Photo negatives have greater historical value than digital images

A few years back, after coming home from one of the PhotoPlus Expo shows in New York, I started thinking about film. These thoughts came after visiting with some software vendors showing off their latest stand-alone program or plugin emulating film grain. This surely was the harbinger, I thought, of the death of film. After all, why shoot with film if you can get the same look with digital images and these software products?

I’ve had discussions regarding film with two eminent photographers, Brian Griffin and Douglas Kirkland. They shoot both digital and film, albeit, they digitize the film for retouching and archiving (yes, the film is safely sequestered, as well). Both gentlemen said film has a certain quality they cannot capture digitally. Whether this is actual or perceived is immaterial; it’s the photographer’s eye that’s important, both objectively and subjectively.

My discussions with Kodak over the past few years have been about film in today’s digital world. Scott DiSabato has kept me in the loop regarding Kodak’s film production and direction. While Kodak film is somewhat relegated to the professional realm, amateurs can always acquire some.

During one of my meetings with Kodak, I met John Sexton, a brilliant photographer, mentored under Ansel Adams, we discussed his use of Kodak B&W film. If I remember correctly, John said he gets a quality from Kodak T-MAX he can’t capture digitally. On Kodak’s A Thousand Words blog, he says, “T-Max gives me the smoothness, the fine grain and a sort of milky quality that I find desirable. I've made thousands and thousands of negatives on T-Max 100 and 400.”

Quite recently, I spoke with Daile Kaplan, Vice President and Director of Photographs at Swann Auction Galleries in New York. Our discussion, while ranging over a few areas of the industry, centered on Swann’s auctions of photographs and photographic literature. I believe it was my mention of Kodak’s ongoing monitoring of the marketplace to determine additions to the new burgeoning film market.

Daile and I both agreed on the importance of this in relation to how we photographers will be noted in the future—how will the curators of the future perceive us? While we’ve seen recent auctions offering important works to collectors, can our digital images produce the same provenance? How will future collectors determine the value of digital properties, if they can be replicated readily. Yes, I know you can watermark a digital file, but with our workflow producing redundant backups, is there historic value, such as in the work of Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon, and Helmut Newton, where there is but a single negative? I think Daile and I agreed that as the use of film increases for use by digital photographers, seeking additional creative outlets and film students, who have never made a silver halide image, can be a boon to our history as photographers.

I see a market for film, alongside of digital. After all, it’s just a different method of our creativity. However, I don’t visualize film returning to the amateur, point-and-shoot market, but relegated to a firm niche with hobbyists and professionals seeking to further their craft.