The Digital Dilemna

The haunting face of feeding time

I’ve been delving into photography for the last 10 years and of that time of off and on devotion, I’ve been adamant of my stance against embracing digital.  This was mostly because I worked with computers and didn’t want to spend my off hours in front of the screen again doing photoshop.  I had great excuses; the medium isn’t comparable, digital is too expensive for a decent body, the low light conditions are horrible to manage on a digital….all those excuses go out the window.

I’ve had the fortune of becoming friends with someone I respect as a person as well as a coworker and fellow photographer.  I also had the joy have sharing the same addiction to all toys photographic, as we both have a deep love for film and manual cameras.  That love has been betrayed when he purchased a Nikon D700.  Full frame.  Great integration with my manual prime lenses.  Intuitive controls and features.  Better integration with my SB-600 flash unit than my F3HP.  Sonofabitch….

Some of the many things stacking up against the fans of the film medium lately is the ease with which we can view the shots we take.  Everything is too expensive now.  Chemistry.  Darkroom space.  Disappearing film and enlargement paper.  Because of a few of these reasons, I have not been shooting nearly as often as I wish.  It also makes the approach of doing the shoot, scan, posting something that now seems to be ‘work’.  I feel lazy for saying it.  I feel like I’m not giving forth the right amount of effort it should take to capture something and share it with people I want to share it with.

So here is the point of this post.  I am recommitting myself to sticking with my film preference as my main medium, but I am now admitting that I will also throw in the occasional digital image with my posts.

I know this really only matters to an audience of one: me.  That said, I feel like I needed to write it down as an admission to myself so I can come to terms with myself.

Here is a digital shot I took of my new son.  Also another reason why I haven’t been shooting much, but also the main reason I will be shooting more again.   This was shot with the Nikon D700 using my 28mm F2.8 AIS lens.