After my last post I felt that I might come across as a bit of a film hater! when really this couldn't be further from the truth. Although I do not choose to work with analogue SLR cameras and film I thoroughly enjoy using them in my free time and ideas frequently arise from the many mistakes I make as a student photographer. The ability to make these mistakes and learn from them is something I have always admired in film and the debate on whether film is 'better' than digital (or vice versa) seems stupid as both hold such great potential as a creative tool. I'm sure most the kerfuffle was caused by photographers such as Goldin who fear the eventual disappearance of their 'process'. I find this a ridiculous statement to make however, as these people would continue and therefore keep film 'alive' as a niche technology.
As far as I know, making a good lasting image is difficult whether you are using digital or film. Any negative health effects of photo-chemicals is likely to be equal to the same damage done staring at a monitor editing all day! In the end it'll be the unique aesthetic that film allows (and is difficult to digitally duplicate) that will attract people to the process and as I was researching this I found that Paul Graham's new book, 'Films' explores the idea that basic grain is not easily mimicked by pixels. Graham himself is an avid user of film and in each new series he explores different aspects of what makes film so interesting.
My favourite series by him 'End of an Age', embraces the variety of colour balance from many light sources as he circles his pirouetting figures. He also talks about human mistakes which rarely/never happen with digital photography and how those small flaws created by mistakes give a handmade feel to the image. Graham’s ‘End of an Age’ (1999) consists of forty-nine colour portraits. The portraits avoid the direct gaze of the subject and capture them unaware and un-posed wearing dazed, searching looks in the club environment, which they are spectators. The images defy photographic rules making them often out of focus, obscured by colour cast and he uses a mixture of harsh, sharply defined flash pictures along with moodier available-light images.
The conceptual meaning of this series can be read as the limbo between childhood and adulthood. The subjects body language adds to their vulnerability, often stood watching, completely absorbed by the events happening off camera. This series also avoids becoming a portrait of a culture as the club goers where photographed around the world and therefore the series becomes portraits of a collective condition rather than one of a particular group or nationality. The series can be read as a portrait of a generation, but it is also a portrait of a time.
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