Giorgio,
A very well considered article - thank you for sharing. I see the thread has brought out the usual suspects - Bill, Kyle, Barrie and Paul with their insightful commentary. Now it's time for Mark to blunder in and bring down the tone and possibly lose the subject of the thread completely - in the absence of a :dunce: emoticon I think I'll go with :woohoo1:
I agree with most every word in your article. Much of it sounds like the longest foreword ever written - a.k.a. my scratching in
"Single in January" photobook from 2011 (as mentioned by Barrie earlier). Much of it still rings true. Again I agree with all you have said but would add that what has changed
for me over time is the aesthetic of B+W photography.
I have experienced a realness or tangibility with film that really appeals to me. Submergence in the world, feeling ultra-sensitive to your surroundings (can do this with any camera I know), then you advance the film and you have a tabula rasa (a.k.a. 'clean slate') a small piece of film keen and so latent, you size up a scene - add or subtract to your frame as per your intended message and figure the exposure (either by 'blind' adherence to your average meter or reading your zones based on what you want as 18% grey), but then …oh yes then….you slowly press your finger and things explode. Light floods through the hole you determined of the lens and the silver halide crystals are excited - some more so than others. Then, a small sigh as the shutter closes so quickly. Back behind the black curtain. There is an image that remains in my mind's eye about that 1/125sec, and it remains locked there in the dark. Then I advance the film again…
I hold the image in my mind's eye. And latter there is the anticipation (and art) of development - another separate essay right here - Then to spy the result and the memory returns. The world in miniature, silver halide in suspended animation seemingly in only two dimensions. In your hands (well gloved or within the plastic) is something very real and precious and fragile and sensitive. Crystals arranged in a pattern in response to light. In a pattern that you witnessed in the world and translated into tones. There is something very real and present about this to me. Every negative is individual and unique. I look at my negative very different to my RAW files. Granted the latter are 'ordinarily' sharper and more vibrant to look at but I am left feeling a little distant from them.
Generations from now can hold these negatives and simply project light through them again to replicate what I once saw.
Generations from now might still have the codec to break into my RAW files…..