By the 1960s the art and technology of photography had evolved from its early forms and formats into a powerful and impactful part of the world’s economy. The photographic process was used in all aspects of industry and manufacturing (electronic printed circuits, etc.), in printing and media in a variety of ways. It became a professional and amateur endeavor, an educational choice and an artistic medium.

Media
    Industry
   Art


 But, as much as it had evolved, photography was still an analog enterprise. The limitations of the materials and equipment, as sophisticated as they were, required work-arounds and inventive means to get the final result. Most commercial photographers did not do their own lab work, sometimes disdained it, whereas most amateur aficionados embraced it as part of their skill set.  Hours could be spent discussing chemistry for film development or printing of the resulting images. Darkroom work could entail long, frustrating and often hit-and-miss hours.

Consider, for example, the ISO (old ASA) value most associated with the light gathering properties of film and digital cameras. In a film camera one inserted a roll of film with a designated ISO sensitivity and a specific number of frames per roll. To change that, you had to remove and replace the film at some point. With a digital camera the ISO value is set with a button and you can continue shooting as long as there is still space in the memory drive. The image is instantly captured and shown, No lab work for you. If the image isn’t good simply erase it and make more room on the memory card. No revisit to shoot location, remote or otherwise. 

Although relatively speaking the sensitivity of the ISO set and used in either analog film or digital format is similar, and the dynamic range is almost within the same parameters, this changes in the way the digital color space captured by a digital camera is handled in the processing and recording of the image. Dust and lint problems of chemically processed film are non-existing in today’s photo taking (unless one is very careless). And Lightroom and Photoshop, and other processing software, lets you manipulate images in ways never dreamed off in the past. 

Today you can take an image in one place and paste it unto an image taken in another and seamlessly create a perfect photo or panorama. Such as:




        Zion Nationl Park 2012                                                                      Repulse Bay, Hong Kong 1975                                                               Combined make an interesting look 

 

Bad sky in the background, no problem, a few key strokes and voila! New sky. In the latest phones, an object captured by the camera can be removed from the picture by a few strokes, something only Photoshop users were able to do easily, and that function has only been added to the app in the last few years and, with the addition of "AI Technology" the boundaries and creativity avilable to today's photo creators is limitless. 

In analog photography creating composite images required re-shooting the processed images involved and redeveloping and printing that result. In doing so the contrast gained created an increasingly blocky, darker version. Think of taking an image, copy it with a scanner, and recopying the result over and over, eventually only blocks of black and white is left with no discerning grays to give it definition. 

In today's world , the ability to quickly manipulate numbers has given photography, and by extension, the film and television industries a creative boost unparalleled in the past. 

The following equipment was used during the time of the India project:


   The square format photos were taken with a Kawa 120mm film camera. A modular camera with changeable lenses and film-holding backs. This system totaled 3 lenses and 2 backs and totaled over 8 lbs. in weight!  Not a problem when traveling on the minivan, but it became an issue when traveling around the Indian subcontinent by train and bus with little luggage. The other consideration was the amount of film to carry.  By the end of the Overland to India journey and back to Europe, a total of over 22 thousand miles and over a year in time, 20 rolls of 120mm of 24 exposures were used.


A Leica CL rangefinder camera and a Minolta SRT101 were used for an additional 35 rolls of 35mm color film, and 20 rolls of black & white film of 36 exposures each were used. Over 95 percent of these photos, both 35mm and 120mm, were not developed until arriving back home almost a year after starting the journey.