In the past, everything was more difficult and certainly not more beautiful or better
29/03/26 22:37 Filed in: Watching
In the late summer of my life, not yet in the autumn. But the leaves are starting to change color. I more often get older students. And then I'm also talking about 70 plus. And actually, I've always been photographing longer than my oldest student has. And I'm only just 60, but yes, I started very early and therefore have mountains of experience.
Talking about the past, with older students, is always lurking. The time when we still photographed with film. One of my standard questions is then, have you stood in the darkroom in the past? That question guarantees me to find out how far someone's knowledge goes. And no one has to go into a darkroom for me anymore. Please don't. The stench and all those bad chemicals. I don't want to think about it anymore.
With someone around 30 years old, I can't talk about that. The "old folks" also sometimes have the tendency to romanticize everything. Everything was more beautiful in the past. Well, not really! Not with photography in any case. Everything was much more difficult in the past. Photography has never been so easy.
The big trick of a digital camera since 1995 is that it has an LCD display and a histogram. They immediately show what you have just created. It was a kind of magic at the time, and nowadays it has made photography so much easier. See the result immediately and be able to adjust it immediately. That's the big trick of photography nowadays. Except that it is now also at a much higher level than it ever was when we were still photographing with film.
The above photo has been very important to me. I have won many prizes with it, and the photo and the exhibition have gone all over the world. It was made at the time with a Hasselblad SWC camera. A camera that, if you hold it straight, also photographs everything straight. Back then, I also shot an exposure bracket. Because it was basically a very difficult photo to take. High contrasts and the white and black had to be well-detailed. And it also had to be pretty quick. Quick in this context is within two minutes. Because we were holding back all the castle visitors and doing the same outside. And the management of the castle wasn't so happy about that, to put it mildly.
The photo just had to be perfect within two minutes. Because with a wrong or, let's say, bad exposure, you were endlessly pushing through and holding back. If you had to do that, your exposure really wasn't good. And that cost mountains of paper. And paper was already expensive then.
When taking the above photo, there was no time to take a Polaroid. And I didn't have the money for it. That would have cost four guilders per Polaroid. And at the time of the above photo, I was still a poor student.
You could measure the exposure with a light meter. But that didn't necessarily mean that the indicated exposure was necessarily good. So to be sure, you shot an exposure bracket. To be learned directly in my basic course. It is the basis of real photography. And you shot it so that you thought you could tackle the problems for the moment when you had to print this photo in the darkroom. The better the exposure, the less work in the darkroom.
In short, a whole process in your head that preceded the final printing of a photo and also all that same thought process before you even pressed a shutter button. It was difficult, and you had to have a lot of knowledge and insight. Recognizing and estimating the problem of your subject. And what you need for that in terms of exposure. Also in the possibly adjustable development times of your films. And then hope that it was good. Because you were never really sure.
Nowadays, it is so easy. You can now always be sure that you will go home with a good photo. The display shows it immediately. If you still come home with a wrong photo, then you have not looked properly. And it's that simple, but still difficult for many. That's why there's so much post-processing. I'm glad I started photography in the past. It has never been so easy.
And then the ignorant ones shout that, if they do a lot of post-processing, that in the darkroom they also pushed through and held back. That's true, but with much less good films, cameras and lenses and, more importantly, almost no control possibilities. Now with all the settings that are present in a camera, colors, contrasts, saturations, color modes, local contrast, ADL, DRO, white balance with Kelvin values, and so on, it is now made very easy for you.
If you still need a lot of post-processing now, then you can say that you don't really understand photography yet. Maybe a painful observation, sorry for that. It will not get any easier than it is now. You just have to make some choices, and then you have made the perfect photo for you. And you also had to make choices early on, but those were not easy to see due to the absence of an LCD display and histogram. And now they are.
Layer here, layer there. Local selection on the subject, which one to push through nicely... and so on. White balance is determined by 98% of current photographers anyway. And that's a shame. Because it has nothing to do with photography. You do photography with a camera and not behind a computer, even though you need it. But not to make your photo better. It just has to be good already. Because what is good does not need to be improved.
Photography will really not get any easier than it is now. Being able to see everything you are doing right away, superior resolutions, superior dynamic range of many cameras. And yet you can't figure it out? Then just take photographs. Taking very good photos is really easier than you think.
With someone around 30 years old, I can't talk about that. The "old folks" also sometimes have the tendency to romanticize everything. Everything was more beautiful in the past. Well, not really! Not with photography in any case. Everything was much more difficult in the past. Photography has never been so easy.
The big trick of a digital camera since 1995 is that it has an LCD display and a histogram. They immediately show what you have just created. It was a kind of magic at the time, and nowadays it has made photography so much easier. See the result immediately and be able to adjust it immediately. That's the big trick of photography nowadays. Except that it is now also at a much higher level than it ever was when we were still photographing with film.
The above photo has been very important to me. I have won many prizes with it, and the photo and the exhibition have gone all over the world. It was made at the time with a Hasselblad SWC camera. A camera that, if you hold it straight, also photographs everything straight. Back then, I also shot an exposure bracket. Because it was basically a very difficult photo to take. High contrasts and the white and black had to be well-detailed. And it also had to be pretty quick. Quick in this context is within two minutes. Because we were holding back all the castle visitors and doing the same outside. And the management of the castle wasn't so happy about that, to put it mildly.
The photo just had to be perfect within two minutes. Because with a wrong or, let's say, bad exposure, you were endlessly pushing through and holding back. If you had to do that, your exposure really wasn't good. And that cost mountains of paper. And paper was already expensive then.
When taking the above photo, there was no time to take a Polaroid. And I didn't have the money for it. That would have cost four guilders per Polaroid. And at the time of the above photo, I was still a poor student.
You could measure the exposure with a light meter. But that didn't necessarily mean that the indicated exposure was necessarily good. So to be sure, you shot an exposure bracket. To be learned directly in my basic course. It is the basis of real photography. And you shot it so that you thought you could tackle the problems for the moment when you had to print this photo in the darkroom. The better the exposure, the less work in the darkroom.
In short, a whole process in your head that preceded the final printing of a photo and also all that same thought process before you even pressed a shutter button. It was difficult, and you had to have a lot of knowledge and insight. Recognizing and estimating the problem of your subject. And what you need for that in terms of exposure. Also in the possibly adjustable development times of your films. And then hope that it was good. Because you were never really sure.
Nowadays, it is so easy. You can now always be sure that you will go home with a good photo. The display shows it immediately. If you still come home with a wrong photo, then you have not looked properly. And it's that simple, but still difficult for many. That's why there's so much post-processing. I'm glad I started photography in the past. It has never been so easy.
And then the ignorant ones shout that, if they do a lot of post-processing, that in the darkroom they also pushed through and held back. That's true, but with much less good films, cameras and lenses and, more importantly, almost no control possibilities. Now with all the settings that are present in a camera, colors, contrasts, saturations, color modes, local contrast, ADL, DRO, white balance with Kelvin values, and so on, it is now made very easy for you.
If you still need a lot of post-processing now, then you can say that you don't really understand photography yet. Maybe a painful observation, sorry for that. It will not get any easier than it is now. You just have to make some choices, and then you have made the perfect photo for you. And you also had to make choices early on, but those were not easy to see due to the absence of an LCD display and histogram. And now they are.
Layer here, layer there. Local selection on the subject, which one to push through nicely... and so on. White balance is determined by 98% of current photographers anyway. And that's a shame. Because it has nothing to do with photography. You do photography with a camera and not behind a computer, even though you need it. But not to make your photo better. It just has to be good already. Because what is good does not need to be improved.
Photography will really not get any easier than it is now. Being able to see everything you are doing right away, superior resolutions, superior dynamic range of many cameras. And yet you can't figure it out? Then just take photographs. Taking very good photos is really easier than you think.