It seemed well having forsworn to my dream

Across the digital triumph. One observer described as François Hebel, Director of photography of Arles and former leader of the Magnum agency meetings, reflects this groundswell: "For me, the debate between analog and digital has no place to be." Photography is a revolution every ten years. In the 1930s it was the introduction of the 24 x 36 by Leica, then the Reflex, then the Kodachrome, and then the colour negatives in the 1980s. Each time, these technological advances have enabled an expansion of the palette and offered new possibilities to artists and photographers. Today, digital has an equivalent in quality to the film at the level of shooting and opens the possibility of new forms of virtual broadcasts, the Internet, telephone, etc. Claim that digital kills the silver is absurd if told that the pastel killed painting in oil.

An idea of the truth

Then, all satisfied Non. As a small village of indomitable continues to photography as in the past, film photography. Why some photographers still resist the wave of the digital and why some fans imitate Spirit of contradiction Inveterate conservatism Or small benefits of the silver that digital does not offer A little of all three probably.

All photographers will tell you: digital appeared at the time where analog cameras were perfectly. Believe that the laws of technological change are perverse. A Leica M6 or a Nikon F5, the ultimate chain links the silver chain, with their interchangeable objectives to the flawless optical games are the equivalent in photography a Rolls or a Jaguar. What they démérités Purchased second-hand, they were (and still provide) for half the price of a same category digital unrivaled quality.

Christian Sarramon is a professional photographer specializing in the art of living and travel. Even today, he uses only analog devices. He thus describes the benefits of these bombs to the unmatched qualities: "First, to the shooting, the superiority of the silver lies in the fact that they are real shadow devices." They know no time lag between the moment where the photographer raises and where the photo is saved (1). Then, at the level of the printed result, the film is still far superior in terms of definition and relief of the image, what is called the depth. And, at the level of chroma, the quality of in black and white gray or the restitution of the range of colours is without equivalent, digital drawing on exacerbated and sometimes even fluo tones. Course, all of this can be corrected to the computer, but the film also embodies a certain idea of the truth.

The big word is dropped. Is that a genuine report image search is at the heart of the approach of the proponents of the film. So yes, many of these so-called old-fashioned devices are packed with electronics, but moving to handle remain disengaged boxes where you can all resolve manually the update to exposure time passing through the opening of the diaphragm. To understand the nature of this emotion, he must go back to the time, thirty or forty years ago, when these cameras were at the forefront of progress, where their handling ranked the photographer in the category of professionals. Engage in some way to the archaeology of a passion.

Like many men of my generation, I have had several devices which age from, have found their place at the bottom of drawers or cartons. Child, summer camp, I myself am tried the mysterious art of development with its chemical products to the poetic names, the developer, the fixer, and this red light shining from the ceiling of the lab as a scout totem. I have kept a somewhat naive reverence towards black and white and its supposed artistic superiority. How many times I am I made explaining the intricacies of the relationship between exposure time and the opening of the diaphragm and its implications for the effects of blur and depth of field Not enough, no doubt, because today I me is lose. At the time, aircraft were not equipped with cells and the mastery of this art was the difference between those who really had the meaning of photography and those who were doomed to end to the practice of the Instamatic. Known as the cameras, not yet disposable, but that their ease of use was liberalism hands.

The Nikon's compact

Then, with my first salary, I I am offered a device that his time during the war of the Viet Nam and that professional photographers began to abandon for more sophisticated tools. With the Nikon FM, one of the first SLR to be equipped with a cell rustic but effective, I thought that my time had come and that I would be able to match the Cartier-Bresson and the Doisneau. The palette of the objectives has long been my dream, including large angles, unaffordable for my budget but I supputais that they have given me access to a new vision, be more creative.

I consolais I have only a simple 50 mm repeating me the axiom of the great photographers who this focal length is the most

close to the human eye. That also, I had to quickly see, claiming the most talent, because just it does distorts reality and therefore requires a higher eye, an eye of photographer. Needless to my photographic tests remained below this ideal.

And then caught by the necessities of life, I gradually abandoned this tool which gave me in short if little satisfaction. The Nikon, impractical to capture weekend romantic Vienna or Venice, and then the first not my son, was replaced by the compact ungraded. This, I am I said, enclosures all-in-one who have the advantage of not to push the pass, not me incentive to play the artist and concentrate on the collection of memories, what comes down the photography for the mortals. It seemed well having forsworn to my dream. I had that put it on hold.

Good business

Because the 50 come, it is free again to satisfy the passions of his youth. The proliferation of digital cameras prompted me to reconnect the wire. Yet, then plunged into the new technology, I wanted a ride on my old love. I had always kept hoping to offer me one day this equipment I had dreamed about once, and now that professionals bradaient their analog devices to the new digital toys.

A Boardwalk boulevard Beaumarchais, Paris, between Republic and Bastille, suddenly made me realize that the moment was historic. This boulevard, is a little photo of opportunity flea market. Shops at touche-touche offer out devices long trade, of the House in the Middle format, passing through the sight Parallax or frontal devices such as the old Rolleiflex. The discount of the price of silver cameras made suddenly affordable real small wonders.

I finished the House of Leica, an M3 the hands. This mythical device, developed in the early 1950s, seemed long of the order of the inaccessible. He offered to me with a wonderful view, housing all brass and the trigger to the whooshing so poetically discreet, for a little less than 1,000 euros.

Apparatus for pro

Vendor as to apologize, pointed me out that the aircraft was a failure: a pod on top. His eyes, this was a discount. To me, this imperfection gave him suddenly an additional value. Who knows, a ball may be struck the apparatus, saving the lives of its previous owner And I suddenly imagined me in the skin of a great reporter. This is what determined me to buy it. This M3 appeared out of the story, with a big H. The same reasons pushed me to acquire a 6 x 6 Soviet, a rustic Kiev which had belonged to a large Lithuanian photographer, Antanas Sutkus. He is the famous story of the journey of Jean-Paul Sartre in the Soviet Union. I suddenly felt with the time of the cold war and socialism with a human face. With which digital camera do you experience

I tardais not to use, to discover another advantage of this type of old devices: the reactions they generate. In the lobby of cinema MK2 library, taking pictures of my son, I was stopped by the head of the complex: "Sir, it is a private place, you cannot use your device here. I protested the strictly personal use that I was making. Pointing the finger on my pre-flood Leica, it was this final response: "but you use a professional device! Same reaction on the IKEA parking where to deceive the boredom of family races, I shootais a bit at random, my Kyiv posed before the eye as a shield. Passers-by looked me and eventually deal with me: "you turn a film." I respond: "Yes, a film which you are the hero." I'd just experience a paradox: the camera is cumbersome, more it tape in the eye and more is you the sympathy of those to whom you swerve.

Another paradoxical benefit of the film: not available in a 6 x 6 that a roll of 12 photos or even thirty-five in a 24 x 36 makes the photographer suddenly more weighted. The vision of the tourists were to each other before a monument, as swept away by a whirlwind of photos which we doubt if they will never emerge from their computer, suggests. They have the time to check on their tiny digital screen That photo is successful or unsuccessful That, they forget to look at them or the objective. This mise en abyme for the hypothetical successful photo makes them unable to take an interest in their surroundings.

The silver photographer works, him, to the economy. View each account and costs. The eye is ultimately its unique instrument. Indeed this is true with the ritual of Board-contact. While digital does not choose in a mass of images, the consultation of the Board-contact is a ceremony that educates the eye, and subsequently allows the photographer to improve. At least, can hope...