Explanation For this post, I want to talk about a pair of pictures I took of Forgotten Songs or the birdcages in Angel Place. I wanted to explore two different views of it and how they differ, one in film and the other in digital.

Note: I didn't notice until I put these pictures next to each other in this post and viewed it, but they have different dimensions, with the film being 3:2 and the digital closer to 3:4 (it says it's 64:85 which is a strange format)

The actual piece consists of a multitude of birdcages hung up. The intention is that each represents a native Sydney bird that no longer lives there and the birdsong associated. When I went, I couldn't hear any birdsong even though the actual alleyway is relatively separated from traffic and other bustling noise. It's possible that the audio has stopped working, which in its own way is quite haunting, that even trying to remember what the birds sounded like is no longer possible in this space dedicated to it.

In regards to these pictures, it should be pretty obvious which picture is film and which is digital. But to be clear, the first picture is film and the second is digital. The film picture was shot with my Minolta X-370 with a 28mm lens on Cinestill 50d. The digital picture was taken with a Pixel 7 in pretty much automatic settings, I think I might have adjusted the brightness to be darker.

These aren't exactly the same picture. But they aren't really meant to be. The digital picture is shot more telephoto and the two are oriented slightly differently. Instead, this is more of a reflection on how film and modern digital photography differ.

I think to start, I want to say that I prefer the film picture over the digital one. In some ways it feels more "real" to me. But more importantly it also feels like it has more character. The digital picture is sharper and simultaneously more contrasting but less contrasted. In a weird way, there's a lot more sameness to the digital picture even though it's significantly more saturated than the film picture.

This isn't to say that there are no merits to the digital picture. It is much sharper with significantly better resolution than the film picture. There are no glaring optical or film based imperfections to the colors or the lighting. The lighting feels natural to an almost disturbing effect. My understanding here is that this picture was taken with HDR, High Dynamic Range, which allows for some of that realistic and smooth light dropoff. But in a weird way, the picture feels more plastic. The walls especially have an almost playdough-y or rubbery texture to me. One other thing is that there appears to be very little light contrast even though it's clearly much brighter in the sky than in the alleyway.

On the other hand, the film picture is anything but perfect and pristine. The resolution is poor in comparison and the halation I mentioned before is extremely strong, tingeing the lit birdcages in a reddish glow. While this is more of a difference in composition, the wide angle lens really magnifies how many birdcages there are, giving a feeling of space and distance that the mostly straight up composition used in the digital picture lacks. Also, while the colors are much more muted, it feels more real in a way. The in shadow colors are muted, to the point of almost beige-ifying the scene. That shadow to light contrast is much more powerful. You could argue again that this is a function of the differential I'm putting on the light. But arguably the light contrast is sharper in the digital picture when looking at the light to shadow boundary. It's that the colors themselves aren't matching the contrast of the light irrespective of how much actual light contrast there is.

Altogether, I feel like there's a lack of soul to the digital picture. It's very competently set, but it feels non-human in feel. There's no imperfection and no sense of wonder to it. Should I have tried to match the pictures more exactly? Sure. But some of the factors just wouldn't line up no matter what. Composition and focal length aside, even the color and light effects differ in ways that make me a bit sad. While more saturated and contrasting, they simultaneously feel same-y and ultimately more formulaic. In many ways, the reason why I've taken to shooting film is because of that idea of fortuitous opportunity and failure. When I took the first picture I had a relatively good idea of how it would turn out, but until I actually got it back and scanned it, I had no idea what it would actually end up looking like. With the digital picture it was immediately there and immediately what it was going to be. While that's extremely powerful and very convenient, it removes the sense of excitement, learning, and exploration I get when shooting film. I didn't know that the halation would be like that until I scanned it. I didn't know what the colors or light contrast would be like. I know now but even that knowledge can be changed and experimented on in ways that just don't translate in digital land.

Anyways, this is a long winded post already and I've got more to say on this front in the next post. So suffice to say I've got more to talk about regarding this and also this trip.