Oct 27 2007
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away
Dale Winling of the Urban Oasis blog has an interesting post on the decline of film. He talks about pictures his grandparents took and kept in a scrapbook, the pleasure he took in looking at them, and his fear that the ephemeral nature of digital photos will mean the permanent loss of them.
I think he largely has that right. My parents put every picture they took in photo albums whether they were any good or not. But frequently, the “bad” ones are the most revealing because someone was being spontaneous and not posing. And my siblings and I can see what our family and friends were like many years ago.
Right now, I have 2,392 images in my iPhoto library, and probably around 1,000 more on CDs and on my other computer that haven’t made it into iPhoto. There a lot of good photos there, but I have printed maybe a handful. What will happen to the others? Disappear, most likely.
My friend Bob, a terrific photographer who went all digital a few years ago, has the good sense to print his best and put them in albums or frame them. It’s good he does this - his photos will be viewed enjoyed for many many years.
Bob, by the way, took the photo of the inside of a Steinway that occassionally appears at the top of this website.
What I miss is when you would have a roll of film in your camera forever and forget what was on it. It was then a pleasant surprise to get your developed pictures back from the drugstore.
I signed up for the A2 crappy camera club, hoping to inspire me to ditch my digital and start taking film pictures….
I’m not sure I would ditch my digital camera because there are so many things you can do with it. But I do want to start printing a lot more than I do now.
The A2 crappy camera club? What’s that?
Sorry–I don’t mean get rid of it; I just mean to put it away for a bit. I actually got it from work, and it’s pretty nice
I found the crappy camera club on Flickr…they use disposable cameras, dollar store cameras and a slew of, well, crappy cameras to take some pretty cool pictures.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/krappy/
That was fast!
Thanks for the flickr link to the crappy camera club - looks pretty interesting. I think someone mentioned at the infamous A2B3 yesterday, but I didn’t realize what he was talking about.
Oooh, I have been meaning to make an A2B3 luncheon forever, but since I teach in the Detroit Public School system, I can’t make it until summer, winter, etc. break.
It’s kinda sad that I was on the ‘net at 8:47pm on a Friday, but I see that you were, too!! Rock on, brother