Photography Nerds: Attended a lecture with John Sexton today.
 

So I saw John Sexton give a lecture today and got to hear him talk about photography in general, and his life working with Ansel Adams. It's super inspiring stuff.

Reference of who he is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sexton_(photographer)

Anyone still shoot with film and in Black and White? It was super cool learning about Ansel Adams' secrets.

I don't mind shooting in black and white but its really easy to get that effect with color and then photoshop the saturation.

It's not just about shooting in BnW. It was all about shooting in film, and the processes used to create Ansel Adams' images. It's basically the same processes we use in Photoshop today, but with far more at stake when you mess up. He showed some raw photos developed from the actual negatives, and then the ones that Adams had processed and dodged/burned just to get the image right. It was incredible to see the difference.

The talk really justified my hatred for everything I shoot, and trying to shoot better photos the next time. It also makes me want to go back into the dark room. It's been years since I shot on film. I miss it a lot, but it's just so damned expensive. There's nothing like taking every shot seriously though since a wasted shot is wasted. There is no deleting it and shooting again, no previews. Just shoot and hope it turned out right.

Hear! Hear!

Sexton must have some great stories to tell.

You mentioned Film.

Lol I am terrible with film. xD

I highly recommend this. I shot absolutely nothing of value for the first couple years I had a DSLR - I just took pretty pictures of everyday stuff, and standard pictures of the beach and exotic cars and food and etcetera. There was no discipline until I decided to try medium format film. Every shot costs you a little bit of money, so you'd better be sure that you've a) set it up right, b) are taking a shot that is of value. The meaningless pretty "snapshots" became too expensive, so they're gone now. I think shooting film promotes discipline better than anything.