“But please, do it in color.”

Traitor, coward, bewitcher, scoundral, charlatan . . . purveyor of false magic and all things wrong with the world . . .

color . . . tragedy of tragedy . . . . sadness upon sadness . . . color . . . . wails of a thousand maidens innocence stolen in the deceptive, sinister twirls and allures of color, conned by promises galor truth betrayed . . . .

color “makes harlots of us all”

(sigh) kidding sort of . . .

“Want your photography to have intrinsic value and meaning? Start shooting on film.”

I often miss darkroom work. While I appreciated my Cannon AE-1, I am not sure anything compares to the Leica or the Hasselblad or even the Leica in the days of film.

Digital is fine for its fluidity and digital is dangerous because of the same.

Miss those days of black bags, reel winding, film cans and chemicals — dark rooms and ooopsie daisies . . . was i just in fixer or developer, darn it . . . timer right?

appreciated this article, if for nothing else, the nostalgia.

I think this (the silver nitrate comment) may have been meant as snark!

I don’t know, just more life-like.

Colour talks too much. (Fred Picker)

If you want to mix your media and think of photography as language, color has a vocabulary of millions of “words” while B&W is limited to those 256 shades of gray. In the modern vernacular, you might think of B&W as Twitter X for the eyeballs.

The fussy aficionados of photography’s antique past cling to an outmoded technology as if it has some intrinsic value rather than being merely a reflection of the limited technology of the time, which limited photography to 256 shades of gray. Unfortunately, the human eye can detect only 64 shades of gray, but fortunately, we can see millions of colors.

No wonder then that most of the MSM of the world dumped B&W as soon as it could. Movies. Magazines. TV.

So it makes no sense, but hey! We’re humans, after all. Nothing necessarily has to make much sense.

I do enjoy authentic B&W photography, but I also enjoy seeing those old photos colorized, and pooh on the purists who don’t like it.

The long and short of it is I hate B&W. It’s a pale reflection of our brilliant full-color world. I suppose B&W must appeal to the same kind of people who are content with reading shadows on the cave wall, or something.

Of course, there are people into cosplay who dress up in Civil War uniforms and reenact old battles from the conflict, as if there was something memorable about all those poor lads who had their lives snuffed out in the conflict.

But again, we’re humans and war is what we do, in living and dying color, as if we needed any reminders these days.

So get out there and take some pictures of flowers and sunsets and the little birdies, or even dogs and cars and busses. Don’t forget your boyfriend or girlfriend.

But please, do it in color.

Colour talks too much. (Fred Picker)

Kodachrome would be amazing.. Iv never used it.

Statuary in the ancient world may have looked quite gaudy because of those paint jobs.

Japan resisted the white man until the Americans dropped two atomics on them.

The good artist reveals mystical truths. Image making is a good enough term.

No scientist or leader is interested in the effect on climate (if any) of the US military and US sales/donations of its armaments.

Tradition and frugality endanger capitalism. Products must fail, or change even when popular. A UK minister lost his job because he was getting too serious about repairs and less trash.

It’s like the moaning over digital sound, or praise of high cuisine, or the invasion of the next great travel destination. When you have more money and time than you know what to do with..

The moneybags make the decisions, in this case to lower wages. Academia including sociology, orientalism, etc. follows suit. Western claims to understand others is steeped in delusion. What is taught must facilitate imperialism.

Japan is not any more alien than other cultures. Apparently, Japanese insistence on being treated as equals left a lasting impression. That is what Mao meant about power coming from the barrel of a gun.

What will happen if Pentax bring out a new film SLR?

There was a poll over at Pentax Forums this summer:
“Would a revived Kodachrome bring you back to film?”

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/16-pentax-news-rumors/470998-would-revived-kodachrome-bring-you-back-film-best-pentax-forums-july-17-poll.html#ixzz8pcN8ESOc

Of 143 participants in the poll, 73 (49%) said they already shoot film, while 55 (37%) said they were “done with film.” Of course, Pentax Forums is a website for enthusiasts, hobbyists, pros and semi-pros already using Pentax cameras, and not frequented by the public at large, so the results of this poll are highly biased in that regard and not any reflection of general sentiments about film.

A number of pretty good older Pentax SLRs can be found for sale online, such as ME, MX, MV, MG, K1000, P30T, and others, including even the venerable Spotmatic, although prices for these and other film cameras have been increasing, which mayb be tied to increased interest in film, or it simply may be due to inflation.

The bad thing about SLRs and DSLRs is even the small ones are fairly clunky even with a pancake lens, when compared with a rangefinder, especially a rangefinder like the Olympus Stylus I mentioned above that slipped easily into a pocket.

Of course, with the new wave of film enthusiasts, the idea is certainly not to keep the camera tucked away out of sight in a pocket. No siree. You want to flaunt that trick little film camera so everyone can see just how cool and retro-grade you really are with a blast from the past all decked out in modern guise for techno-superiority signaling to the Retro-Cognoscenti.

Well, with Pentax, I suppose anything is possible, especially if it is somewhat quirky and comes in a variety of colors. I mean, do you want a chartreuse full-frame Pentax SLR, or not?

Wait and see, I guess.

Don’t forget that the custom in ancient Greece and Rome was to paint the sculptures, so the Renaissance practise of not doing so, in imitation of the paint-lost remnants, doesn’t quite match how the real sculptures looked in ancient times.

However, that has its own good effect.

What will happen if Pentax bring out a new film SLR?

IMO, the value of all art is in its relation to how difficult, how demanding it is to achieve.

This is called the labor theory of value, a cornerstone of Marxism.

IMO, the value of all art is in its relation to the mass of a particular piece of art in kilograms.

You should look up “Marginalism.”

It is superficial to understand fine art–which seeks to reveal the THING ITSELF–as mere “image making.” Mechanical contrivances (apart from brush and chisel) pry the artisan away from discovery of the satisfying decorative and sensuous representation of divine things that has always been the goal of aesthetic insight.

The very quest for achievement in fine art led the Greeks to a perfection in “relief” sculpture that has few or no comparable masters in the modern world. Music, too, has been “polluted” by mechanical contrivances (electronic amplification) in a similarly self-destructive manner.

Comparable ill-discipline is seen in modern architecture, in “free verse” poetry,in art for art’s sake, in art for the artist’s sake, in art for hire, art for self-gratification, and so on, into the vapid dry sands of modernity and satanic post-modern aesthetic depravity. There is no retreat and no going back. The Judgement of Mankind and its few achievements is immanent.

Disagree to a point. Camera Obscura and lenses were used by artists as tool way way back. Smart phones today have completely democratized image production. There are just better and worse image makers using the tools.

Thanks, that is exactly what I meant, why don’t Extinction Rebellion and ‘Just Stop Oil’ morons throw themselves on the tracks immediately before the trains pass?

It would remove a few posh morons from the gene pool.

Hadn’t known that arsehole’s middle name is ‘Israel’ before, so thank you.

As I have said before, we unfortunately have two Israeli ambassadors.

True of many other places,

Shinto is really three different things, and one of those three is an invention of the late nineteenth cenury. It has no depth.

The original is gods of place, a river, a special rock, etc.

It also encompasses sites associated with old grave or tomb sites associated with the Imperial family, pre-shogunates.

Post-Meiji, in many parts of Japan, Buddhist sites were destroyed.

Shinto marriage ceremony (looks nice) was invented by a politician, Ito Hirobumi. Most brides prefer a faux Christian ceremony, now, except the few who are Christian, who of course prefer a Christian ceremony.

Same with much of the ritual in sumo. It is a recent confection.

Emperor-worship is from the same time.

Reverence for ancestors is, in general, more Buddhist than Shinto.

This may not be aligned with western mis-conceptions, but is accurate.

TPTB are seemingly trying to hunt down and destroy every last vestige of the coal industry both extraction and burning so this is going to present challenges for operators of steam locos. But, we’re not there yet – there are hundreds of operating locos and preserved railways.

In an ideal world that could translate into a useful lobby against the Climate Change hoax. Instead, needless to say, they profess fealty to the ruling narrative and try and work around the hurdles put in their way.

Video Link

Hey, Carney & Lurker

You can still buy a NEW slide rule by Concicse Mfg. (they now mostly make handbags and suitcases etc.) They’re available thru AMZN or direct from Jp.

Sorry, it’s a racist slide rule. Made of white PVC… And really only good to about 2.5 decimal places… Since we’re on about the whole matter of “precision”, fine optics and servo control…

… recall that the tide machine had to use like 15 or 25 integrators with about 50 constants to predict tides… in 1865.

The chief question about visual art is how it is made–historically, it is the result of masterful brush and chisel work–hand-eye coordination of the most disciplined kind. The ancient Greeks were the first to train themselves to its perfection–it took them three centuries to get it right.

See G. Richter, ‘Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks,’ 4th ed., 1970, illustrated with about 800 plates and focused chapters on relief sculpture, drapery, portraiture, bronze work, etc., and their development over centuries. Compared to this photography is simple-minded and trivial.

The pathetic thing is that the best sculptures in ancient Greece were in bronze and not marble–most of the bronze was melted down for cannons later! Smart, eh?

The best theory of the three main races as created, which is derived from the inimitable J. Boehme, d. 1624, was summarized by us in 2018 and clearly theorizes each race–lacking self-abnegation–as DEFECTIVE. The Caucasid’s main problem is Greed; the Mongolid’s Pride; the Negrid’s Vanity.

Reasonable consideration of all the evidence suggests that the Creator divided Mankind into three races to limit Mankind’s potential for evil; Unitary Man (as portrayed by Moses) was intolerable; the Creator came to “repent” his creation, according to Moses. Remember?

It is thus intentional and divinely calculated that the races as psychophysical opposites even today find it impossible to work together; they will never find a way to do it except as individuals laying their wills down before the Creator every day (“may thy will be done on Earth as in Heaven”).

Here is a synopsis of the main races (and the three facial types associated with them):
https://www.academia.edu/36536128/The_Spirit_of_War

Here is a synopsis of Mankind in action displaying all its willful Greed, Pride, and Vanity:
https://www.academia.edu/37832738/Innocent_III_On_the_Human_Condition

Note that to view the articles, simply SCROLL DOWN; no sign-in is necessary. Thanks.

..�placed there by the hand of the Creator�..good point! The white race is Supreme! It is the closest to the Creator! There are only 3 races in Earth..white, yellow, black..!

“There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists.â€� – The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich.

it’s sad what they are doing to japan. they had such a unique culture and esthetic as a people, that seems to be purposefully diluted and polluted in order to destroy them as a people.

i’ve always loved the shinto religious traditions, with their beautiful shrines and deep respect for nature and love for their ancestors. it’s hard to believe the same people committed such egregious acts of violence, against the chinese and koreans during ww2. my father was a ww2 vet in the south pacific and absolutely hated the japanese for the rest of his life, always referring to them as japs. my mother on the other hand, always loved japanese art and particularly ceramics, so i was given both points of view growing up.

isn’t it interesting that the current u.s. ambassador, rahm israel emanuel (i’m not joking, that’s his middle name), refused to attend the hiroshima memorial, after japan refused to invite the israelis, in protest to their genocide of the people of gaza. he also demands gay marriage and more immigrantion be allowed, how very diplomatic of him.

I encountered a Chinese lady who had taken photos near Mt. Fuji today, she had four very good shots taken nearby, by her phone camera. Helped her to her destination.

Nearer to my domicile, the Bunkyo Ward Office has a viewing deck. It is one place where, with a giant zoom lens, one may get, on a clear winter day, a cliche shot of Mt. Fuji looming over Tokyo.

So, those types were setting their tripods and gigantic zoom lenses to get the meaningless shot. Much competion and territoriality.

The funny angle is that perhaps there was a fight over site, now, use of tripods on the ledges near the windows is banned.

On the other hand, everything becomes less fun, on the same deck, used to be a small bar (beer and sake and snacks), smoking area, all long gone now.

you want to tell me Critical Race Theory has any foundation whatsoever in criticism, theory, or an adult understanding of “race�?

I don’t want to tell you that but if I don’t accept the underlying premises while or after being subjected to an harangue re: Trump is a racist because Haitians and cats I will be under suspicion of being a danger to minorities re: prejudice. I know you know how this works but this is what is happening daily now in workplaces across the US. My reference is to a real life event from this week that I witnessed.

I’m very surprised that such exists there, would have thought that the alarmists already shut such things down.

You can still buy similar (to SX etc.) from Fuji.

Since you specify monochrome though, you mean the non-SX-type, I bought a Holga with a Polaroid back, it was fun but just before the hostile takeover, so the film was no longer sold by the time I was used to using it.

Forgot to remove the blinder before attempting a shot several times. A waste. Also wasted colour shots on stupid photos of dolls.

Oh well. It is strange that Fuji never released an SX form-factor instant colour film, since the old Polaroids were popular here, suppose it’s to do with the very nasty takeover of Polaroid (with the intention of patent farming, seizing fixed assets, and destroying the company).

I think thats exactly whats happening… Zoomers grew up being deprived of film.. So they have to start somewhere. We all started at the bottom, with simple point and shoots, so its only natural they will.. Though when I read reviews of this camera, the lens is apparently really good and delivers very sharp images despite only being half frame.

Good article, and I agree with the points but Im a bit amused as a long time Ricoh GR-1 shooter, its like Zoomers suddenly discovered film and this is the shiny new thing. But us older guys have been here the entire time. Wait until they find out about 8mm projectors?

German and Japanese products…..automobiles, clocks/watches, cameras, radios, military weaponry, etc., are the BEST in the world! Since, their products and expertise are superior to what the Americans and British had/have therefore, their ideas are considered anti- Semitic, as Germany and Japan were NOT under Jewish jack-boots when these products were manufactured…!

His significance as a more modern artist

What is modernity in art?

It was when artists decided that they did not need to slavish reproduce what the eye saw. This was the force driving Impressionism, where one gave up trying to be facsimile of nature.

I suggest that A driving force behind the birth of modern art, was when it began by divesting itself from photography, which had begun to take hold by then. Photography was so much better at reproducing nature. Why continue to weave one’s cloth on a hand loom, when one can purchase machine made one’s so easily and cheaply?

Look at his painting in 1905, it is obvious he started with the tradition of the Impressionists / Realists.

After giving up being a facsimile of nature. They went on to ask themselves what makes art, does one also need to slavishly conform to Perspective? Does one even need to reproduce nature at all?

This in the end is what is the difference between Modern Art and that of the past. One has transcended reproduction of nature, because photography did that so much better.

Just because the styles that he evolved to later in life does not suit our own tastes, does not mean we should deny his genius.

Whoa. REAL silver halide film is making a comeback? And Ektachrome is being revived by Kodak? Perhaps there is hope of Kodachrome reviving. This is all exciting hearing about 35 mm, but if I get back into the use of a camera I shall go view camera.

Let us see.

A photographer takes a photo juxtaposing ancient buildings with modern buildings. Did he build any of those buildings? Did he decide where they should stand and how tall they would be?

No. Others did all that. All he did was to CHANCE upon that was already built by others and framed it in an interesting way.

That is what is meant as chance.

You should set up that dark room.

Who cares about the handling of the film?

But you are wrong about the quality.

Nothing, nothing beats silver nitrate film for quality. Digital imitation is just that, (cheap) imitation.

You fucking cretin. Can’t even type into Google.

“Specifically, silver nitrate film is what has been most commonly used when making movies on 35mm stock. Whether black and white or color, silver nitrate film stock has been a standard in the movie business.”

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-film-stock-definition/

Oh, and by the way, there is one Asian country that influenced Deng more than the USA or any country in the West: Singapore.

Video Link

The rest as they say is history.

Shame your link is for Amazon Australia.

Then again, I never threw away my old film cameras, and the dark-room is in boxes somewhere in the cellar.

In the late 1960’s, the Pentax Spotmatic was the best selling 35mm camera in the world. Asahi was the first Japanese camera maker to reach 1 million sales (1966) and 10 millions sales (1981).

Today, according to some accounts, Ricoh-Pentax accounts for about\ 6% of camera sales, well behind Canon, Sony and Nikon, which dominate camera sales with Canon accounting for close to half, while Sony (26%) and Nikon (12%) get much of the rest with Pentax and several others content with the remaining scraps.

What happened with Pentax?

Despite its big success with the Spotmatic, Asahi was slow to introduce a bayonet mount favored by pros, and stayed with the screw-mount M42 series of lenses until 1976, when it at last introduced its K-mount system used to this day. Unfortunately, the K-mount’s design reduces the possibility of a good mirrorless full-frame Pentax offering from Ricoh, If Pentax is to produce a good mirrorless camera, which is the wave of the future for cameras, then it will have to introduce a new lens mount design as the other major camera manufactures have done.

Nikon had introduced its own bayonet F-mount in 1959 which still survives in the Nikkor line for mirrored DSLRs alongside the newer Z-mount from 2020 for mirrorless TTL cameras.

Canon has had several breech or bayonet style lens mounts, including the R (1959), FL (1964), FD (1971), EF (1987) and RF (2018) series. The market leader has never worried about backward compatibility and has never had a problem introducing new lenses. It’s enough to make a Pentax users eyes water when comparing the telephoto lenses available for both EF and now RF mounts from Canon with the long lens offerings from Ricoh-Pentax

Some critics also blame Asahi’s marketing for its decline over the decades, but although Pentax did offer a range of lenses and accessories for its cameras, it was outdone in both departments by Nikon and especially Canon.

Despite all that, Pentax enjoyed some success with the MX and ME from 1976 that in fact were inspired by Olympus’s revolutionary OM-1 introduced in 1971, which set the standard for SLR design in the 1970s much as the Spotmatic had done in the ’60s.

But once again Pentax was slow to introduce a fast auto-focus system and was playing catch-up as the film era wound down and the first DSLRs began to appear in the late ’90s, with Nikon’s 2.7 MP D1 from 1999 considered by many to be the definitive exemplar. The megapixel race heated up in the early ’00s with Canon’s 4 MP EOS 1D from 2001 followed by its 6 MP Rebel in 2006.

Pentax got in the game with its oddly named 6.1 MP *ist D in 2003, and followed up with its well-received 10 MP K10D in 2006, which won several camera-of-the-year awards in 2007. However, reported pressure from major stockholders forced Pentax into a merger with Hoya in 2007. In 2008, Hoya “spun off” Pentax, leading to its acquisition by Ricoh for $125 million.

Well, I still have a pair of 35mm Pentax P30Ts but I haven’t put a roll of film through either since Comet Hale-Bopp graced the night sky in 1996-1997, but the last film camera I used regularly was the Olympus Stylus, which was the long-sought solution to a truly pocketable 35 mm camera, because as most photographers know: the best camera is the one you with you.

Now my Canon EOS T7 is a hunk of hardware with the 100-400 Sigma mounted. It’s not really the kind of thing you want to be lugging around all the time, nor is any SLR or DSLR, but I have a tiny 10 MP Canon Powershot ELPH 330 HS that virtually disappears in a pocket and probably produces images on par with the K10D at 100 ASA, but goes well beyond that Pentax DSLR in low light performance, where the K10D suffered beyond ISO 400. The little 330 HS also sports a 10x zoom lens and I have the CHDK software loaded, making autobracketing a breeze, all in a package smaller than a bar of soap. Yeah, it’s rather a delicate little thing with the lens extended so it needs to be handled with care, and it’s well worth the effort!

Getting back to Pentax, the company suffered another setback from around 2016 with the aperture block failure that affected several of its mid-range DSLRs including its K-30, K-50, K-500, K-S1 and K-S2 models. A faulty Chinese made solenoid aboard those models is prone to failure, thereby preventing proper operation of the automatic aperture control and leaving the lens fully stopped down.

Hiss. Boo. Bah!

I guess that’s what happened to Pentax…

I dont think he transcended anything really .. His significance as a more modern artist is probably due mostly to market forces and Jewish galleries, finance, communists etc. I dont think hes terrible at his most modern, but to say he transcended something by becoming crude and primitive is not really correct in my view.

Im a painter actually..

You still said “The photographer, however relies on chance”

I dont take offense, just pointing out you are talking a bit of rubbish.

Its a pretty radical move, I’m glad one manufacturer took this step

That is true.

Picasso found a bicycle seat and handlebars juxtaposed them together to form something delightful. It is undeniably art. Especially when you compare it with the “accepted form of art” that he could actually do when he really wanted to.

This is not someone who resorted to a particular form of art because he was not able to do the difficult stuff. He already mastered the “difficult stuff”, then went on and transcended them.

Picasso Bull’s Head,1942
Picasso Gurenica, 1937
Picasso at 14 years old, Portrait of Aunt Pepa, 1905

Did you not bother to read the whole my comment before taking offence?

I append again , and place in bold the relevant parts because your eyes are apparently not very good.

Both require an eye to proportion and visual meaning. But the manual artist also needs to learn dexterity and technique, trained by constant practice.

The photographer, however relies on chance, rather than training.

1. How many talented artists have to resort to photography to express themselves? Not many
2. How many photographers are also talent artists? Not many.

You obviously take offense to my comment because you identify with being a photographer.

Let me ask you this: How good an artist are you?

Balderdash.. “Chance” .. That would mean everyone has the same photographic ability – they dont. You are really talking about “pictorial” photography and thats very much a skill and style. Not just an accident anyone can do.

ANY fool can make an abstract painting.
To create an abstract image, with a camera, takes both vision and talent.

I beg to differ.

Both require an eye to proportion and visual meaning. But the manual artist also needs to learn dexterity and technique, trained by constant practice.

The photographer, however relies on chance, rather than training.

If one says that “any fool can make an abstract painting”, then the equally uncharitable would say that “Photography is the artistic pursuit of the insufficiently talented.”

The main (or perhaps only) Caucasid trait is analysis (tearing apart) while the main (or perhaps only) trait of the Mongolid is synthesis. ………….The chief defect of the Mongolid is Pride; of the Caucasid Greed; and of the Negrid Vanity.

As a Mongoloid, I can only praise your insight.

The Jomon were basal East Eurasians so not Caucasoid at all although they also had ANE ancestry which while being another independent basal population is also part of the ancestry of all Whites.
The typical East Asian phenotype seems to have arisen later in time.
Therefore, their similarity to Caucasoids is mainly plesiomorphic except for the shared ANE ancestry.
Furthermore, the Ainu are(or rather were) a mixed Siberian/Jomon population.
I do agree with the gist of the comment but you should go learn some basic XXIst century race science terminology before you comment on the Internet.

I applaud Pentax for doing this. It will definitely face major headwinds in the industry but it’s refreshing to see them make the try. When I think about my first film camera, a Yashica FX-D I bought in the early 80s, I realize just how special it was to me. The pictures I took, those little moments frozen in time, are some of the most precious things I have. I’ve told my son and daughter what their responsibility will be once I’m gone… and that’s to save and pass those memories on. I don’t expect them to appreciate it until they’re much older.

I applaud their gumption in doing this. It will definitely face major headwinds in the industry but it’s refreshing to see them make the try. When I think about my first film camera, a Yashica FX-D I bought in the early 80s, I realize just how special it was to me. The pictures I too, those little moments frozen in time, are some of the most precious things I have. I’ve told my son and daughter what their responsibility will be once I’m gone… and that’s to save and pass those memories on. I don’t expect them to appreciate it until they’re much older.

The US multinationals wanted to access the Chinese market which Deng had opened to Asian and European investors during the 1990s when the US government imposed sanctions against China after Tiananmen. The American multinationals had been losing to their Asian competitors such as Japanese automakers, Taiwanese electronics manufacturers such as Foxconn as well as European multinationals such as Airbus which had established operations in China. During this time, the EU launched the Euro while the USA ratified NAFTA to outsource auto manufacturing to Mexico and Canada.

All these factors compelled the US government under the Clinton Administration to grant MFN status to China in 2000, thus paving the way for its entry to the WTO in 2001. But that was 25 years after the death of Mao in 1976. For some strange reason, stupid gringos like this author falsely claims that Mao somehow rose up from the dead and forced Clinton to grant MFN status to China in 2000. Before then, China had been placed under US sanctions since 1989 after Tiananmen. Thus it wasn’t possible for US multinationals to ‘outsource’ the manufacturing of their products to China because of US sanctions. US automakers for example didn’t enter the Chinese market until after 2000. So where did US automakers go to ‘outsource’ the manufacturing of their products? Mexico and Canada which had been given tariff-free access to the US market under NAFTA during the 1990s, the same period when the US government had imposed sanctions against China after Tiananmen.

Heck, the USA didn’t even have diplomatic relations with China until 1979 under the Carter Administration during which time Deng visited the USA. Prior to that, Deng had started experimenting with ‘market capitalism’ by creating FOUR(4) SEZs in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou and Xiamen. And guess who invested in these SEZs during the 1980s? The Overseas Chinese from HK, Taiwan and Southeast Asia. The Japanese and South Koreans arrived later followed by the Europeans during the 1990s after Deng made the decision to open up the Chinese market to foreign investors by establishing some two dozen EDTZs throughout China.

Models may not know the engineering and technical side behind one of these devices, but women have a keen sense for prestige, uniqueness and value.
…
Women love to be photographed, it’s very flattering to them, but someone capturing their image on film is something else. That’s right, shooting on film gets you ladies.

These two sentences seem to encapsulate what this possibly emerging fad is all about; another pick-up gimmick for men hoping to get laid. Yes, this hobby is far less expensive than owning a late model Ferrari or Porsche 911, but a suitable alternative might be to get a small digital Leica camera instead of the technically equivalent Lumix.

Real fashion models are too tall anyway. But what if you spend money and effort photographing a cute woman with clothes on, only to find out later that she is rather furry in the front and has a big and nasty tattoo on her lower back? Better to just hang out at a nudist beach without a camera and clothes and meet women there instead.

It’s not the tools, it’s the carpenter !

The neat thing about physical media is exclusivity.

There are lots of good photographers on Instagram. Posting yours just makes you one of many competing against each other and the algorithm. When everyone is special, nobody is. You just don’t stand out. Everything recommended to you is the best of the best. It gets boring.

I’ve printed and hung my best photos around the house. They’re frequently a topic of discussion. I get more engagement from the physical copies than any of the ones I’ve uploaded because the home is a gallery I get to be the curator of (and don’t have any competition). It helps if you hang stuff opposite the toilet. Captive audience and all.

A family member has a random painting he bought at some bazaar on his wall. It’s nothing special (abstract) but its composition and color draws me in. Getting a chance to see it is always a little bonus to visiting.

I’ve never felt the same about anything online; I might save a copy but I’ll never remember to look at it again unless it becomes wallpaper.

If I sell you an 8�10 photograph for $2.00, then that photo has intrinsic value. Art is in the eye of the beholder.

The artist chooses this pallet.
I did photography for about 10 years. Lots of 35, also 120, and 4�5 view.
Did all my own darkroom, including 3’x4′ b&w prints.
Digital kicked my ass. I threw some of my stuff away. Still have some.
But I miss the ART of taking and making photos.
Yea, I’m an artiste.

I don’t have a cell phone and get bored looking at tons of people’s digital photographs. I would say that black and white photography is art, because the world is not black and white. Color photography involves, like art, like black and white photography, deliberate choice [frame] but is still just a representation of what the eye can see anyway. So, color photography is sui generis, like music.

I ‘ve never understood how photography can exist at all. How can there be an actual representation [a clone] of what is, when what is, is all there is. That light is absorbed or reflexed or however it’s done, does not quite demystify photography to me. There’s a strangeness to real photographs, but not to digital which is like television, stopped.

listen you flaming unit 8200 trollbot, i didn’t pick the topic, you fucking moron. and please explain how have i abandoned my positions. once again, you accuse others of your actions, standard mossad troll technique. how did my comment have anything to do with you? if i wanted any shit out of you, i’d have squeezed your pinhead.

you mossad trolls think you own the site, that’s just your inbred chutzpah, i guess you just can’t control your actions, typical israeli. rupert pig, you’re just here to shit up the threads as always, anyone can read my comments on this thread, as well as yours and compare and contrast, you may think your being smart but the rest of us see you as the idiot troll you are.

partial American occupation

Good expression. But if the US occupation is partial in military terms, it is not the case in other fields.

I remember reading in the 1970’s when Esso changed its name to Exxon, that it was done because NiXon was in power and like his name, the hard x consonant, double downed on, sounded more domineering and militant which aligned with the future of US corporate capitalism taking over the world!

That photographer was the one who took the My Pet Goat GWB photos. glowie dude.
Him being there really says that event was a psyops, same as the Islamabad CIA photographer wandering around the Sandy Hoax firehouse parking lot on the morning of 12/14/12

EXIF told many a tale that day and the day before when the firefighters got pizza delivered during rehearsals.

The MSM were so upset about people doing detective work with EXIF on MSM photos they scrubbed EXIF data from photos on webpages from that year on.

The best I can do is old school drafting. I am unable to draw a convincing stick tree freehand. My spatial reasoning is geared toward orthographic projection, but possess no talent for depth, contour, or shading. I wouldn’t trade though; I have designed and built 2 homes, the second doing 50% of the trade work, and currently residing therein. Cheers!

Digital is convenient, but I do miss my SLR and even my first grotty 110 which I had much fun with on vacation, . there is a magic to film.

I briefly played with a soviet Lubitel, but I had no home lab so too expensive. There was the appeal of large format 4X5 and larger, expensive systems.

OBVIOUSLY

Dear Mr. Macdonald, When it comes to many of the fine artistic points you make in your article, don’t expect to receive many worthwhile critiques from most UNZ commenters. They’re great mainly when it comes to making much needed condemnations of Jewish and Zionist power, or in offering political perspectives that would be censored by the NYTimes, which is where I your perspectives on Japanese culture and photographic art would be more appreciated. But apart from that, much of your article does sound like an advertisement for Pentax.

You’ve OBVIOUSLY never used film for color photography, developing and printing it yourself.

Film gives you immense control that just isn’t there in digital.

I own a film SLR, a Canon EOS II)
I own a digital Canon EOS SLR.

I use the digital for test shots, but never for final images.

Why?

Because, quite frankly, the images from the digital camera are never as good as what I produce with the film camera.

The digital gives me a good idea of composition and whether a shot “will work” or not. But there are far too many weird glitches with digital, and other constraints, that aren’t there with film.

You would think it would be otherwise, but it isn’t.

ANY fool can make an abstract painting.

To create an abstract image, with a camera, takes both vision and talent.

The same can be said with most surrealistic images. They are MUCH more easily accomplished with the implements of drawing or painting than with a camera and film

Are you truly a retard, or just pretending to be one on the internet?

The link for the camera on Amazon leads to a Pentax 17 for $846. A separate search on Amazon shows you can buy the same camera for $499. That seems like a very generous tip. I think I will stick with my digital camera.

This is good; you stir up shit on another blog which we know has some considerable personal importance to you, which just happens to expose you, then you abandon your positions and go to bullshit elsewhere instead about, of all things, photography. Bravo! We’re really in great shape with you with us.

Photography is artifice, no doubt about it. If we think of it as a child does, as a “REAL PICTURE” (which ought to be something desirable) then we can dismiss it as a mere “mechanical reproduction.” Like tracing a famous sketch with a pantagraph.

Of course, accurately reproducing great pictures must be considered a kind of art in and of itself. As can capturing real images on film in a camera obscura. To see something or contrive something of interest and to take a picture that reveals what you have seen – the artist can contrive it so that you see what he sees so as to RECEIVE THE SAME IMPRESSION.

The director of a film, the director of a play, the director of an orchestra, is not creating the spectacle or producing the sounds. He is nevertheless crucial to the production of the whole. Comprehension of the art is fundamental to his “function” (his art).

Another thank you for writing this. As a long-time film photographer (+50 years now), I still love working with film and my results cannot be duplicated with digital. That being said, digital has its place. If you read up on what Stanley Kubrick had to do to shoot under candlelight illumination, we can do the same today with just the phone we carry in our pocket. And a digital camera captured a bullet that had just nicked Trump’s ear (I calculated a real shutter speed of 1/4000s based on projectile velocity and length of the bullet image relative to Trump’s head), which could not be done with film cameras unless you used specialized gear including strobe lighting.

And that is the real point, isn’t it? No need to denigrate digital photography to promote the benefits of having old analog processes as an alternative.

We need analog photography for the same reason we need vinyl records.

What would actually be great is a return to silver nitrate film stock.

You think you’re being clever but you’re really just fucking up a reference to cellulose film stock. Oh well, I guess you suck. Like a truckstop faggot.

And, of course, it was DiFi who was on that mission to china to grant them MFN status … along with that POS husband of hers, Richard Blum. He went along to negotiate contracts with the new chinese business partners in the amount of more than $200 Million just on that trip. And that was just one of his trades on her position … among others, his firm got the contract for the liquidation of USPS properties that President Trump’s predecessor ordered … something on the order of more than $1 Billion in value …

Once again … insider trading and such based on DiFi’s position as a US Senator.

It’s always amazed me how she — among all of the Congress critters — has totally escaped any hint of scrutiny … must be that tribal thing, although that doesn’t explain it entirely.

good comment but i would argue in the other direction with the color vs b&w photography, especially in film. imo shooting b&w, makes you a better photographer, you need to concider composition more and spend more time thinking about lighting and contrast, as well as framing in the can. to me this is the true art of photography.

nowadays everyone has a digital camera in their pocket and people tend to shoot everything they see, as there’s really no cost involved. many people end up with so many images in their archive, that they could never find a particular image, amongst thousands of images that have never been properly filed, let alone edited.

archiving these images is also an issue, most people think digital is forever but just like with digital music recordings on c.d.’s, the first generation of them are beginning to degrade sometimes becoming unplayable, vinyl when stored properly is more archival, lasting indefinitely with proper care and handling. storage methods for for digital information, come and go and need to be transferred, as older methods and technologies are abandoned, every copy degrades the the original file.

Most film has a higher resolution than a digital camera does, and better dynamic range.

The fact that you are spending money on film and lab processing for every shot is a real investment in the human subject.

Ha ha. Real nerds develop their own film.

It is probably already true that the only people who understand this essay are gray hairs in their rocking chairs. Film is a better artistic medium than digital but it is also obsolete. : (

The referenced paper (‘Spirit of War’) discusses in synoptic detail the racially explanatory theory that each of the three main races uses the brain in a different way. The Mongolids use primarily the R hemisphere (or non-linguistic) brain, which is why they “sing” pictographs. The R brain specializes in synthesis of elements such as holistic pictorial comprehension. Mongolids can learn alphabetical languages with their L brain later but their disposition even then remains L brain (synthesis) oriented.

The collectivism to which “EdwardM” refers is a RESULT and not cause of the neurocognitive disposition of the Mongolic race. Their main trait is ANGER (or Pride when controlled), since the deep thrust is a deathly DARK FIRE called the 1st Principle. (The Caucasids and Negrids express the 2nd and 3rd Principles, respectively–see the theoretical analysis, whose basis is the great genius idealist J. Boehme, d. 1624). They ostracize anyone who gets out of line; the corollary of this is ancestor worship.

Now readers know why in the Mongolid lands one man rules–from the Ming dynasty to Mao the communist to Xi the quizzical pragmatist atheist materialist. This is why Hegel said, “nothing has changed in China in 3,000 years.”

Many steam trains are maintained and run at times as ‘event trains’ in Japan.

Very common in the UK. Almost every weekend will see something like this somewhere in the UK. This was today (Saturday):

Video Link

The diesel at the back detracts a bit but is now required for safety. Also supplies head end power (the blue/grey cars have A/C and electric heating)

The question to make first is: what is art? Because for a photography to be classified as an object of art, it must present attributes that all of the currently accepted as being real (genuine) objects of art present in the course of time and, for this reason, have been appreciated as real art by humanity and are carefully preserved. Otherwise, it will not survive the scrutiny of time and will eventually be ignored and forgotten, like many other objects that are said to be art.

The second question is: which are the attributes of real art? Many attributes are given to artistic objects. They differ according to the kind of object. Improperly, some contemplate purely the aesthetic attributes – referring to the object’s beauty, pleasantness… But, by themselves, aesthetic attributes are not enough to distinguish an object as art. Usefulness is a more important attribute, and perhaps the most relevant usefulness of an object of art is its indisputable importance as a historic document.

Lovely. People scrolling their phones and shoving them in our faces is about as transitory and meaningless as a hostess ding dong. Long live the analog!

AWFUL

AWFULs (Affluent White Female Urban Liberals) are mentally ill.

This is because the mass brainwashing program has turned their two strongest drives against each other. The cognitive dissonance destroys their minds.

The AWFUL's hypergamy is in overdrive because they are the most…

— hoe_math (@ItIsHoeMath) October 20, 2024

i can understand black and white photography shot on film, as you can still process your own film and develop silver gelatin prints, which are archival. shooting color in this day and age, makes no sense, as there a few labs that still process film and those that do, don’t print directly from negatives, they scan the film digitally and then print digitally, why go to all the expense, to end up with a digital image?

this camera seems pretty stupid to me, as they are halving the size of the negative, which halves the information, like using a digital zoom. it seems self defeating, to try to save money by giving half the quality, especially with color. perhaps if they had a stereoscopic lense, you could create 3d images that could be used with a viewer, that would be kind of anachronistic and cool, in a steampunk way.

“…a Japanese phenomena …”

(in article)

I can’t take this writing/writer seriously. Nor his subject.

Too many variables. IMHO, it isn’t simply about analog vs. digital. I remember the first time I used a Kinoptik lens on the Leica. Or the first time I got back a transparency taken by the Apo Lanthar on the Linhof Master Technika. I had taken shots with the Schneider lens at the same time, and the difference was striking. The difference in films was equally striking, as Agfachrome was a completely different color shade than Ektachrome – at least in the 4�5 format. Then, in the darkroom, the differences in materials were apparent.

I keep coming back, in many things, to the old Persian proverb – the dogs will bark, but the caravan moves on.

pure Ainu and hence absolutely caucasian

That’s abject nonsense and you know it. While Ainu do have caucasoid genes not present in any other east Asian ethnic group, they quite plainly were not white. They were an admixture. Eyeballs are required to be taken seriously, boyo.

no one knows how it happened

I do. Before the end of the last ice age, whites had outposts around the world and had begun to settle in various places. When the oceans rose, the “empire� got cut off from itself and the white settlers were either killed or subsumed into the other local species of humanity. Even the North American Indios have some stories about the “pale people from across the sea� who were wiped out.

The Pentax 17 seems to be another oddball camera from Pentax. It has a 37mm f3.5 lens and pokey 1/350 – 4 second shutter speed range exposing half-frame images on 35mm film.

I had a brief fling with half-frame using an Olympus Pen FT which was a sweet little camera very nearly as full-featured as the Pentax Spotmatic I also used at the time. Both sported fine f/1.8 lenses, but the Pen maxed out at 1/500 while the Spotmatic managed 1/1000 and also featured a self-timer. In any event, the 1960s-era Pen FT had much better performance characteristics than the modern Pentax 17.

Pentax also sells a B&W digital camera. I own the nifty little Pentax Q, along with a K-S2 that suffered aperture block failure, making automatic lenses on the camera virtually useless, although my older manual K-mount lenses still work. Because of that, my next DSLR was a Canon, and even now I’m looking for a mirrorless successor to mount a long lens.

Well, the long and short of it is film is a PIA. I spent enough time in several B&W darkrooms and had my hands in the soup for a number of years, but thankfully moved on to color, let the labs handle the processings, and eliminated my further exposure to the toxic darkroom chemicals used to process B&W film and prints.

And I still have tons of color slides and a pretty good Plustek scanner which removes some dust but not all of it necessitating manual spotting if you’re any kind of perfectionist, or glutton for punishment, and I do allow myself some of that from time to time, but in the final analysis, film is a PIA and a huge time sink best left to the young.

Now there is this sort of nostalgia-driven aesthetic for film similar to and related to the nostalgia for B&W images and both probably related to cosplay where people want to relive the past, or somehow be part of it.

Nostalgia is great. I have it for old timey things too, especially of the type that They don’t make ’em like that any more.

But for cameras, I’ll take digital any second, and I definitely like to see images in full color, because we don’t live in a black and white world.

Caucasid trait is analysis (tearing apart) while the main (or perhaps only) trait of the Mongolid is synthesis. (The main trait of the Negrids is sensuality and not cognition at all

Excellent statement. I agree about the Caucasoid trait — analyzing, tinkering, thinking about cause and effect based on reason and logic — and Negroid. But please elaborate on “synthesis.” I suppose it has something to do with this race’s predisposition for collectivism, but I would like to hear what you mean by this term if you please. I’ll read your paper.

Yeah, as spawn of a photographer, thanks a million.

Complex bemoans the loss of Polaroid 4�5 film.
He took several boxes of black and white on a trip to rural Peru and Bolivia four decades ago, and delighted in shooting photos of children with it. After processing, and penning the date and individual’s name on the back, said photo was presented to the beaming child. Perhaps some still exist.

Great article!

Paeans for legacy snapshots. I am impressed.

“The Japanese are a serious and remarkable people.”

No matter China was industrialized and made wealthy by the West, it’ll never match the Japanese and will always remain a poor version of the original.