RobertBenson.com

Photographer Simon Watson describes digital photography images like this: “There is a smoothness that is so ugly and slick. It looks like a gimmick.” And another photographer says: “The world doesn’t need more megapixels.”

Whoa! What’s going on here?

Similar feelings come from a legion of professional editorial photographers out there who are quietly going about their image making business with film: the good old organic stuff. Their reasons for shooting film are similar: “It makes you a better photographer,” says one shooter. “…It’s more sophisticated looking than film…”,  “film has a richness unmatched by digital…”, and “it has a depth and painterly quality…”

I talked to some of these shooters, presenting each of them with a handful of questions, and their answers were eye opening. Among the shooters:

Bryce Duffy, there’s a lot of square images on his site: Hasselblad? Read on!
Paolo Marchesi, a photographer who “marrys old-world elegance with youthful energy.” His editorial clients include Outdoor Life, Men’s Journal, Ski, Montana Living, Outside and others.
Amanda Friedman: A fine art and editorial photographer whose clients include Newsweek, GQ, The New York Times, Budget Travel, Dwell, Fortune, Forbes and others.
Simon Watson: A staunch advocate of film. The sophistication and quiet elegance in his work is ridiculous. Check out his site.
Finn O’Hara: This is the photographer who recently got some attention with his time lapse video of a Toronto Maple Leafs photoshoot; the scope of which has to be seen to be appreciated. You think Anne does it up big? Forget about it….
Jose Mandojana: The former pre-med student is now a talented photographer, shooting for the likes of Fortune, Glamour, Inc, Money, Men’s Journal and others.
Michael Sugrue, went to his website, got sucked in by lush images, but 30 minutes later realized I was sucked in by his videos too…
David Lauridsen, shoots for Travel and Leisure, People Magazine, Worth, Sunset, Dwell, Newsweek, Money, Popular Science, and a laundry list of others.
Jeff Lipsky, “known for his easy going attitude and his ability to create a relaxed professional working environment.” Has shot more covers than I can count.
Brian Finke, shoots film almost exclusively. Hasselblad. His work is on museum walls.
Chad Holder: Environmental portrait photographer. Great blog on his site too.

Completely a film shooter?
Paolo Marchesi: Unfortunately my film shooting has gone down from 100% 6 years ago to less than 20% now.  It’s becoming more and more difficult to convince clients to shoot film.
Amanda Friedman: 60% digital, 40% film
Simon Watson: No, but almost. I’ve gone in and out of the digital thing over the years… but I always seem to return to film. I am getting more involved with digital now because it seems that that is what is demanded now, So I always try to make the digital file look like film. I’m having a lot more success at it too now. It takes a lot of playing around. All of my editorial work is film.
Finn O’Hara: No. I shoot both Film & Digital.
José Mandojana: No, I’ve fully embraced digital and am about 70% digital these days. However, I still prefer film under certain circumstances and if it’s feasible for a shoot.
Michael Sugrue: No, I shoot film for the occasional job and personal project.
Jeff Lipsky: I shoot film for my editorial clients when ever possible. I use digital on most of my commercial jobs. I believe there is a place for both.
David Lauridsen: No, at this point I’m shooting about 90% digital. less than two years ago I was only shooting about 10% digital and I honestly didn’t expect to be shooting digital nearly full time for several more years.
Bryce Duffy: Not anymore. Actually – for advertising work I almost exclusively shoot medium format digital now. The collaborative process of working on set with an art director is much easier and better in many ways. I also find that we can shoot less, and move on to the next shot, as the client feels more comfortable knowing we’ve got what they’re looking for.

Why do you shoot film?
Brian Finke: I almost exclusively shoot film, with the exception of recently starting to shoot video with the new Canon, and soon checking out the new Nikon HD camera.  More and more these days when I am on assignment I get the, WOW, reaction when I pull the first Polaroid and everyone on set sees I’m shooting film.  I am instantly seen as an art photographer, which makes by happy. I learned shooting film and love it.  I shoot exclusively with the Hasselblad, it is a great process, taking the Polaroids, loading all the backs, then while shooting taking a pause and reloading, the physicality of the camera and process are beautiful.  I also prefer the grain and depth of film and the chromogenic print, especially when viewed in a large scale, gallery environment.
Paolo Marchesi: I like the “organic” feel of film and the process.  When I shoot film is mostly large format and shooting large format makes you think about the shot more.  It makes you a better photographer.  With digital is easy to just fire away without really taking the time to take “the shot”.
Amanda Friedman: Film has better exposure latitude. Film does significantly better in low light, I get better blacks. I shot a ton of night photography and I’m still finding film to be a much better choice. I can shoot ISO 800 speed film and get beautiful results—can’t really do that with digital yet.
Simon Watson: Because it is beautiful, easy to use and it is always so much more sophisticated looking than digital. Always.
Finn O’Hara: I love the pace of shooting film, and the reality of the exposure is much more tangible when shooting film.
José Mandojana: A few reasons.  I like my medium format and large format film bodies and lenses better. I just see the frame better with these cameras vs. a digital SLR. I also shoot film because the color neg is perfect in my eyes. When shooting raw, a lot of tweaking needs to be done to get it to look like my film. It can be done, but film still has a richness unmatched by digital. Why mess with perfection?
Michael Sugrue: In addition to the look/feel of the image, I most like the workflow of shooting 4×5.  It’s a very quiet, studied approach.  A lot of the mental aspects of shooting large-format film are lost with the instantaneity of digital capture.
Jeff Lipsky: Many reasons…… For one, I love shooting my film cameras. There is something special when shooting a portrait with my 4×5. I feel digital takes the pace and feel away. I still enjoy looking at a proof sheet with a good loupe. The editing process is easier and more tangible. Digital format has yet to reach the 6×7 format.  Film is more forgiving and has more range. I can flare and backlight images and still have information in the negative. Digitally it would be lost. I actually like being the first person to see and edit my film. To many times there is a crowd of people surrounding the monitor, no matter how hard I try to hide it. I love working with 120 films. Changing a film back or reloading enables me to change things up and get more variations.  Believe it or not, it’s still more economical for most editorial jobs.
David Lauridsen: Film is beautiful. It has a depth to it and a painterly quality in the way it captures light and texture that digital just isn’t capable of capturing… yet. I shoot a lot of travel photography and like strong side light and backlight, which I think is the biggest weakness of digital. With film, I can expose for good shadow detail and just burn in the sky. With digital, the sky is just gone completely or if I expose for it then I end up with an image that is just much darker than I like. It’s recoverable to some degree in post, but it still doesn’t have that “lushness” that film has.
Bryce Duffy: I still really love the aesthetic of film. I’m not saying it’s not possible to get very similar results with digital, it’s just that in 20 years of working with film stock and polaroid, and a long standing relationship with a lab, there’s so much that is going in to achieving the aesthetic that I’m after, and other peoples expertise as well. Switching to digital means that so much more of that falls back on the photographer. In a way you’re your own film manufacturer, your own lab, your own printer. And I still really feel that there are certain lighting situations where film just “feels” more organic and digital can not replicate that as far as I’ve seen. (more on next page)

(more…)

Shot the Pointsettia Bowl in San Diego yesterday using a couple new toys: a Canon 7d and 5d joined my 1dmk2N. The 7d and 5d were set at iso 3200, and the noise was nearly nonexistent. Just got the cameras yesterday, but its seems like they get the job done. The 7d, with its small 1.6 crop sensor, made my 400mm 2.8 lens almost too long. Images from slide show below are just from the second half (shot at 3200 iso…)

Friend Mark J. Rebilas sent me these tears he found online, from my coverage of the Chargers/Bengals game Sunday. Mark has been posting interesting year end type things on his blog too recently, check out his best of the year photos in different categories (best celebration pictures, best action, best baseball photos, etc. Plus a butt-ton of Nascar stuff. All on his blog.

The Charleston Gazette reported yesterday that an award winning videographer, Scott Rensberger, was arrested after he took point and shoot happy snaps of  Santa in a mall yesterday. He was “manhandled” by cops. Another video showing police questioning a photographer in a train station who was taking photos became popular on youtube recently (see it here).

Coincidentally my cousin sent me a link yesterday to an online guide that lists what you can and can’t shoot in public – photographer’s rights, called “Your Rights and Remedies When Stopped or Confronted for Photography”. Read it here.

It was written by an attorney in Oregon. The attorney, Bert Krages II, writes “The Photographer’s Right is a downloadable guide that is loosely based on the Bust Card and the Know Your Rights pamphlet that used to be available on the ACLU website. It may be downloaded and printed out using Adobe Acrobat Reader. You may make copies and carry them in your wallet, pocket, or camera bag to give you quick access to your rights and obligations concerning confrontations over photography. …”

Shot this picture a year and a half ago and never before has a headline been more ominous and telling (”down and out”).  Tiger Wood’s website reported less than two hours ago that he is taking an indefinite break from the game. See story here.

Following story comes from Roger Cicala at lensrental.com:

One of the most common examples of Anti-logic we see at Lensrentals is the statement The lens is soft/frontfocuses/backfocuses. Now don’t get me wrong, there are bad copies of lenses out there, as best we can tell ranging from 3% to 7% of lenses. And we know, despite our checkout procedures, that 1 of 400 lenses or so will be damaged in shipping and arrive not functioning. Sometimes there’s actual damage or misalignment of an element in the lens, although the vast majority of the time that’s not the case. Usually the subject of the photograph is soft because the lens is not focusing precisely.

Three to 4 times a week we have the following conversation:

“The lens you sent me frontfocuses, its not good.”
“OK, we’ll overnight you a replacement.”

Then the first lens comes back and its perfectly fine when we check it out. But the customer is very happy with the replacement lens, it worked great even thought the first one didn’t. So what has happened? Its rather simple, actually, and like most examples of Anti-logic it stems from a wrong assumption: the customer knows his/her camera is ‘fine’ because it works with fine with their other lenses – none of them front focus or back focus….

Read more here.

This is creative and funny and deserves a look: it’s an email chain between a graphic designer and a client who asks him to work for free. The graphic designer doesn’t just say no to free work, he illustrates his point with pictures. Click on image for the back and forth emails and more ways he says no.