40 years ago, we loved grain.Well, some of us loved it.We sought it out. Accentuated it. Spent hours trying to get it more pronounced.
Some of us hated it, doing everything to eliminate it, or at least reduce it. Fine grain film. Fine grain developer. Large film. Contact printing. Toning. Much of this to kill the grain.
Odd too, since silver, at least in exposed film, is composed of small particles. This is the stuff of “grain” —
40 years later, Ilford, Kodak, and Fuji have almost eliminated the artifact called grain. They’ve done this while raising the sensitivity of the film to light. Lower and lower graininess with higher and higher film speeds, until now, grain is gone. Too bad that digital has made the point moot.
Now the search is on for the perfect digital image, noiseless.
However, once again, some of us like the noise and strive to find ways to introduce it….
This day from night, light in the night, yinny thing will never stop, never end. It will just keep tick tocking, swing swinging away.