The other day, I was thinking how much has changed in the business of commercial image making. So my question to myself and I’m sure others are pondering the same,
WILL AI IMAGING REPLACE PHOTOGRAPHY?
In this 5 part series, I hope to answer that question and examine why.
With the beginning of AI image making apps and always improving digital cameras, including the rising interest in large format cameras, dating back to the late 1950s, as seen by the amount of Facebook groups and YouTube videos, puts the question, what’s next in photography or is this the end of an art form?
For decades as a large camera advertising photographer and now since 2004 a digital artist and designer, I watch and wonder, what is going to happen to every one who makes a living or wants to make a living making images. So before we dig into the future, let’s look at how we got here with the beginning of film used commercially. Maybe there’s a clue or two that will help provide a look into the future of image making photography.
BEFORE DIGITAL
Shooting professional photography is a consistent, repetitive system you count on each and every time you exposed film or today fire the digital camera. A system that you built over the years, understanding, what your film could do and what it couldn’t do within a combination of your lighting techniques. Which film held highlights better, and which was better retaining shadow details? The things you had to know to be totally confident that you were getting the shot you intended to get!
Before digital came to be, there were 70 plus different types of daylight and tungsten film available to the amateur and pro during the 1960s through the 90s. Way before the word digital was paired with film photography, you could see instantly the world of making pictures has dramatically changed with less than 10 color films available today. 6 of those are black and white.
At one time the commercial and hobbyist photographers had available to them, every conceivable format camera manufacture’s make and just about every conceivable type of black and white, daylight color, and tungsten films that Kodak or any other manufactures such as Fuji or Ilford made in those days.
Every manufacture had the same basic ASA ratings or speed of the film. There was 100 or 125 a jump to 200 and then to 400 ASA which if you didn’t mind the increase in grain and contrast you could double or triple your speed for the darkness shooting situations, where you had to get the shot but couldn’t use a flash or a tripod in the place you were making photographs. Today, you just dial that speed into the camera settings.
Most films were available in slide or print for most formats, except one color slide film called Kodachrome by Kodak.
Kodachrome from my understanding, besides being a Kodak process only, meaning you had to send it in to be developed, was a black and white silver film injected with color dyes. The dyes were matched with the sliver content on the film and Kodak magic made the color pop out and the image appeared to be sharper than with Kodak’s Ektachrome film which was not silver base but plastic base. Plus the grain structure was smaller than color film. You could shoot 35mm and use it as a billboard and it would look sharp and beautiful warm colors.
Kodachrome’s film was a favorite and most often used by fashion photographers because of its saturation and beautiful skin tone quality. Rated at 64 or 32, used with fast speed lenses for fashion would give the image beautiful warm feel holding the high-lights and shadow detail. With fast lenses a nice shallow depth of field to blurry everything but the clothes and models.
Being able to get the performance out of the film with the flexibility of the 35mm format, you can see why Kodachrome was a fashion and sports fast action favorite of many professional and amateur photographers. It was beautiful film that captured many of our extraordinary fashion and sports images throughout the 80s and 90s. Today we have Photoshop or in camera filters called like POP ART or RETRO to make the digital image we take look more like a great film image of the past.
Same thing when shooting still life and food with large format cameras 4×5, 5×7 8×10, 11X14. I always went to the industry’s standard go to film. Kodak Ektachrome 64 used with a bit of 025Red or 05Magenta filtering at the back of the lens. If I wanted a deeper saturation, Fuji Velvia Film that was beautifully warm and sharp. Certainly gave Kodak film a run when it came to shooting food photography for companies like Kraft, Quaker, Coke-Cola, etc.
When the studio had a very large project such as a catalog we did our best to buy and put as much of the same batch number aside to complete the job, that way the color remained consistent. The catalog would print in prefect color throughout the entire project, never shifting color a bit due to the emulsion batch not matching. Today, It’s done in camera and or Photoshop.
