Back to Simplicity: Rediscovering the art of film photography

Occasionally, I miss the simplicity of bygone times, the simplicity of film photography in particular. I miss people’s ability to think for themselves and not leave the thinking to some kind of machine. My goal with this article is to ask readers whether they feel the magic of photography has turned into a disappearing act due to automation in the digital age, or even whether it’s still there.

I can assure you, the old days were not always better. Who would miss the “enjoyment” of cold, damp mornings in the shipyard where I started working as an apprentice machinist many years ago? I certainly don’t pine for the wet hours on the aft deck, standing by the steam towing winch of a salvage tugboat in the North Sea. It’s better to sit in the warm engine control room with a nice cup of coffee.

Navigating based on my skills

Let me make a comparison. I have a Certificate of Competency as a shipmate 1^st-Class from my time as a Naval Officer when I learned celestial navigation. That allows me to compare my skills to those built-in to GPS. With celestial navigation, it is my abilities that determine how well and therefore how accurately I can plot my ship’s position. It turns out that the skills of celestial navigation and film photography are not that far apart.

With GPS, I need only to be able to read the codes. The machine itself does all the work. I have no influence on its accuracy. With a high level of confidence, the GPS will be more accurate. But my satisfaction, pride and joy will be much lower. The process is not mine, and I’m dependent on other people’s decisions as to how the machine works.

Discovering photography

When I started taking photos as a boy, it was because a part of the world I was interested in was disappearing. My first camera was a Voigtländer Vito CL. When my mother realised that I was serious about photography, I got a new Leica IIIg with a 5.0 cm Summicron as a Confirmation gift. Over the years, it was joined by a few more lenses.

I still have it, and it has only been repaired once. That was after 48 years of use when the shutter curtain wore out. For many years, this was my entire outfit. I eventually bought a used Leica I in Jakarta, as a backup camera.

A portable hobby

Film photography became a lifelong hobby for me. My Leica followed me around the world in my professional life as a marine engineer. It was small, solid, and practical, and I could take it with me on all the ships I had been hired to work on. It was not affected by heat or cold, and there were no batteries that needed to be charged or replaced.

I could buy the film I needed in most of the ports my ship called at. I developed the films in an Agfa Rondinax 35 tank. The Rodinal developer had a very long shelf life, the fixer was easy to mix from available chemicals, and there was plenty of water to flush it.

Expanding my hobby

In the 70s I bought a Leica CL with lenses. An M4P followed in the 80s. The reason for this was that I wanted better wide-angle lenses, and they all had an M bayonet.

In the 00s, I bought an M7, mainly for convenience. It was partly automatic, and that meant I finally had a couple of digital Leicas. This was partly out of curiosity and partly out of laziness.

My original purpose for taking photos was simply to record events and places. Of course, this why I bought a camera originally. As the years went by, I divided my photography into two groups, memory photography and photography that I had thought about, to create a picture.

When you know more than you realised

A younger person I knew asked me to teach him how to take photographs. As I started to tell him how it all worked, he said he thought it was much easier for me to understand because I had learned photography in the film era.

When I started photography, I had to learn all the tricks of the trade. The technical side was no big deal for me. But it took me a while longer to make good pictures.

I needed to understand all the technicalities: the interaction between shutter speed and aperture. What was the film speed? How did the colour filter influence the finished picture? How, despite a slow shutter speed, could I shoot handheld?

I had to understand when to change the focal length. How the focal length influenced where I needed to stand. It was also important to understand the influence of perspective and how to use it.

The analogue/mechanical experience

I still enjoy using my Leica IIIg as a way to make use of all that accumulated knowledge. It is my skills combined with my imagination that create images I can be pleased with.

The pictures from film are the pictures I have made. Not somebody or something else that thought for me and had made decisions for me.

It was down to my abilities that made the image. I am also taking advantage of craftsmen who many years ago had made the camera.

The joy of craftsmanship

Older Leicas weren’t industrial products: you had the feeling that they were handmade in a small factory by skilled craftsman in white coats. When you have a camera like this in your hands, it is a joy, you can almost feel the spirits of past generations. Of course, you still have to have imagination and a feeling for the image you want to capture.

Film first

When I photograph as a hobby, my preference is still to use film Leicas. Photographing with film forces me to think ahead before pressing the shutter button. I have to think about how I intend the finished image to look.

Fixable in skilled hands

If something is wrong, then I am to blame. If the camera is broken, I can repair it because I was a machinist before I studied to be a marine engineer. There’s nothing inside the camera that I cannot make with my hands and the necessary tools. When I use this old camera, I still have the same pleasure, joy, and pride in film photography that I had when I first used the camera sixty-two years ago.

Digital convenience

Over time, I inherited a couple of camera systems, one a Nikon, and the other an Olympus. Both systems are well-made. Some Nikon lenses, for instance, the 85mm f/1.4, was the equal of the Leica 75mm f/1.4. But if you were used to a small compact camera, for example a Leica, I’m convinced that you would prefer the Olympus. The Olympus lenses were almost as good as the Leica lenses.

Aperture, shutter speed, film speed, perspective, distance, focal length and any colour filtering, must all be considered. You maybe have to stop down one stop further, but the films available today are at least one stop faster than in the old days. Fast films in the 1950s were 21 DIN (100 ISO) but the feeling is different.

Today, I use a Leica TL2 with a 23mm f/2.0, or GR III as simple point-and-shoot cameras. I prefer the GR III because it’s smaller and pocketable. This is not a criticism against the quality of the photographs they produce. Since you can set the camera to auto everything, you can leave the technical part of your brain at home when asked to take pictures for “Uncle Ervin’s” birthday. What they are missing is the sense of involvement in determining the output, which is what you would get from a film camera.

Loss of craft skills

With digital photography and post-processing software, it is easier to think “backwards” or not think at all. You can press the shutter button and then correct any mistakes you may have made. Set the program to P, and let the autofocus decide. Or you could also just use a mobile phone.

Modern smartphones are truly magnificent. Some of them have programs that can make images look like they were shot on classic film lenses. You upload the photo to the Internet, and most of the previous finesse that a skilled photographer might have used disappears.

The resolution of the photo and the colour that may have been there in the original will instead be determined by the Internet bandwidth and the quality of the recipients’ PC/Mac screen.

Artificial colourings

Some of the photos I see on various websites could have been taken with a mobile phone. The majority of the pictures are enhanced by some kind of computer software. Presumably to tell the viewers how magnificent a photographer they are. There is, of course, a skill to operating a computer program, but in very few years (months?) these skills may be redundant with artificial intelligence and may become disappearing acts themselves.

Another thing that must be considered: what will be the operating system and whether future software will be able to read the image file format used today? We know that a film negative is usable even after 140 years. But will we be able to see the pictures taken with all the cell phones in 100 years?

When it’s easier to replace than fix

It is thought-provoking for me that we live in an increasingly technological world, where fewer and fewer people know how all these devices work. You have to make the assumption, as with an in-car navigation system, that it knows what it is doing and has not been fed erroneous data.

Blinded by technology

It’s easy to be seduced by modern technology. It has, of course, helped humanity to have a better life and in some ways an easier life. I would be long gone and have become my own disappearing act if it were not for modern medical care. As a marine engineer, I have experienced and benefited from all these advancements.

I am not sure how pleased I am with the improvements that the Naval engineer side of me has experienced. Perhaps we should consider whether all these innovations can really be considered to be progress. Another example: have we become happier people because of twenty-four hour news coverage? Probably not.

Food for thought

One other problem is the development of electronics. Many electronic parts are only manufactured in relatively short time. For instance, when my M9 needed a new imaging sensor after three years, it was actually a last call. Six months later, there were no more sensors in stock.

My Leica IIIg lasted nearly 50 years before it required a repair. There is nothing inside that camera that couldn’t be made by a craftsman. So, my camera continues to work after receiving a replacement shutter blind.

Does anybody believe my M9 will work in 50 years? When I received my IIIg the tagline for Leica, was “Leica for a lifetime” maybe the tagline today should be “Leica for the next six months; then disappearing.”

What do you think?

I’m interested in other photographers’ attitudes and opinions regarding the question of high levels of automation in today’s digital photography. I hope that I am not perceived as a stubborn man, who believes that everything was better in the old days.

In the end, I want to ask Macfilos readers what they feel about the “magic” of photography. Is it still there to be enjoyed? Or has it disappeared as a result of technological progress?

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More:
6 iconic cameras to start your Leica collection	A 55-year Love Affair with Leica that started with a Leica III
My Leica III and its 91-year journey through life	Leica M3: Return of the King

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