It's going to be interesting to see what the next 20 years of photography will look like.

Fasten your seat belts, and let's see what evolves!

Scotti

Film-based photography classes will eventually be taught along side other fine art courses using "vintage" processes like lithography and etching. Space, budget and environmental requirements will limit its life in all but true photography curriculums. I hate to see it go but, the truth is that, outside of a few urban niches, there are no jobs for film.

Still, I can't bear to sell my Focomat.

quote:

Originally posted by KWSmith:
[qb]

quote:

after all we all use or should be using digital exclusively now, right?

Really, why should we? Film is almost always the best tool for the job in my niche (architecture), the only resistance I personally get these days is the cost and turnaround time of processing and scanning.[/qb]

Kevin, not to discount what you're saying, but this article about one of my favorite architectural shooters is pro-digital and I cant argue what he's saying at all:

www.imaginginfo.com/print/Studio-Photography/Unity-and-Contrast/3$2438

Everyone thinks I am against it. I said in my post it was a good idea!

The problem with teaching using film is not the film itself but rather the lab side of the issue. It takes tens of thousands of hours to become a decent custom printer (I am talking about C-41, RA-4 and E-6 here). In this day, I am not sure that it is time well spent. I think that students should definitely shoot B&W film, process, and make their own prints. After B&W I think it might be best to utilize outside lab services.

Additionally, one of the impediments for schools to adopt high end digital technology is the expense of having one foot on the analog side and the other foot on the digital side. Financially, it makes more sense to commit one way or the other. Regardless, I believe that it takes many people years to become competent using Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop training needs to start on day 1.

Just my dos pesos.

TC

the only resistance I personally get these days is the cost and turnaround time of processing and scanning.

Kevin,

You should point out to your clients that there is no capture fee.

Scotti

''It takes tens of thousands of hours to become a decent custom printer''

Huh? Conservatively you're speaking 10 years, of 48 weeks/ 40 hours per. Of course I'm not sure of what your def of "decent" is; after that much time one should hope to be at least journeyman... or in another field.

Film is going to go away, from schools sooner than from the world at large, but from both.

Film is expensive, resource-intensive, and the developing and printing of traditional film and prints is extremely environmentally unfriendly compared to modern digital processes. As schools become ever-more strapped for resources, the expense of the darkrooms, chemicals, waste-treatment, reclamation, and the ever-increasing costs of potential liability for having all those chemicals around are going to knock them off the budgets.

I say this neither with glee nor with sorrow: as a wise fictional reporter once said, "I don't take sides. I take pictures."

If I were the head of an Arts school at a modern university, I would tell the photography department to bring me a plan for an orderly and gradual retirement of all film-based practicals within the next ten years. That's my scientific wild-ass guess as to how much longer film will be viable in any but a very, very specialized and specific arena. I would especially have them immediately begin reducing resources utilized for large-scale teaching of film techniques to undergraduates.

Let the fireworks commence!

M

quote:

Huh? Conservatively you're speaking 10 years, of 48 weeks/ 40 hours per. Of course I'm not sure of what your def of "decent" is; after that much time one should hope to be at least journeyman... or in another field.

10's of thousands of hours may have been over the top. Okay, 10's of thousands of minutes. Looks funny to me too on second reading.

quote:

If I were the head of an Arts school at a modern university, I would tell the photography department to bring me a plan for an orderly and gradual retirement of all film-based practicals within the next ten years. That's my scientific wild-ass guess as to how much longer film will be viable in any but a very, very specialized and specific arena. I would especially have them immediately begin reducing resources utilized for large-scale teaching of film techniques to undergraduates.

StMarc, I think you nailed it with the exception that I think your timeline is too generous. Keep in mind that most photography programs are 2-4 years long. Personally, I do not think the schools have more than 5 years to phase out film.

One of the other difficulties for the schools to maintain both analog and digital is that the EOL of digital equipment and computers is so short. So far, equipment is rarely good for more than 36-60 months before being considered obsolete. Clearly, digital requires a large commitment from the schools.

TC

If it is purely a technical degree, like an AS (two year), then maximize technical skills, like post processing on a computer. If it is for a BFA, then they should be taking basic foundations, like drawing, because you are giving the students tools as foundations upon which to build. An art degree should not strictly emphasize mechanical or technical skills, and should not limit students explorations. On the other hand, if the college just wants to create technicians, then skip on requiring art classes.

Another way to look at this is that if fewer photography students learn about film, and if the emphasis is on sitting in front of a computer, then we will have less competition in the future.

The best skills I ever learned in college were drawing and painting. I could just as easily go to a location and draw it, as I could go to the same place and photograph it. This is due to the foundations courses I took as part of my degree (graduated 1998). The way I view a creative solution is molded by what I learned in college.

quote:

Originally posted by TC:

quote:

If I were the head of an Arts school at a modern university, I would tell the photography department to bring me a plan for an orderly and gradual retirement of all film-based practicals within the next ten years.

StMarc, I think you nailed it with the exception that I think your timeline is too generous. Keep in mind that most photography programs are 2-4 years long. Personally, I do not think the schools have more than 5 years to phase out film.

I was thinking I'd give them a little slack to phase out the graduate-level and high-end undergraduate stuff for artsy types. I'd want Photography 100 all digital in five years or less, preferably less.

OTOH, you may not be able to GET any film for a price any student or university can pay in less than ten years. Although I think that they'll keep consumer-grade 35mm on the market for at least that long for all the people who still have P&S 35mm cameras. That stuff they'll probably keep selling, absent prohibitive environmental laws, as long as the numbers make sense.

M

Well,
I am a photography professor at the College of Southern Nevada and we teach film in a few of our classes. Specifically in our advanced black and white darkroom class and our Large Format class that I personally teach. When digital large format becomes affordable, we will invest in it. But to charge $3,000 (on top of the camera cost)for a sliding back on a Toyo 2x3 view camera is ridiculous. And to charge $1,000 for a dongle to access the "live view" portion of software is obscene. So we teach it as a film based class.

In my LF class, I teach the camera, not darkroom. It's about the camera. The fact that it captures on film is a minor part.

As to teaching what students "will use in the future" as someone above said, no one knows what the future will bring. Our curriculum is over 90 percent digital. So what? We teach image making. We teach that in some ways, digital is better than film and in some ways, film is better than digital. What we DO NOT teach is that one is best for all things. Some of our students can't wait to shoot all digital and others have switched to all film and are making it in the "real world."

Yes, film is nowhere near what it once was in terms of market share. But it is not dead and I seriously doubt it will be so in 5-10 years as some say. However, when it goes, if it goes, we will adjust our curriculum accordingly.

In addition to teaching, I also shoot and I use my 4x5 film camera often. Yes, I have to send my E6 to A&I for processing but that is just the way it is now.

By the way, ours is a commercial photography program that awards an AAS degree upon completion. We let UNLV handle the BFA fine art program.

Happily we haven't had anyone tell us to "stop teaching film to undergraduates." That would be a foolish thing to do.

quote:

Kevin, not to discount what you're saying, but this article about one of my favorite architectural shooters is pro-digital and I cant argue what he's saying at all:

I can. The only really great architecture images I've seen from a Canon DSLR and Canon lenses were tiled, stitched, and HDR'd in some fashion just to come close to what I can do with a 4x5 in one or two frames. Yup, sometimes I bracket and merge 4x5 scans. Call me crazy, but it's faster and the result is quite good if I don't screw it up.

You can't pull a 120MB, 8-bit TIFF from any DSLR without quite a bit of interpolation. When I work with 4x5 scans that's just my starting point.

BTW, did I mention that I have never delivered a shoot to a client that wasn't a series of digital files? My output is 100% digital and always has been no matter how I got there.

quote:

Originally posted by skinshooter:
[qb] 100% it should be taught in school, no question. Let me list just a few reasons off the top of my head;
1. give the kid a sheet of film and tell him to make the image instead of machine gunning a 2gb card of images, teaches him patience.
2. get the kid to print their own image in the darkroom and they will learn cleanliness
3. get the kid to pay for their own materials throughout the year and they will learn to budget [/qb]

learning how to budget and clean sounds more like a home economics class than a photo class. I would hope the photo dept didn't have to spend an entire semester teaching kids how to clean up after themselves...