When I was writing this post I researched, out of curiosity, the production years for the Agfa CT18 film and stumbled upon an announcement that German photographic materials producer Adox is resurrecting production of Agfapan black & white APX 100 and APX 400 film using the original formula. They will be sold as Adox Pan 100 and Adox Pan 400, respectively.

Agfa was my preferred material when we were all still working on film. The announcement is a perfect excuse to display the distinctive Agfa logo. For old times’ sake, you understand.

Also at Adox, there is new production of the (Agfa) Rodinal black & white developer and their own A49 developer, which has always been identical to the Agfa Atomal F, gets its Atomal name back.

In the UK, Adox materials are distributed by the indispensable and, frankly, wonderful Silverprint.

Lone walker returning from a day at the lake

The photograph has always had a nostalgic quality even when it was as new as the day – or perhaps the term wehmütig, which Collins dictionary translates rather inadequately as “melancholic” would be more appropriate, I am not sure. Perhaps bitter-sweet.

It seems to communicate the carefree, lazy mood of a summer’s evening perfectly, when you suddenly realise that your paradise is only a temporary abode.

With the unusually good weather that we have enjoyed of late, I thought that I would share it with you as a photograph for today.

And now I am going to visit the Silverprint site and indulge in a spot of Wehmut. Stefan Zweig comes to mind.

A digital image is also created by the reaction of light with a piece of light-sensitive material. In this case, the light-sensitive medium is an image sensor, which reports the captured image to a computer processor. The result is a sequence of electromagnetic impulses, which are stored in the computer’s memory and can be written to a magnetic medium.

Crucially, the digital image is not permanent and requires an additional technological process and computer hardware to be made visible. It can be wiped without leaving any traces.

On a philosophical level, this creates a problem:

The analogue photograph is actual and real (it exists – you can see it, touch it, pick it up, etc.), whereas the digital image only exists in the form of electromagnetism and only as a different form of itself, i.e. a numerical description, which instructs a computer to carry out certain processes. This process happens every time an image is viewed.

If an analogue photograph is destroyed, by cutting it into pieces or burning it, for instance, it still exists because it leaves traces in an altered form. The digital image can be deleted from memory without leaving any traces, as if it had never been created.

If something can be destroyed so completely that no trace is left, can it ever have existed?