Teaching photography - film or digital

nealeholl

nealeholl

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Originally posted in basics forum

My 17 year old daughter has expressed an interest in taking up photography, and was keen to spend a week on a course to get her up and running. I duly booked her onto a week-long course at the very highly regarded (I think?!) Central St. Martins in London: Photography for 16-18 year olds. Perfect!
I was slightly surprised to discover later that the course is run using film and manual film cameras only.

I can see the obvious benefits in terms of giving the kids a really good grounding in traditional photography. However I would say that it might also be a really good recipe for turning kids off photography all together! They are so used to the instant gratification of all things digital, a return to the ponderous nature of film might be a bridge too far.

She hasn't gone yet, but I'd love to know what others think is the best way of giving this age group a good basic grounding in photography.
 
I picked it up at a very similar age, and learnt all the basics on digital (very useful to see instant results of what a setting change results in) by myself, and continue to shoot digital. I picked up film a year or so later.

As long as she is being taught the basics by excellent teachers at a well reputed place, why does it matter? Surely they will have been using whatever method is tried and tested best. The basics of photography are no different, and in some ways learning composition without white balance, endless autofocus modes and gazillions of settings to get in the way might actually be of great help in her learning.

Believe me, the excitement of waiting for your film to be developed does not change whether you grew up decades ago or over the last decade.
 
the course would certainly give her a good understanding in the basics of photography ,but i also see what you are saying about the instant gratification side of things ,i think if she really wants to do photography for photographys sake ,it would be a good idea ,,
 
I feel "the ponderous nature" as you put it, is maybe just your perception of film photography.
Whilst not wanting to push our kids in to something they may not necessarily choose to do, I think its important they are at least given the opportunity to choose for themselves by furnishing them with the alternatives.
I don't believe if they are truly interested in photography, shooting film for a week is gonna turn them off, they can go back to digital easy enough.
But kids are kids and whether its photography, piano lessons, dance art or anything else, if the wind blows in the wrong direction....its all over anyway.
Shooting film ought help them achieve their goals whatever medium they choose to use afterwards, for that reason I think film is the best medium to learn the basics with.

:)
 
I guess it depends if you want her to learn the "principles" of photography or more how to use a camera, if it's the latter then a digital course makes more sense.

It's possible that the content of the course at St Martins is structured more around the knowledge of the lecturer than meeting the demands of the public, it's not uncommon unfortunately!!

Simon
 
"Instant gratification" in digital photography has the downside of rewarding the "spray and pray" approach. Hopefully, delaying the result using film photography might encourage some thought and preparation.
 
Alastair said:
"Instant gratification" in digital photography has the downside of rewarding the "spray and pray" approach. Hopefully, delaying the result using film photography might encourage some thought and preparation.
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We use modern technology far too often as a scapegoat, it's all about the motivation and commitment of the person using the equipment not the type of equipment used.
 
simonkit said:
We use modern technology far too often as a scapegoat, it's all about the motivation and commitment of the person using the equipment not the type of equipment used.
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Making the move to film has made me slow down and take a much more measured approach, so my comment was based on my own experience. There's something about only having 8, 10, 12 or 36 shots and not a 16Gb memory card that focuses me on nailing the composition first time. Just the act of winding on forces me to pause and consider my next shot.
 
Alastair said:
Making the move to film has made me slow down and take a much more measured approach, so my comment was based on my own experience. There's something about only having 8, 10, 12 or 36 shots and not a 16Gb memory card that focuses me on nailing the composition first time. Just the act of winding on forces me to pause and consider my next shot.
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^^^

This :thumbs:
 
Alastair said:
Making the move to film has made me slow down and take a much more measured approach, so my comment was based on my own experience. There's something about only having 8, 10, 12 or 36 shots and not a 16Gb memory card that focuses me on nailing the composition first time. Just the act of winding on forces me to pause and consider my next shot.
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My exact thoughts as well.

If she really wants to learn photography I think learning with film, if only for a week, is an excellent way to go. It doesn't mean she won't be able to use a digital camera again but she might just have a more intimate knowledge of the basics of any kind of photography. Also film photography amongs the 'young people' is very popular at the moment, look at the cost of Holga/Lomo cameras for example, all driven up by the popularity amongst the young.

Andy
 
Alastair said:
Making the move to film has made me slow down and take a much more measured approach, so my comment was based on my own experience. There's something about only having 8, 10, 12 or 36 shots and not a 16Gb memory card that focuses me on nailing the composition first time. Just the act of winding on forces me to pause and consider my next shot.
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The tutor could limit a student to X amount of shots on a digi camera for same effect.. having a film camera in your hand doesnt make you get betetr shots than a digi camera
 
KIPAX said:
The tutor could limit a student to X amount of shots on a digi camera for same effect.. having a film camera in your hand doesnt make you get betetr shots than a digi camera
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I agree, though how many people have the self discipline to stick to that with digital camera in hand? It's admirable if they can, just highly unlikely
 
Andysnap said:
Also film photography amongs the 'young people' is very popular at the moment
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I think we are talking about different young people... more likely to make them laugh out loud to be honest.. First question would be how do you get them on facebook..


film very popular wiht young people? sorry but not by any stretch of the imagination :)
 
KIPAX said:
The tutor could limit a student to X amount of shots on a digi camera for same effect.. having a film camera in your hand doesnt make you get betetr shots than a digi camera
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I think the point is that there is the consideration that comes with having to wind your next shot, rather than that film=better shots. Besides, I still stick with what I said before - who are we to say what should and shouldn't be done, when a reputable educational institute has formulated their photography course with (likely) years of experience?
 
GOT IT!

Give the students a project and a 32mb or 64mb memory card.. that would ahve the same effect as film and make them think....yes?
 
freecom2 said:
who are we to say what should and shouldn't be done,
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I think you will find we are offering opinions as we have been asked to by the OP and in some areas having a debate about those opinions... I dont see anyone and certainly not I .. telling anyone what should or shouldnt be done :(
 
KIPAX said:
I think we are talking about different young people... more likely to make them laugh out loud to be honest.. First question would be how do you get them on facebook..


film very popular wiht young people? sorry but not by any stretch of the imagination :)
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As a young person, well 25, I'm in a reasonable position to inform you that in fact, it's a very popular trend amongst young people. Lomo stuff, retro colour, polaroid etc are very popular...

The young people you are refering to are young people that don't give a hoot about photography as an art, they just want a visual record of drunken nights and fun days out...in which case they'll be using a point and shoot and a photography course is wholely irrelevant in any format
 
When it comes to learning about photography, both can play heir part. With digital, a tutor can give advice to a student and they can use that advice and see the results straight away (sorry, don't believe in the Spray & Pray theory. Anyone who is genuinely interested in learning photography would go down that route IMO) and therefore it is easier for things to sink it.

Film is where you can test whether that knowledge had indeed sunk in. They can go off and see if they can match the results from the digital sessions. Think of it as:

Digital = Lesson

Film = Test
 
Mahoneyd187 said:
As a young person, well 25, I'm in a reasonable position to inform you that in fact, it's a very popular
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accept if you look at the OPs post we are talking about 17 yr olds... worlds apart dont you think :)
 
fabs said:
When it comes to learning about photography, both can play heir part. With digital, a tutor can give advice to a student and they can use that advice and see the results straight away (sorry, don't believe in the Spray & Pray theory. Anyone who is genuinely interested in learning photography would go down that route IMO) and therefore it is easier for things to sink it.

Film is where you can test whether that knowledge had indeed sunk in. They can go off and see if they can match the results from the digital sessions. Think of it as:

Digital = Lesson

Film = Test
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please explain how looking instantly in digital and waiting to look in film is different apart from the wait? and are you seriosuly suggesting all digital camera owners use spray and pray or soemhting.. Yourself and others on this thread are quite insulting to digital users bordering on calling them too thick to learn photogrpahy because they havent used film..

Are there any non film photogrpahers who have made it in the world of photography and if so.. how on earth did they manage that?

I know how the above looks.. but believe me I ahve a smile on my face when writing... :)
 
KIPAX said:
I think you will find we are offering opinions as we have been asked to by the OP and in some areas having a debate about those opinions... I dont see anyone and certainly not I .. telling anyone what should or shouldnt be done :(
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Yeah, I didn't mean that in a 'nah let's not discuss this and instead just brush off old film cameras and play with them as we normally do in this forum' way, just that the chances are they know more than we do about educating on photography :)
 
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KIPAX said:
please explain how looking instantly in digital and waiting to look in film is different apart from the wait? and are you seriosuly suggesting all digital camera owners use spray and pray or soemhting.. Yourself and others on this thread are quite insulting to digital users bordering on calling them too thick to learn photogrpahy because they havent used film..

Are there any non film photogrpahers who have made it in the world of photography and if so.. how on earth did they manage that?

I know how the above looks.. but believe me I ahve a smile on my face when writing... :)
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Tony, have you not had your morning coffee yet? :lol:

I said I DON'T believe in the Spray & Pray theory, as in I don't believe digital users do it as much as some think.

My point was that using a film camera for a while can be a good way to test yourself on what you have learned as you don't get the opportunity to check instantly and have another go.
 
Surely we are overlooking the point that for 100 years photography was taught and used on film? Digital has been mainstream for what, 10 years? I'm the biggest, biggest advocate of using both film and digital side-by-side, I enjoy shooting with both, but the advent of digital doesn't necessarily mean that film loses it's place as an educational tool.

Besides, I thought lomography and other such stuff was being picked up by a younger crowd anyway?
 
KIPAX said:
please explain how looking instantly in digital and waiting to look in film is different apart from the wait? and are you seriosuly suggesting all digital camera owners use spray and pray or soemhting.. Yourself and others on this thread are quite insulting to digital users bordering on calling them too thick to learn photogrpahy because they havent used film..

Are there any non film photogrpahers who have made it in the world of photography and if so.. how on earth did they manage that?

I know how the above looks.. but believe me I ahve a smile on my face when writing... :)
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Good disclaimer ;)

You do sound a little defensive.

What you get in here in nowhere near as narrow minded as the "there's no reason to shoot film" **** there was posted in the other thread
 
Sorry Kipax film is still very popular with the younger generation. I do an evening course in Photography at one of the local colleges and talking to the tutors there, film is and has become very popular with the "Digital Generation" so were talking 17 years and up.

One thing film does teach you is how to "visualise" an image simple because you can't shoot, chimp, "oh I'll fix it in photoshop". Digital can teach you the technical side of photography but how many times on here do we see people (yes film as well) saying "how can I fix/improve this" because film slows you down you have to learn to use your eyes and you don't have the "instant gratification" of seeing on the back of the screen.

As to the original OP I do not see an issue with your daughter using film, I think it will be great and she will will learn that not everything is there to be seen instantly. I hope she has fun.
 
Knikki said:
One thing film does teach you is how to "visualise" an image simple because you can't shoot, chimp, "oh I'll fix it in photoshop"
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so your saying non film users cant visualise an image? I am not splitting hairs, missquoting or being picky... your saying unless you use film then you cant visualise an image before you take it.. you cant take your time and take a picture in one shot... thats what your saying.. and if thats not what your saying then why not use digital?


Knikki said:
I think it will be great and she will will learn that not everything is there to be seen instantly. I hope she has fun.
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Maybe she wants to live in the current world where... sorry to inform you... everyhting is there to be seen instantly...

As for film photogrpahy being popular wiht young people... I just checked the film forum on TP against the digital equivelants... I dont know the age ranges but seriously... :)
 
KIPAX said:
As for film photogrpahy being popular wiht young people... I just checked the film forum on TP against the digital equivelants... I dont know the age ranges but seriously... :)
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There's old codgers on both! :lol:
 
KIPAX said:
GOT IT!

Give the students a project and a 32mb or 64mb memory card.. that would ahve the same effect as film and make them think....yes?
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Except they could delete and reshoot...;)

The romantic is me says she should do the film course, then the logic in me says, "Why would I learn the abacus when I can buy a calculator?".

Cheers.
 
KIPAX said:
so your saying non film users cant visualise an image? I am not splitting hairs, missquoting or being picky... your saying unless you use film then you cant visualise an image before you take it.. you cant take your time and take a picture in one shot... thats what your saying.. and if thats not what your saying then why not use digital?
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Unfortunately most don't. The look, they fire, they chimp, you can see it when you go out and about. There are, I am sure, many digital shooters who do "visualise" the image first and those are the ones who probably produce the best images or have a much higher keep rate than others.

KIPAX said:
Maybe she wants to live in the current world where... sorry to inform you... everyhting is there to be seen instantly...
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A fair point, but why does everything have to be now and instant?

KIPAX said:
As for film photogrpahy being popular wiht young people... I just checked the film forum on TP against the digital equivelants... I dont know the age ranges but seriously... :)
Click to expand...

I am sure there are many many more younger digital shooters than film, there is no doubt about that. But there are more younger film shooters out there than you think. Check out the Film Groups on Flickr or Lomo groups.

Lots of colleges and university courses out there that teach advanced or fine arts photography will have a film part in there. No doubt some will hate it others won't, some have even rediscovered Super 8 film.
 
I think one of the main reasons that they (the course) want people to use a old-school manual camera for their course is to know that the student is actually doing what is being asked, and manually controlling the whole process, rather than sticking the camera in Aperture priority mode and letting the camera get the shutter speed right for them for example. They also have the film as physical proof - rather than the RAW file, which could be tweaked a couple of stops if they've muffed the exposure (a good thing in real-life, a bad thing if you're trying to teach people to get it right in camera!).

I certainly don't subscribe to the pray and spray ethos, either digital or film, and I'm probably in a minority within F&C that I enjoy using a film camera that's almost exactly the same in terms of features and handling as my digital kit as a day-to-day film shooting rig. I do also go back to completely manual cameras like my Bronica, and sometimes use half-way-house kit such as my A-1. With every one of them, from digital down to a pinhole camera, I adopt the same slow steady thoughtful routine, I seldom shoot without the benefit of a tripod (or tend to mentally dismiss my non-tripod shots as "snaps"), and I faff around for ages getting my framing and composition as good as I can get it. I'm not particularly interested in shooting action/street/sports/people - even paid models have been known to walk out of the studio in the past because i'm faffing around too much - I find it best not to bother with shooting people :shrug:

So - i'm not a "throw enough crap at a wall and eventually some will stick" merchant. For me, the one thing that Digital has over Film, is the "closed feedback loop" where every shot i've taken is internally documented - the EXIF tells me how wide the aperture was, how fast the shutter, what lens and focal length it was shot at and everything I might want to know a couple of years down the line if I'm going to be taking something similar, and wish to learn from my prior mistakes. This "closed feedback loop" allowed me to experiment and learn more about the technical aspects of driving a camera in 3 months with a digital camera, than I'd managed in 5 years of shooting a roll of film every other week. Purely because I could shoot, tweak, repeat, compare the differences, tweak again, re-compare and know instantly what making a single change would do. It was a great tool for experimentation and learning for me, and what I've learned has made me a far more confident photographer, not only on digital, but everything is directly transferable to film as well. It's not a either-or situation - it is possible to enjoy both, for different reasons. Much as you could enjoy a sailing boat and a jet-ski.

I can shoot "tethered" to the laptop, and have the files appear on a much larger screen, in Lightroom, with any "treatments" I wish to use automatically applied. It's fantastic, and I'd hate to be without the ability to do so - especially for "work" rather than personal projects.

But there are times where I just want to pick a roll of slide film, and go out and shoot, get it right in the camera, come home and soup the film, dry and mount the results, and sit back and watch the slides play on the screen.
 
Alright, look - here's my 2p, as a 16 year old who went on a two day film photography course (i think) last year.

I didn't know that much about photography to begin with, i did by the end. At least, i knew enough to apply that knowledge to be able to shoot my digital camera in manual mode and get a decently balanced photo at the end. I knew that most of what i shot was rubbish, and i knew that i had a lot more to learn. But now i had a clue as to how to go about it. Yes, maybe at the end of it most of us still said we preferred digital, and despite the fact that i've since changed my mind that doesn't matter - because it was a hell of a lot of fun. Getting to use a real darkroom, and your hands stuck in to some chemicals. I mean, it may have been helped by the fact that the weather was amazing and i was doing it with one or two good friends, but still. Confining somebody to one medium is no way to help them learn.

If she wants to go on the course then go for it, but it might be an idea to see if anyone she knows wants to do it with her.
 
Superewza said:
If she wants to go on the course then go for it, but it might be an idea to see if anyone she knows wants to do it with her.
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More importantly.. noone, not even the original poster, has considered what she wants to do and what she thinks about the film-based course.

A slap on the wrist to all of us for talking about ourselves and not her. After all, I'm sure she has her own opinion on whether she would like to learn via film or just digital.

Neale, what's your daughter's opinion about the course you've chosen for her? or was she allowed to choose it herself?
 
The use of digital has made me a much better and more confident film photographer. The ability to see the instant effect of exposure and compositional adjustments through digital, has allowed me to apply those same lessons to film. As a result I have learnt much faster than I would shooting film on its own.
 
No matter if film or digital, the initial process of taking the shot remains the same (depth of field, composition etc etc). The difference is in the processing of the image. Anyone learning the basics of photography really needs to use an SLR, what happens after these basic principals have been grasped is up to the individual, film or digital? your choice.

Nigel.
 
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