Back to reality
- mentioned here because I believe the thoughts resonate in APUG.
It is Monday morning and almost time to return to the Day-Job where it is all digital. I cannot shoot analog-anything for work. I just despise, on so many levels, the digital photography and everything electronic about the outcomes. But the nonphotography work is wonderful and I'm sticking to the job.
The challenge of still photography for me _on the_day_job_, is the same as it was in 1967 and for a decade of 35mm photography that followed: to make a remarkable single still statement. That is hard work, with successful outcomes distinguished by tenacity and vision, and often, frankly, some good luck. (Note the absense of the word 'talent' which I do not claim.)
Most eye-opening is the fact that today, just like 1967-77, the persons receiving my digital pictures respond the same way they did for analog work before digital. The essence of the day's work is not diminished because for the most part, everyday editors never particularly respected photography for the media itself but instead they find the unusual, certain virtue in the moment/thing itself well made. Regarding the archival nature of images, well I know that some of my staff-photographer works persist today as fading newspaper and magazine clippings in unknown persons' scrapbooks and the rest are as gone as ghosts in crashed hard drive.
Reconciliation
At 6pm I will walk off the job and return to a consuming affair with analog photography, books of negatives, an uncomfortable darkroom situation, and all the other truly great stuff. What mattered before still matters. I can apppreciate a well hand-made analog print, a fortuitous subject moment, and love it if they come together.
Analog/Digital coping: is synthesis; the ability to hold two apparently mutually conflicting paradigms at once without going insane. It can bring calm wisdom, too.
Now for a cup of coffee and work... and I suppose I should don a flameproof suit before I log in again.
- mentioned here because I believe the thoughts resonate in APUG.
It is Monday morning and almost time to return to the Day-Job where it is all digital. I cannot shoot analog-anything for work. I just despise, on so many levels, the digital photography and everything electronic about the outcomes. But the nonphotography work is wonderful and I'm sticking to the job.
The challenge of still photography for me _on the_day_job_, is the same as it was in 1967 and for a decade of 35mm photography that followed: to make a remarkable single still statement. That is hard work, with successful outcomes distinguished by tenacity and vision, and often, frankly, some good luck. (Note the absense of the word 'talent' which I do not claim.)
Most eye-opening is the fact that today, just like 1967-77, the persons receiving my digital pictures respond the same way they did for analog work before digital. The essence of the day's work is not diminished because for the most part, everyday editors never particularly respected photography for the media itself but instead they find the unusual, certain virtue in the moment/thing itself well made. Regarding the archival nature of images, well I know that some of my staff-photographer works persist today as fading newspaper and magazine clippings in unknown persons' scrapbooks and the rest are as gone as ghosts in crashed hard drive.
Reconciliation
At 6pm I will walk off the job and return to a consuming affair with analog photography, books of negatives, an uncomfortable darkroom situation, and all the other truly great stuff. What mattered before still matters. I can apppreciate a well hand-made analog print, a fortuitous subject moment, and love it if they come together.
Analog/Digital coping: is synthesis; the ability to hold two apparently mutually conflicting paradigms at once without going insane. It can bring calm wisdom, too.
Now for a cup of coffee and work... and I suppose I should don a flameproof suit before I log in again.
