While it is nice to have a forum for discussing the topic of analog + digital = heaven, I'm not sure I can ever warm up to being known as a "hybrid" photographer.

Of course, I would hate to be known as a "digital" photographer just as well! In fact, being known as an "analog" photographer could be just as damning. (how about just "art" photographer ?)

Anyone else care to comment? Why are labels so important? Do we even need one?

I'm okay the term "hybrid," but one expression that I can't stand is "digital darkroom." It's a "computer workstation," thank you very much.

I agree that it's probably best not to label photographers "hybrid," "analog," or "digital," but do I think it is important to label the work as such as a way to educate the general public about the media in question.

Uh, the term does seem a bit awkward -- at first -- but I really can't think of a better one. Things like "bimodal" come to mind, but that's even more awkward than "hybrid" is.

I even question some of the usage of "analog" in referring to non-digital film photography. (Hey, to question is the answer, right?) :)

I know that I fall into the group who uses film to shoot, but computers to scan and print.

And no, I never use the term "digital darkroom" even though I sometimes work in here with the overhead light off. :)

ABSOLUTELY NOT !!

Even though the original strains should be preserved, in biology we engineer hybrids to improve quality and productivity. Why should image creativity be restrained?

i don't like any distinguishing of the different forms of photography, we are all photographers, artists and image makers

and, as much as it seems to agrieve many on apug, digital is imaging and is deserving of attention

While it is nice to have a forum for discussing the topic of analog + digital = heaven, I'm not sure I can ever warm up to being known as a "hybrid" photographer.

Of course, I would hate to be known as a "digital" photographer just as well! In fact, being known as an "analog" photographer could be just as damning. (how about just "art" photographer ?)

Anyone else care to comment? Why are labels so important? Do we even need one?

I'm okay with it. But here are some phrases that I'm not:

Light Room vs darkroom

Carbon Pigmented or Carbon Prints - for inkjet prints.

Image Capture vs expose

Don Bryant

I don't mind the term. It seems to fit what we're all doing relative to what APUG is all about.
But then the only thing I do digitally is scan film and make enlarged negatives.
Tom

I think maybe that hybridphoto.com is a bit easier to type than someweirddigitalprocess.com would be. Nottolabelthissitebutithastodowithimages.com seems a little iffy too.

We gotta call it something! ;)

I guess I'm not that picky... I appreciate having a place to discuss these techniques and I not that concerned about the name, although I don't think that "HP" is nearly as good of an acronym as "APUG" is. I also don't mind "digital darkroom" and I expect that is becuase I do a lot of other digital work, where "digital" is used to distinguish it from the traditional process, primarily, music editing - - making 3-5 minute compositions from much longer pieces for dancers, figure skaters, dog or horse freestylers, etc.

But I have to say, I had quite a chuckle over: Nottolabelthissitebutithastodowithimages.com

I guess I'm not that picky... I appreciate having a place to discuss these techniques and I not that concerned about the name, although I don't think that "HP" is nearly as good of an acronym as "APUG" is. I also don't mind "digital darkroom" and I expect that is becuase I do a lot of other digital work, where "digital" is used to distinguish it from the traditional process, primarily, music editing - - making 3-5 minute compositions from much longer pieces for dancers, figure skaters, dog or horse showers, etc.

But I have to say, I had quite a chuckle over: Nottolabelthissitebutithastodowithimages.com

How about "ADD" - Analog Digital Darkroom? :D

Hybrid may be just the word we need to distinguish pictures which have, at some stage in their evolution, inhabited a digital environment from those whose entire history lies in the physical world of substance.

Once an image is transformed into information (digital or analog) it can serve as a set of instructions for a mark-making engine to follow. Ordinary physical constraints (matter, existence, gravity, electromagnetism, etc) do not apply anymore. Pictures can be made from anything that can be described and the list of things that can be described is infinitely greater than the catalog of things that exist.

"Hybrid" could serve as a warning tag advising "Never existed, didn't happen, never looked like this" or it may merely hint that a picture is, in part, fictional although you won't know which part by just looking. Importantly the hybrid world will be able to include dreams, imaginings, hallucinations, and fantasies; places where plain physical photography just cannot go.

For most people fiction is more entertaining than brute fact and "hybrid" could be a wonderful key to new doors of perception.

In the beginning there was photo, and then came pixel and lo! the waters were separated between digital and analog. Hybrid is a second-order concept, possible only in a post-digital world (cough! cough! kill me and my academic blather). I just mean that the idea of hybrid is a result of the opposition between analog and digital. In easier to understand, hegelian terms, it's Synthesis to the Thesis and Antithesis of photohistory.

I'd like to think if I still had the time and space to make silver prints I would, but truth is that I don't, and besides, I am getting a tonal range out of my inkjet prints that I could only dream about in my wet printing days. I just didn't have the patience, time, or money to fine tune my darkroom technique to that degree.

(Although I did try, and Zone VI made some $$'s off of me...)

Finding this forum has re-energized me though -- now to do some development tests to fine tune my negatives for scanning and get on with it.

My next hurdle is to get over trying to reproduce a silver gelatin print via inkjet printing. It's an inkjet print, dammit! Isn't that good enough?

Climbing down off the soapbox,

I guess "hybrid" is as good a short-form disclaimer as any other for:

"When looking at this picture be prepared to be delighted, amused, or entertained but do suspend disbelief."

For pure mental semantics, I have split the realm of photographic technique into two primary zones of process; traditional and electronic. Not analog, but traditional. Not digital, but electronic. Ultimately, every society and its technology changes. Ultimately within our craft, there is a melding of techniques, but for me the traditional aspect dominates as to how an image is conceived and executed. That is not a particular process of chemistry or material, but of vision and execution.

Just recently I bought a decent DSLR. Someone in a post told me that that was great, but the next model up could do a burst of 5fps. So what? In 40 years of photography I have never done a burst like that, and rarely more than a two frame bracket... It's the old monkeys, typewriters, and sonnet paridigm. Whatever we do to thoughtfully capture an image and render it in a manner that stimulates thought and emotion is photography. I am pleased that I have many tools, old and new to be able to do this.

I just thought of something. Really, what were about is mostly shooting film, scanning, digitally manipulating the image to an extent or making a digital negative, and then putting the output in a traditional manner - alternative printing or Lambdas and the like. Maybe we should call this site DigitalFilm.com? or DigitalWithFilm.com? I dunno. I never liked HybridPhoto.com

Regards, Art.

i don't like any distinguishing of the different forms of photography, we are all photographers, artists and image makers

and, as much as it seems to agrieve many on apug, digital is imaging and is deserving of attention

Well said Ray and I agree.

Cheers,
Bill

The physical processes of photography after the subject was "captured" never interested me too much.

The drudgery of darkroom work is not much different than playing with photoshop. It's all just a means to an end.

And besides I don't have any desire to find an excuse to "get away from the old lady" for a few hours and hide in the darkroom.

So I'll use whatever process works for me at the moment.

The term "hybrid" is fine for me.


Michael

"hybrid" is OK for me - its much nicer than some of the words that have been directed at people like me (shoot film, scan it, print it via inkjet) like "hack, lazy, the killer of art as we know it, or poster maker...so i'll take hybrid over that any day.

I've been lurking/reading for a while and to be honest I probably haven't given much thought to the forum name as when I've finished reading on APUG I just click the link to "come" here.

I suppose "Hybrid" is a little strange for a name, but having gone through trying to come up with product names for hardware & software, I reckon it must have been a nightmare to decide on a name for the forum. On first glance I'm not sure that the name in itself tells you much about the forum, but if the word Digital was in the name then I guess it could put off people who use both film and digital (in whatever way).

Ok, so long answer short, I don't really see a problem with the name and know I'd hate to have to come up with an alternative.

David