Souvenirs tech

I started my tech love not with computers, but with cameras. I loved photographs and photography. I had a super 8 Bell and Howell to make films (I really miss that thing) and a series of cameras. While I embraced digital photography from the start, I have to admit... it misses something. The real fun of taking photos was in the processing, the waiting to see how it turned out and then seeing what you could do in a darkroom to make it better.

A darkroom could be anywhere you could shut out all the light, in my case it was almost always a bathroom in my apartment. At the end of my “film” career I actually had a darkroom set up permanently in my studio... always ready to be used at a moment’s notice.

It’s hard to believe that an enlarger at one time was high tech... but it was. There were all sorts of upgrades and accessories you could get.. all sort so papers and lights and chemicals to choose from. All that was nothing compared to seeing an image appear, like magic on paper right before your eyes, however. All the new digital tech in the world can’t compare to that sensation. One that, sadly is lost pretty much forever. The new way of doing things is simply too efficient, too convenient, too easy to makes corrections with and simply too cheap to go back to now.

I’ve always felt that it was the limitations you work with rather than the advantages that make great art. So, while in many ways I am doing thing now I could only dream of before, there is something lacking I can’t put my finger on. Maybe something will replace that feeling... only time and progress will tell.