----- Original Message ----- From: "Godfrey DiGiorgi" Subject: thoughts, questions, a story ...
> Yesterday I had a few errands to run but also wanted to just get out > of the house for a bit. So I threw the laptop into the Timbuk2 and > added, with a moment's thought, the Pentax 645 fitted with the 45mm > lens. I still had half a roll of film in it unexposed from the > November trip around the US, maybe I'd use it up. > > I did my errands and ended up at the coffee shop down the street, the > Starbux where I have my photos hanging. Reminded me that I best get > off my butt and get the next set ready to hang; I've been kinda > bogged down and in a funk with getting the work finished the past > week or so. > > A couple of the folks I see there all the time were there so we > engaged in some conversation ... a lot to do with politics and such. > I had a print of the portrait I'd done of one of them in my bag so I > gave it to him as a gift ... he's the neat geezer in > http://homepage.mac.com/ramarren/photo/PAW5/32.htm > and a lot of fun to chat with. > > Once that bunch headed out, I pulled out the laptop and started > poking at some more photos from the NY trip and from my junta to > Nashville, TN. I also pulled out the Pentax 645 and started fooling > with it, framing a composition of the tables and chairs across the > aisle from where I was sitting. There was a college student sitting > at the table behind me. > > "Excuse me, is that some kind of video camera?" > "No. It's a medium format SLR camera. Still photos." > "Where's the display screen?" > "It doesn't have one ... it takes a 6cm wide strip of roll film." > pause ... "Wow. It looks big and heavy. Why would anyone use film > when there are such good digital cameras on the market today?" > > The fact of the question is more important than any answer I might > come up with. Here we have a college student, maybe 20-22 years old, > who cannot see the point. We talked for a while about the photos on > the wall, about rendering and black&white vs color, about all kinds > of stuff, but in the end I could see that the notion of why one would > expose film, play with chemistry, etc just to take a picture was > simply incomprehensible to him. Cameras, even photography before the > present world of digital cameras simply is not a part of his > consciousness. > > Later that evening, I was talking to my brother. One of his friends > is getting ready to move with his family because his wife has > accepted a new position in another state. "He used to drive the truck > that went from photolab to photolab, delivering chemistry and picking > up the waste chemicals for silver reclamation. Used to be ten of them > running all day, every day. Now there's not enough business to fund > more than one person on a twice a week circuit through the labs." > > A strange feeling. I still have three exposures to go on that roll of > film. I was at the lab i used to work at picking up a roll of film. Asked what the volume was like this year compared to last. Donna hadn't run the numbers yet, but had the feeling her film volume was down some 50% from last year, and the post Christmas processing rush didn't happen this year. I think it was three years ago that I gave film five more years. It's right on track. William Robb -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
