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October 2005
Digital. It's the hottest conversation piece of the moment and everyone seems to have an opinion about it. Love it or loathe it, the chances are that you
will have to use it, in one form or another.
I don't own a digital camera. Not because of any pre-conceived digital prejudice, or because of the substantial cost involved in "upgrading"
my kit, and also not really because of the phenomenal speed at which digital cameras and sensors are continuing to constantly improve. I still use film for one
simple reason - because my current camera still works perfectly and does everything that I need of it, and until that becomes different, I see no reason
to change it for change's sake. However, just because I still use film, does not mean that I haven’t taken a firm step into the digital age. However
timidly I may have done it.
I bought a new scanner last month. It's not the most glamorous bit of new kit, I will admit. In a way I wish I could have spent the money elsewhere instead
(a trip to my dream photographic location of Svalbard, the Norwegian arctic archipelago, would have been high on the list of alternatives) but the
scanner became a financial and practical necessity, even if the money spent was done somewhat reluctantly.
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Lilley Bottom, Hertfordshire. |
There are two major reasons that I now use some digital techniques. The first is because I produce my own prints. I spent a lot of wasted money sending
slides to various different photo labs to get prints printed only to get back disappointing results. These varied from a lack of contrast, to burnt out
highlight or shadow detail, or even blatant colour casts. So, about a year ago, I took the decision that I would have to print my own prints in order to
get the results that I would be happy with. Taking a photograph costs a lot, both monetarily (travel expenses, film and development costs) and in terms
of time and effort. Often a successful photograph requires multiple visits to a particular location for the conditions to be as you envisioned, and even
within the one visit, there are often hours spent waiting for the clouds to break or the sun to illuminate a particular part of the scene. Once you have
invested all this time and energy into making the perfect picture, and committed the result to film, why then trust a lab technician to make assumptions
on your behalf about how they think the print should look? We spend so much time getting the picture right in camera, where the difference between taking
a photograph now and one second later can make a big impact, yet we then assume that someone who wasn't there can read our minds and know exactly how
to print it. The only satisfactory solution, for me, is to print my own prints. That way I know that the final prints are the way that I, the photographer,
envisioned them.
The second reason came about because I had a scare a few weeks ago. I had just received my developed slides back from the lab following a
trip to Scotland. I edited them and gathered together some to send to a magazine which was looking for photographs just like those that I had taken. After
several weeks, I had not had any response (this particular magazine are normally very good at sending acknowledgements quickly) and I began to worry that
my precious slides had been lost forever. Possibly fallen into a black hole at the postal service, or behind a filing cabinet at the magazine's office,
never to be seen again. I rang the magazine, and fortunately, the delay in responding was only due to a heavy backlog, but it did make me wonder at the
wisdom of my action. What if they truly had been lost? Compensation from the postal service only covers the cost of the film itself, not the value of a
photograph that could potentially sell many times over. And had the mishap occurred at the magazine, I was unlikely to get anything for my troubles, as
the submission was only speculative, based on my knowledge of their needs, not on them asking me to supply them with their required pictures. The only way
to stop getting in a situation like this in the future is to make sure that I have a copy of all my slides before I send them out. One way of doing that
would be to take many of the same picture with the camera itself. However, you could also take a digital copy of the slides and then, where possible,
send out a CD of photos instead.
Of course, this doesn't stop the original slide being lost or damaged in some other way, but at least I would still have the digital copy, which I could
continue to use and sell with no worries. It is a digital world out there. Send an email, check a website, burn a CD. It's all around us and we use it
all the time. And it's a world that I have now started to embrace more fully.
In fact, this website is a testament to my use of digital. I may capture photographs "traditionally", and I may not do any fancy wizardry on my
computer, but you are reading this journal and looking at the illustrating photos here now due to digital. So, as much as I hesitate to use it, I also
couldn't do without it.
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