Did I get your attention?
I just got back from shooting an ad for a local store and I can't get one thought out of my mind.
Digital photography sucks and I'm sick of it!
I've been shooting, processing and printing film since grade school, which would make at least 30 years. I have 2 degrees in commercial photography from Rochester Institute of Technology and have been working as a full-time commercial photographer for about 12 years now. In the interim, I worked for Minolta (remember them? They used to be one of those companies which made film cameras.) so, basically my entire life has been photography.
My E6 lab closed at the beginning of this year, which is no surprise because you know how many times I shot film last year? Twice. Now I don't even know where I would take it if I did shoot film, color anyway, particularly 4x5. My darkroom is piled with 4x5 film boxes and hasn't been used in the last few years.
As I left the shoot today, it suddenly hit me that what I had to look forward to was a few hours hitting keys on a computer to finish the job. How thrilling and satisfying that is. I don't think I've ever been less interested in what has been the motivation of my entire life. There is no longer anything tangible. It's all bits and pixels and somewhere along the line, "Photography" has ceased to be. It seems to me the aesthetic has virtually vanished. Composition, lighting, the abstract of the whole thing seems something of the past. Everyone thinks it can be "done" or "fixed" or most often, almost completely created in the computer.
So many of you have absolutely no idea what you are missing.
I just got back from shooting an ad for a local store and I can't get one thought out of my mind.
Digital photography sucks and I'm sick of it!
I've been shooting, processing and printing film since grade school, which would make at least 30 years. I have 2 degrees in commercial photography from Rochester Institute of Technology and have been working as a full-time commercial photographer for about 12 years now. In the interim, I worked for Minolta (remember them? They used to be one of those companies which made film cameras.) so, basically my entire life has been photography.
My E6 lab closed at the beginning of this year, which is no surprise because you know how many times I shot film last year? Twice. Now I don't even know where I would take it if I did shoot film, color anyway, particularly 4x5. My darkroom is piled with 4x5 film boxes and hasn't been used in the last few years.
As I left the shoot today, it suddenly hit me that what I had to look forward to was a few hours hitting keys on a computer to finish the job. How thrilling and satisfying that is. I don't think I've ever been less interested in what has been the motivation of my entire life. There is no longer anything tangible. It's all bits and pixels and somewhere along the line, "Photography" has ceased to be. It seems to me the aesthetic has virtually vanished. Composition, lighting, the abstract of the whole thing seems something of the past. Everyone thinks it can be "done" or "fixed" or most often, almost completely created in the computer.
So many of you have absolutely no idea what you are missing.