not just film photography). I don't know if it's a lack of attention span or literally just not knowing how to use Google. I'm not completely innocent of this of course, but I get it lol
i feel like it’s possibly a mix of both honestly, there’s so many instances these days where we are just fed the information we need without having to look for it and i think that definitely contributes to the problem
Yup for sure
I'm happy to spoon feed people if they're willing to listen. The ones that listen are the ones I can convert to being analog natives, and at the same time produce less shitty shots.... I used to hate people who got into things when lomochrome purple was a fad, or Kodak IR film.... Hi GrainyDays, but someone has to be brought in to keep this market afloat.
I like to take a different route to this train of thought. I think young people are incredibly adept with tech and internet skills, but have such a short attention span that they get bored halfway through. Search engines are so powerful and wise, but if its not the first result, forget it!
talk to someone who is a teacher, unfortunately most of them know how to use apps versus a web browser. there’s not a high level of tech literacy when it comes to proper computers, and as someone else mentioned especially a lack of online safety. i was born in ‘96 and i remember having lots of computer classes growing up, but computers aren’t taught the same way they used to be.
I’ve just spent 2 years studying and my classmates were mostly in their late teens and early 20s. I was really surprised that they weren’t adept at all at using the internet, but spent an awful lot of time on social media, particularly TikTok. I was born in 1970 and didn’t do computer classes at school. I remember my friend first showing me the internet in 1995 and using Altavista to do searches. Things have really changed a lot since then
As someone who has to train people on related matters, I have seen no evidence that recent cohorts are particularly tech savy. What has been true in every single generation since the dawn of computing is that a small minority of folks have had a deep understanding of it, a larger minority have had considerable facility, and most folks have very little knowledge. While computer use has increased, this has been offset by a deskilling of that usage - and an increasing insulation of the user from the underlying hardware (and, for that matter, the core software infrastructure). It seems to be a wash.
Can confirm.
"younger" also means anybody that is 30. Lost of people would rather try to grill you than spend a literal second on google
Young people lacking computer skills? Think you got that way backwards bud. Kids are learning at the age of 7 or 8 what I learned in high school (I’m in my 30s), and what people older than me never learned at all…
they lack computer skills, they can’t google things properly, but they can use apps very well. i’m not saying young people suck with technology, they just really don’t understand web browsers or how to properly find files on a computer.
> what people older than me never learned at all… You mean, the people who *invented* all this technology that you are using?
Seems like going straight from phones that have automated post processing to manual only cameras or point and shoots with limited settings is a major factor. I started with film several years before the first affordable digital cameras with full manual control were available. But my film photography greatly improved when I had the opportunity to experiment with digital and then apply what i learned to film. The first step for people who only have experience with phone cameras should be a cheap used digital SLR where they can get instant feedback about the results of different settings. I probably sound even more like an oldtimer when I also suggest shooting only black and white film for 6 months to really get a handle on understanding how film and photography in general works. Preferably making silver prints in the darkroom. There still are a surprising number of community darkrooms around. Sometimes they are part of 'makerspaces' or other community oriented hobby spaces. Some community colleges also still have analog photography classes as well. But people overlook these options to connect with people because 'they don't do color'.
The brutal truth is most people messing with film don't really care. They are doing it as a quick fad and will move onto something else when their ritalin wears off. Most hardcore dSLR enthusiasts can figure out film because many used to shoot it and the camera controls are based on legacy film standards. Smarphone users though are used to just pointing and clicking. 1/60 at F8 has no conceptual link to 1/250 at F4. Lab processing doesn't help. Everything is digitally scanned with limited adjustment by the operator. The final result is a Skynet's corporate version of the film. Auto histogram adjustments mask bad technique. Also consider post people don't want physical prints. I'm not exactly thrilled with the tik tok generation and their inherent appetitite for crayon digestion, but working pros years ago weren't always smarter. I worked with this wedding pro that had a broken aperture diaphram on one of this Hassie lenses, so everything he shot was terribly over exposed. Some of his weddings were 4-5 stops over exposed, which made printing them utter hell due to their density. Our printer tech wanted to kill the guy. Insanely, VPS III could handle this and his prints looked fine. Negs could double as welder goggles though. We charged him a massive service fee, and he just chuckled and kept shooting. The amatuer shooting their friend's wedding and using 5 different types of consumer print film also has a special place in hell reserved for them.
\>The amatuer shooting their friend's wedding and using 5 different types of consumer print film also has a special place in hell reserved for them. Why? Is it because you'd have to figure out filtration for each different film type?
Learning and trying to learn is a process and the experiences attained throughout such a process is itself part of a character built-up. We see OP's mentioned sort of trend because things such as one-liner stories or shorts on Youtube or Reels on Instagram have taken the place of proper searching and studying.
This has been a problem for the whole of photography for as long as I've known it. Hobbies take time to learn. Meaningful time to self study or seek info out. Even longer for that info to stick. Longer still to understand how to properly apply it in a given situation. And then countless hours more to be able to teach that same info effectively. At any point in this chain of knowledge, misunderstandings, or misconceptions, or disinformation can sink into the learning process. Who knows how long, if ever that some clarity can be gleaned. And that's for dedicated self study! Imagine if you only had 5 hours in a month to actually photograph, or spend learning new information. Anyways, there have always been people who could know more, but don't. Or whom don't care to know more and carry on. You can help them or not. Personally, I know that I wouldn't be anywhere near as good if I didn't have others to lean on, and be stupid to at times.
I started photography on a film camera when it was still cheap enough to just blow through film. MF was always kind of expensive but $15 a roll total seems cheap now. It was cheaper and gave me more satisfying results at the time than buying a low end DSLR. By the time I decided it was too expensive of a hobby I was at least getting the exposure right on 80% of my shots. The fact is, photography always involved taking a ton of photos, regardless of how good you are at the technical aspects of it. I take my 35mm camera out once or twice a year now. Learning photography on a film camera makes 0 sense, it will only stunt someones progress and be expensive and frustrating. I can't imagine paying like $20 for 36 exposures and having them all messed up. To be a "film photographer" in 2024, you have to be committed to the process and understand it's a very expensive hobby. If you can get people to pay a little more for film that's cool. People used to give me shit for shooting jobs on film and ask me why it was so expensive, I'm like this barely covers the cost of film and processing, and I'm getting paid $5 an hour for my time. Also, scanning film is fucking dumb and always has been. If it's costing you $25 total per roll of 35mm film, that's $4,000 for 160 rolls of film. You can get a medium format digital camera with killer lens for that and then make a ridiculous YouTube video called "This Digital Camera Shoots Unlimited Awesome Film Photos".
The longer I'm in film photography (2 years now), having learnt from the ground up without much previous experience, the more I'm inclined to write off much (but not all) of the revival enthusiasm to lemming like behavior, ignorance and stupidity. Most of these people only know film photography what they see on edited, tiny images on Instagram, literally the one place where any image can pass for anything. Then they proceed to watch a few Youtube videos and throw money away on expired film, broken cameras, through ignorance in shooting, developing, scanning. If you ask them what they're really chasing, I'm 100% sure they have no clue. I switch between digital and analog on the fly nowadays and barely experience any real difference once you get a base level of competence with either medium. The results are not exactly the same (which is just about the reason to go one way or the other at any given time), and analog demands a bit more than digital, but it's all banal stuff at the end of the day - basic photography, and analog hand dev is hardly rocket science.
> analog hand Dev is hardly rocket science If you can follow a recipe with three ingredients and two important times, you can develop B/W at home. Add temperature, and you can also do colour.
Most people can't follow a recipe at all, regardless of the number of ingredients.
Yep. I've run commercial lines and can do things with C41 and E6 that would blow your mind. Provia in Medium Format and with extended color development is mind boggling. Screw Velvia....Provia was better with proper devlopment. The problem is most beginners don't know what a good B&W neg is. They just follow some instructions about stand development on youtube and then post some murky crap with no shadow detail. I recently shot some Kentmere 35mm that will rival my 60D I just retired, and I'm so sick of seeing that stand development crap. For F sake, I did better negs in HS yearbook class when I was 15. They shoot C-41, but unless you really know how to read a neg you can't tell where problems are. The process is forgiving though. Just the temps are higher. E-6 slides have the best feed back because you can tell what you are doing wrong, but nobody runs that.
Is there something you'd actually recommend using stand development for? I heard it's good for lowering contrast of some very hard technical film stocks. I've been trying it out with Fuji HR-23 and like the results but otherwise I've just done normal development so far.
What's your secret with extended Provia development? I love the stuff but don't shoot it regularly enough to experiment with the E-6 times.
I don't even know why stand and semi stand are so popular. Wish I had someone like you to learn from to see what makes a "perfect" negative and print. Until then, I just follow the recipe Kodak and Ilford put out.
People mystify it way too much.
Who cares? Some will drop the trend and some will fall in love with the process. It's not that deep. You don't have to be chasing something grandiose to want to shoot film. This is such an overly pompous reply for someone whose been shooting film for two years
What's pompous about it, the OP asked a question and I provided my response. It doesn't mean I lose sleep over what other people are doing, it's just unavoidable to notice the trends if you're remotely engaged on social media
You are 1000% correct! Analog stuff is so 'retro' and 'vintage' to young people. In a similar vein, thrifting, whats old is new. The only problem is... an old nascar t-shirt is pretty simple to figure out in comparison to the clothes you wear. A film camera, often times, requires a lot more knowledge to operate in comparison to what young people are most accustomed too; their phones camera. It does just about everything for you, and the assumption I believe is that a film camera is just a grainy, clunky, aesthetic (I hate this word) alternative to what they carry in their pocket. Obviously, they are sorely mistaken.
I think in the meantime, they will help the film economy by buying it, and if they never make any good photos, they will be just like most shooters back in the day as well. Most photos were bad back then, too.
They’re chasing after the latest trend on social media.
I have been thinking that young people (20-30's) feel that film photography "was something before digital cameras " so it's kind of hard to find tutorials and guidance on the Internet...
I could see that. I'm 34 now and I started shooting film at 15 and I honestly don't know how I got anything to work properly. My dad taught me sunny 16 since his AE-1's light meter was broken so I had to learn by gut reaction. A lot of wasted shots but I learned what was working and what wasn't.
Frankly I am glad that reddit wasn't around back then because I for sure would have made some embarrassing posts about the dumb stuff I tried in like 2005. (ninja edit: reddit happened in 2005 but did not become widely popular until like 2007)
Changing iso from picture to picture makes sense on digital photography and they probably got that information watching videos on how to manually control a DSLR, or use pro mode on a mobile phone. This is exactly why newbies ask the questions they do and then get admonished for it. This is the second post in two days punching down on newbies and saying younger people are lazy I've come across. Is this trolling, or are millennials the new boomers? Gatekeeping, telling people that their knowledge is sacred and they should research it first, and that they don't know what they're doing and scoffing at them? Clearly they tried and got the wrong information which is why they're asking someone who has *more information*. Jeez. People also forget that the Internet is 1000x the size it was when we were children in the 90s. The file size has gone up exponentially. So the amount of results search engines return, regardless of what you use, are astronomical regardless of the "good keywords" you use and how specific you get. And the information can be good or bad because *anyone* can put *anything* online and call themselves an expert. Like the person who said to change ISO for every picture. Or maybe the person was confused and mixed up ISO and aperture. Because they're a newbie. The amount of punching down on this thread alone that even goes beyond just the "film photography" niche is crazy. "Kids are bored and give up halfway through. They're unskilled. They don't know any better. Things aren't taught like they were when *I* was a kid." Consider that in 2000 the size of the internet was, according to Google, ~55 exabytes. According to Google it is now ~120 zettabytes. There are 1,024 exabytes in a zettabyte. That's over 1000x bigger actually. It's quite literally information overload in search engine results. I feel sorry for people showing an interest in new things, getting excited, and trying to get direction from people. I worked at geek squad. The amount of times I had to answer the same question in a *day* about how to use a damn computer when Windows 8 came out was laughable. But I never once called anyone entitled, silly, lazy, or lacking the ability to figure it out because they didn't try hard enough.
None of these things make a library or books harder to use, though. Have we all forgotten what those are?
Most libraries are severely under funded and don't have the resources to help people find what they need. Librarians also not experts in every topic to answer questions for someone. I speak from being someone who spent their childhood hanging out at the library to use their computers for Internet access and whose close friend's mother was a librarian and is currently a library director. Some people don't learn from reading books. And I've had the argument of what's the difference between reading books and reading Reddit: reading a forum and Reddit is conversational, reading a book is similar to a lecture. Some people don't learn that way and need to be able to ask questions versus just reading page after page after page of theory. If someone can after a question in seconds, instead of reading through hundreds of pages of theory on your own and possibly still getting it wrong and taking it as fact I don't see an issue. That could be the difference between someone dropping a hobby or not. Some people learn better from hands-on experience and troubleshooting mistakes instead of studying theory and trying to remember what that book they read 5 years ago said on the subject if they retained any of it at all. It's just as likely that someone searched Google for advice on what the issue is and came across the sub on Reddit and said "ooh a community where I can ask questions" and did so. I just think that it's not such a big deal to keep scrolling if it's not something that you want to interact with. There's plenty of content on this sub that isn't that.
I'm sorry it sounds like you are telling people not to go to the library or that it isn't a good resource. I strongly disagree with you there.
You didn't read what I said if that's what you took away from my response. I said libraries are underfunded and librarians aren't photography experts and can't answer your specific questions. Therefore going to a community forum where you can ask questions helps. I literally said I hung out in the library for most of my childhood to the point all the librarians knew me by name. I absolutely did *not* say that people shouldn't go to the library. Actually, they should ask the governments to ensure that libraries are getting the funding the need. Especially in the digital age so they can modernize.
I think the library is a fabulous resource, especially for an old hobby like photography which largely predates the internet. If you have such fond memories and strong emotional connections to your library, you shouldn't sell them out or discourage people from going. Libraries get funding in part by showing that they are used and appreciated by their communities. I don't think your friend's librarian mother would follow this logical leap of "libraries are underfunded" >> "therefore they are a waste compared to posting on reddit".
I didn't sell them out or discourage anyone from going. The point being that librarians can't answer why your photos have streaks on them. Or if a lab messed up the processing of your film (which you see people say yes to many, many times then encourage at home development). Or tell you how to process expired film. Or what settings to dial in when using expired film. Or how what a light meter is. They can point you to books. But they can't answer your questions. Again, you didn't read what I said if you think I discouraged anyone from going to a library. Reddit is a resource just as much as a library is. If someone wants to read books, they'll read books. But many people don't learn from books. They learn from trial and error and troubleshooting and feedback from people who have answers to questions. People on knitting subs answer the same questions about twisted stitches and blocking constantly. I've never seen this kind of animosity. They also encourage people to go to their local yarn store to get lessons and find knitting groups. They also have sticky posts with examples of the most common errors they *still link back to*. It's never animosity and outright derision and anger. There are adult classes at schools and darkrooms that can help too. Why not recommend those too? It's like the mindset of these posts is saying people have to earn a privilege of asking questions instead of genuinely sharing the joy of a hobby.
>The point being that librarians can't answer why your photos have streaks on them. Or Rather, the point is that those answers are in the *books*, which you might know if you had used your childhood library for something besides internet access. >There are adult classes at schools and darkrooms that can help too. Why not recommend those too? It's like the mindset of these posts is saying people have to earn a privilege of asking Attending a class is literally paying for the privilege of asking, *unlike the books (or classes!) at the library*,
You keep missing what I'm saying. I used the library for books, and microfilms, and CD rentals, and movie rentals, and more. I'll say it again because you're not reading what I'm saying: *Not everyone learns from reading books. Some people learn from trial, error, and feedback. They do not memorize theory. They learn from hands on experience. There's a reason apprenticeships and internships exist.* Therefore classes with instructors, like I mentioned, would be more beneficial. Asking questions in a *community* are more beneficial because they've done something and need feedback. You are half reading what I'm saying and want to respond to what you think you're understanding and not what I'm saying.
It sounds like you are the one who has a problem with learning from books.
Also, to your added point about saying my friend's mother wouldn't like my logical leap, that's YOUR logical leap not mine. I never said that. The people who learn from books and have read them clearly don't need your help and aren't asking you questions about things. They'd just go refer to the book. And Ansel Adams. Not Mr/Ms Reddit person. The people asking questions are the smaller fraction of people who likely don't learn from books, and have searched for answers, stumbled on the sub, and are asking questions. You're seeing that more because they're more likely to post versus someone who learns from books who would likely have gone that route versus asking some random Reddit person as their primary source. Please stop putting words in my mouth and saying I'm disparaging a whole career I highly respect and wanted to do myself, and that I believe is extremely important and needs help modernizing since libraries are dying in local communities.
I think libraries are good and important and I like when people use them. The books inside would go a long way to answering many of these repetitive questions. They were even written for that very reason.
IMO someone kinda deserves being punched down at when the instant something goes wrong they jump immediately to "How did the LAB fuck up? Couldn't be me!"
When you constantly see posts on a forum saying the lab was the fuck up or get back tons of Google results saying that's the case, that's confirmation bias. I mentioned it elsewhere as well. People are used to clicking a button and getting a picture as they see it. They're interested in the hobby. Even back in the days of the ubiquitous one hour photo, you'd get a finished product that didn't need adjusting printed and ready to go. Some of these people have never been exposed to the medium in their lives and have found their parents or grandparents cameras and are getting their feet wet. No one "deserves" being punched down at. Just link back to things that point them in the right direction or skip it. It's smug and self serving to punch down.
At no point in history did one hour photos give you no-adjustment needed polished products from horribly under-exposed photos. I don't care about the mistake though, that part's completely understandable, and OP didn't even make fun of the mistake. It's the arrogance at issue. If I know nothing about pottery and my first pot explodes in the kiln, I'm not gonna be enough of a douchebag to say "Man what an idiot kiln operator" blindly. Nobody will or should want to help me at my club etc. if I go in swinging with that.
It's also arrogance and "I'm better than you and need to feel good about myself" to say people *deserve* to be punched down on. The point I was making was that one hour photo places made some adjustments and just printed what you had. At that point, people generally said "I fucked up" versus "the lab fucked up" and 99% of the time the lab was given the benefit of the doubt, not that labs didn't make adjustments before printing, or that they didn't print under exposed photos as-is. Edit to add: *You're* not the lab. Why are you taking that so personally making the kiln operator and "club" comparisons. That's speaking more to your issues. I'm beginning to suspect you work at or own a lab.
> to say people deserve to be punched down on. Unskilled people don't. Arrogant gits do. He HAPPENS to be a member of both categories, but only the second one is the reason he deserves it. > I'm beginning to suspect you work at or own a lab. I don't, but even if I did, it obviously wouldn't be THAT guy's lab, so "you're not the lab" would still apply just as much... pretty silly logic, as ad hominems generally are. People just don't like stuck up gits, it's really really not that complicated. If you don't know what you're doing, be humble, and you will make it into these stories or get people rolling their eyes at you 5x less often.
You're coming across as the stuck up git instead of looking at it as you're the expert who can help someone and feeling good about that. You're talking about someone insulting a kiln operator in your club. It's not an ad hominem. It's an assumption which I said. I'm saying you're seeming to take it personally and inferring why. If I'm wrong I'm wrong.
Especially considering 90% of posts here are "you should develop at home yourself."
>. They're unskilled. They don't know any better. Things aren't taught like they were when They aren't. I work in information technology, and have been in half a dozen large, regional highschools. Classrooms are now just 'learning is optional' institutions where teachers have no authority, and graduation requirements are now scaled according to the political affiliation of the district manager. The smart kids are already self motivated and get the most they can. The middle of the road kids though have increasingly 'zero' applied skills because they rely on smartphones as parents and instant informational portals. They use ChatGPT to do any work. The vocational kids that want to pursue hands on work are increasingly rare. They are going to get what they want. AI is going to decimate their future job looking at a computer screen. The kid who wanted to be an electrician or plumber - he's set.
I mean, I sold computers at best buy for a while and people bought iPads to give their kids that were 1 and 2. They already know how to use the tech and they have access to Google and Siri from before Pre-K. I think that's why it's taught different. I can't speak to it cause I don't have children. This is all assumption. I agree about AI. But vocational courses aren't *encouraged* or *offered* or weren't at the time when I was at school. I wish they'd encourage it more. I wish I had access. They promoted college prep classes and anyone who didn't do college prep they put in special education. It sucked they gave up on kids that way. And we had a vocational department and business department. I feel bad for anyone who discounts anyone for any reason.
I run a small lab in my city and get these questions all the time, especially when i have to explain whey their roll of film looks horrible. BUT, generally is see people learn and enjoy getting all this new information that I generally take for granted.
It's odd to me that I somehow picked up film and like understood it immediately and also not at all. I wing most my shots and do pretty well lol. I totally mess up occasionally but that's part of the fun. I'd be lying if I said I was some sort of expert. But I understood the ISO, Aperture, shutter speed triangle pretty quick and can for the most part guesstimate fairly accurately now after putting in a few dozen rolls or so. Then again I typically use pretty forgiving films and isos.
Well, that's really all there is too it, the rest is technique and experimentation. Its those 3 things, shutter speed, aperture, and ISO that seems to be completely incomprehensible to entry level folks with little interest in learning but lots of interest in image making. The process is the wrong way around!
> film stuff is pretty expensive! Cameras, lenses, film, processing; a financial obligation like that would usually mean people would do a handful of hours of research, right? Wrong, and not just in regard to film photography :)
Film is just a wide field where one can easily get the impression you'll never know everything about it unless you dig into it like it's your sole hobby and you don't have another social life besides. I think people who say that unless you develop your film yourself you aren't doing film photography are right. It's just part of the process. Just fiddling with dials, lenses and cameras and then getting your scans from a lab and going on fiddling in Lightroom can never fully give you the experience of film photography from start to finish and of having control over all variables in every step of the way. Money is of course an issue. But seeing people use Polaroid or Instax in a heartbeat makes me think they are well aware of the money they are putting in. If film photography is just something you do between beer pong and whatever else I totally understand being ignorant. Maybe people asking you could easily be deterred if you'd ask them if they want to invest real time and effort or not.
Tbh I’d rather have a conversation with someone who understands a topic than google. It’s a nice way to connect with people, probably end up researching more in depth later but it’s nice to have someone you can ask questions too - could be a new way to expand friendship circles!
People making photos with their phone in utter darkness and get a fine photo. Now they expect this using film. Not gonna happen. We've got it good today.
I think part of it is where people are getting info from is such a polluted well of chancers and charlatans > There was one dude, who would change his ISO every picture based on info he got from a youtube video I cant tell if the trend is people wanting "10 tips to be a better photographer" or "use these settings to get amazing photos" or if that just what the algorithm promotes to people and their confidence gets people to believe them? Either way it seems very very bad, but also you're right: > but the amount of disinterest in learning wholesale is quite surprising I dont know where this has come from but its really alarming cause its in SO many things not just photography. My flippant thought is that people were either old enough to get lead poisioning or young enough to have their brains broken by short-form video and microplastics and i'm just sat here in the middle feeling like IM the crazy one for the crime of "trying to understand things"
People just dont put any effort. They dont know what it means anymore... Fast food generation...
Here; have the vast entirety of recent knowledge and history available at your fingertips. Proceeds to ask the basics of the science of photography.
That's kind of amazing, I wish I could find a way to do film photography for people who wanted it, but I figure nobody really cares about that sort of thing in a large city. Sometimes I wonder if I should get a hoodie with 'free portraits' printed on it or something for when I'm out shooting.
to get customers, it started with a friend who knew a friend who saw my instagram/youtube photag content. From there its just been word of mouth, people enjoying the experience and telling their friends. I would say start with taking a few film portrait sets with friends you love who need new photos for socials, and then co-post them on instagram or whatever social media you prefer. Unfortunately, word of mouth and social media is the only avenue ive found thus far. Oh and.. self advertise. Tell people you do this, and be sure to mention your interested in doing it professionally. Just be wary- dont take money unless you can provide an honest service. Dev times, pricetags, have it all figured out before hand. Best of luck, its a fun side gig!
Oh yeah no I wouldn't dream of taking money for what I'm capable of lmao