Re: experimenting with 35mm film

"Hugh Spence" <hugh_spence@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>This is true from some perspectives.
>
>If you 'machine-gun' shoot to get one good image and then show it on
someone 
>else's digital projector in a club setting, your cost is entirely
contained 
>in the initial purchase of the new toy. Film is dearer if you have a high

>wastage and don't do anything with the majority of the images shot.
>
>If you know that most of your pictures will be usable and you don't need 
>them in seconds you can, as you say, buy a lot of film processing for the

>difference in cost.


People who learned their photographic technique in the days of film
tend to try to make every shot count.  If you 'machine-gun' shoot to
get one good image from many, as people with digital cameras tend to
do, then you are not a photographer.  You are taking an almost wholly
random approach to image making in the hope of getting just one
keeper.

This can work, on the same basis that an infinite number of monkeys
playing with an infinite number of typewriters will produce the
complete works of Shakespeare in among a few galaxies' volume of
complete dross.

I do some picture editing for stock image agency and there is a
colossal difference between the submitted work of competent
photographers and those who think that owning an entry-level DSLR and
a couple of kit lenses makes them into a "freelance photographer".  

Most of the workload at such agencies consists of sorting the wheat
from the chaff.  The chaff makes up over 90% of submissions, which is
why several agencies have introduced a method of grading the
contributors to ensure that more time is spent on selecting the better
images and less on eliminating the chaff.