someday and it won't be long.

My SIL (Son in Law) came by Sunday with some new pictures he had made. He finally got all his digital ducks in a row. So after two years of moving from one look to another, he is back to a classic photo look. No more of the printed page flat look. Now it is vibrant reasonably contrasty shots like photographers for hire have always, at least most often, produced. (My opinion only )

That isn't the point, this is the point. He saw the daylight photo lab, the one my wife forced me to build. Then he remarked, "I'm not sure I even remember how to shoot film. I haven't shot a roll in two years." He was actually proud of that.

Hold on to your hats, It might just be that all of us, who still shoot film in any sort of camera, might be viewed as alternate technique photographers soon. I mention that because I saw something on another thread about emulating b&w film in photo shop. Someone answered why not just shoot black and white film. I could almost hear the gasps in the air. My god what heresy.

So now I am told there is a digital retro studio somewhere in yankee land,(that being anywhere outside my home town). What the hell is a digital retro studio. Is it pictures that are pixelated from enlargement past 640x480. No its some, excuse the term digital people, clown who thinks a Canon or Nikon camera is the answer to world hunger.

And for those of you who are confused by this let me explain more clearly. Digital is here to stay and I have no doubt that someday you will be able to mix concrete with a digital camera, but you can't shoot retro NEGATIVES with one just yet. It's the mystique thing, with cut film holders, or maybe lenses that go click without a speaker system. When you can do that with digital, I hope I am sitting on the right hand of Mathew Brady.

Again just to clerify, this is not a novel, this is not a confused old man babbling, it is an editorial. If you don't allow editorials on this forum, feel free to remove it. Trust me I probably would if it was my forum..

 

cool beans...

 

Since I have been given permission by the resident artist to vent let me go one more.

On the pictures my SIL brought over. First of all remember he and I both shoot for money. Okay I'm retired he took over. He loves to do outdoor portraits. Given the choice I would never do one. But he does love it. In some respects they are easier in others more difficult.

Two of his best shots had a similar problem. Background dark enough to blend with the hair, and in one case hat, of the model. Now most of us understand that this stuff happens. He is young and somewhat inexperienced but it happens to everyone now and then. I would have seen it in the viewfinder, I hope. God knows I have missed it more than once. Also sometimes it can't be helped. You just cant control the light as well outside. If you want a picture of Lucy on the swings and a tree is there the tree is just there.

So when we see something shot outside, we need to take a shooters point of view. Was that background esential for that shot ect. If so live with it. If not, next time do it differently. The trick is to gently explain that to someone, so they don't get all defensive. A young photographer seems to get one thing right, then we are on him or her about something else. There are a million details in shooting perfect pictures. (assuming there is one)

The true beauty of digital is that you can shoot a hundred shots when you only need one. My first teacher, a painter only slightly older than me, used to say, "If you allow everyone with a camera to shoot pictures at a wedding, someone will make the best shot and most likely it won't be you. It's an odds thing." I believe that about digital. In film, especially retro, you shoot a finite number of shots. You might get the light right, the background right, and the pose right before you click the shutter, only to find the facial expression is way wrong. Or that the balance isn't quite right. Digital gives you at least a little heads up.

In the end perfection is where you aim, good enough sometimes has to be good enough. Define good enough, in my world was the check from the customer.

So sometimes I have to gentle down my remarks to my SIL. I suppose Barbara did for me to. Thank you Barb where ever you are.

 

It was dark and it was raining like a muther. It was the right kind of night for the kind of business I planned. Eddie from work arranged it, but he refused to come along. I can't say that I blame him. The damn informers were everywhere.

The kid with the book of poems was sitting in the darkest corner of the diner. "Hello, I'M Deacon."

"No names," he replied quietly.

"So do you have the stuff?"

"Do you have the hundred?"

I flashed him the C note before he made a move to show me the box. "Where did you get this?"

"From my old man's stuff. He died last year. Do you want it or not."

"How many you got?"

"Two of the 100 and one of the four hundred."

"A hundred bucks is steep for just three."

"It's the premo stuff. If you don't want it someone will."

"You sure it's real fugi?" I asked. He handed me the box to examine. It had never been opened so I paid and left.

The end...

Just so you know, this is a piece of fiction NOW...

 

most likely depends on how long you plan to live lol.

 

(Note to the bosslady... if any of this gets to far off subject just toss it... no harm no foul...)


It was cold outside, but warm inside the basketball arena. It should have been cold outside it was the day after thanksgiving in Richmond Va. It was also the beginning of the Christmas Craft show at the Tri County Rec Center.
The exhibitors were most often middle-aged artisans. The show didn't allow any 3rd world resale items. As the old man, in the somehow disconcerting suit and vest, walked by people stared. With his funny round hat and strange looking outfit, he seemed to have stepped out of a time machine.

He stopped a moment at a booth displaying instant digital costume photographs. He looked in awe at the shots and the large sign that read, Ready In Ten Minutes. He shook his head, but didn't say a word to the young woman behind the foldup table.

He nodded to the exhibitors as he continued down the line. He finally came to a stop at the corner booth just before one would be required to turn left in his tour of the exhibits. The two inside corner booths were similar to the rooms in a motel by the coke machine. They were by far the least desireable. The frontal area of the both was very small, which historically hurt sales.

His first physical action was to remove the covers from four huge poster sized prints. Then he removed the white sheet that covered his large wooden camera with the black cloth. The old man then removed his coat and he was open for business.

His first customera was a woman and her young son. She had spent the better part of a quarter hour staring into the soul of a little girl in one of his guilt framed poster sized prints. Finally she asked if he could do that for her son.

"Yes but not in ten minutes." He explained that he would send her the images in a few days. She could choose one, if she found anything she liked. If she did that, she would have to send along a check for $300.

"That's a lot," she complained.

"Yes it is," He agreed. "You can buy 50 digital prints of your son down the aisle for that." He readily admitted it. Why not it was obviously true.

The image of her son hangs in a guilded frame over her fireplace today. The old man in the time machine suit, who knows where he is. The check for the booth rent was signed Edward Weston, but nobody got the joke, if it was a joke.

(This is also fiction by the way)

 

One of the few things I really love about working with film again... Not shooting film and then carrying it to a lab, but working with it...is that I get to listen to the radio. Okay I could have all along but somehow radio and darkrooms go together.

So do country music and the smell of stop bath and fixer... (personal preference I am sure)... What brought this up you ask... Philosophy...

I heard a song that kind of discribes what we are all going through these days. I have no idea what the name of it is, bu there is a line. "He's just an Old Hippie trying to adapt." A lot about hanging onto the old or embracing the new. Not sure where he fits, hes just trying to adapt... I like it. It seems alot like us old time analogers in a digital world. Take what you need and leave the rest from another old song, but I don't think Joan would want to be called country.

So anyway just a thought along the someday and it wont be long line. I think. By the way there is a whole new generation of country music since I last worked in a room for film.

 

I must be doing something wrong here. No one has stopped in to say i'm an idiot, and I am most of the time.

I have a couple of brother and a sister. We all shared the same dad. Yes it was a sign of the times I grew up in. That really isn't the story.

The story is that my oldest brother was an executive with a fortune 100 company for several years before I moved back home. One Saturday morning we all went to my dad's house to build something or other. Daddy was the real builder, we just banged with hammers.

When the day was done, we all sat about sipping the iced tea my mom had made and talking about how much fun we had that day. My dad who was a factory worker and not particularly well educated turned to my bother who had made the comment and said, "You know a man is never happier than when he is working with his hands."

I had lost sight of that over the years in photography. Shoot the film, take it to the lab, deliver the prints, collect the money. It wasn't a lot that I did for my daily bread. Now that I am back manipulating film and tanks ect, I am finding a new enjoyment and depth to the craft, which I have practiced almost forty years now.

I was a business at the end and frankly a lot like digital photography. No not the artistic aspects, but the actual hands on physcially touching the image thing. I didn't even realized that I had missed anything till I went back to the tanks and the stink of chemicals.

This is where you should insert, "You are such an idiot."

 

Ah now I see... I knew something was missing but I thought it was sex... See what happens when you get old.