Digital Photography - How Convenient!
Raise your hand if you’re still using a film camera. Come-on now, don’t be embarrassed. OK, finally, some hands over there from that group of photography enthusiasts. You know the ones; film die-hards who create artistic photos in their own basement darkrooms. They’re in short supply these days, but I can appreciate their passion. I developed my first print when I was thirteen. Later in life I taught photography in a program with an on-site photo lab. It was always so exciting to watch an image begin to appear in the developing tray.
But who else is left, beyond the home darkroom camp? How many people continue to use film? I know my mother still does. She uses my daughter’s old film camera and likes the straightforwardness of it. It’s a basic point-and-shoot camera; she pops-in a roll of film, presses the button, takes the film to the store and, presto, an hour later she has 24 prints. She doesn’t have to fool with fancy settings, never worries about accidentally deleting some precious images from last week’s family event and doesn’t even think about using a computer to manage her photos.
The old way is so simple, but just doesn’t fit into the paradigm of today’s high-tech world. It seems that just about anyone you meet these days, fancies him or herself as a serious photographer. And of course we all love the convenience factor of digital photography. For a change of pace, I recently loaded film into one of my old cameras. The first time I pressed the shutter, I immediately looked at the back of the camera. I was shocked by how much I’ve become accustomed to the convenience of an instant playback.
Film is simply inconvenient. People are no longer satisfied with the idea of film’s inherent risk. For those who have been digitally dedicated for several years, the suggestion that they pay for processing before seeing any of their images seems preposterous. Imagine paying up to ten bucks just to find that up to half of your twenty-four photos are, well, not very good (or worse).
Today’s ‘photographers’ are also reluctant to surrender control of their images to anyone else, let alone the kid who works the photo machine in the back of their local supermarket. In order to be a full-fledged member of the digital set, it’s pretty much a given that the savvy photographer needs to adjust each and every image using photo editing software.
Yes, digital photographers have a lot of control over their images. I’m up to my eyeballs in that. Just like most people these days, I shoot way too many photos than need be shot, whether it’s on vacation, at a family gathering or when I’m feeling visually creative. Consequently, I spend far more time than I should, going through those images to make the often-painful decision to delete the pics that don’t make the grade.
But it doesn’t stop there. Eventually photos need to be moved off the cards and into the computer. You know the drill. Wait until the stack of memory cards gets so tall, it looks like a miniature coffee table. When absolutely no more memory is available and you refuse to buy more, it’s time to begin the mind-numbing process of moving your images from the cards to your hard drive in a way that’s somewhat organized. For me, it’s often complicated by the fact that some of the cards contain images I took two or more years ago.
I rarely stop there. Next, I spend even more time cropping and adjusting them. When the process is finished, so much time has passed that the photos may be mistaken for an historical image collection. The entire process is cumbersome, protracted and often overwhelming.
To make matters worse, unless we want to banish the images to the bowels of our computers till eternity, we routinely spend even more time and effort just so that others can see our precious pictures. Unless you have a free-prints-for-life arrangement as a result of blackmailing your photo-processing guy, you’ll have to decide on a representative sample of your mammoth collection from your recent photo event. If you’d rather make a slide show, or better still – a slideshow with music - that will involve even more time in front of a computer screen.
Fast forward to yesterday. I was visiting my parents, when my mother asked, “Steve, when am I going to get at least a few of the pictures you shot during summer vacation for the past few years? Never mind. I won’t even think of asking for the pictures from last weekend’s anniversary party.”
My answer, sadly and as usual, was that I hadn’t yet gotten around to ‘going through’ my memory cards.
Her response floored me. She said she was tired of waiting for me to get around to it, and she handed me a set of photos. She took the liberty of printing a second set from film she just had processed. She said, “Here. You can have these. They’re the pictures from this past weekend’s anniversary party.”
My first thought? Wow, she pops-in a roll of film, presses the button, takes the film to the store and, presto, an hour later she has 24 prints. Now, that is convenient.
Go figure!
To read more of Steve Kristof's "Go Figure"© columns, visit http://themorethingschange.weebly.com/archives.html
About the Author
Stephen Kristof is a writer and a professional instructor in media production. In addition to his articles and opinion pieces, Stephen is also the columnist for his humorous "Go Figure"© lifestyle-humor-social commentary columns. His previous work in broadcasting and his entrepreneurial experience in both advertising and career preparation have broadened Stephen's perspective on many relevant and crucial issues of the day. Visit his website at http://themorethingschange.weebly.com/
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