Why Analogue Photography?

Most of the people who find out that I spend a good deal of my leisure time involved in photography invariably end up asking the question: 'So, why don't you get a digital camera, it's so much easier to use?'
After answering the question innumerable times, I think that I've finally distilled it down to a few basic elements. First and foremost, I spend a better part of my working life behind a computer. When I'm not in meetings, I'm sitting behind my desk either reading e-mails, writing e-mails or using some other Microsoft programme and staring at a computer screen. The last thing that I want to do in my photography is spend hours trying to manipulate a digital image so it will print out how I imagined it at the moment of capture. The second major issue is cost. In order to take digital images which would attain the resolution which I obtain presently I would need a prosumer DSLR and a medium format back for a 645. After that I would need a printer and all of the consumables which are necessary to print. Thousands of dollars? And then what happens when my DSLR becomes outmoded or breaks?
At the moment, my workhorse cameras include one 25 year-old Minolta SLR with a hockey-sock full of amazing lenses, a 30 year-old M645 and a 10 year-old FED 5V rangefinder. Each and every one of these cameras functions precisely as it was intended to the moment it left the factory. If they stop working properly I can send any one of them off for a professional CLA and after a week or two they will come back like new. I have serious doubts that my Sony digicam will last 5 years, let alone 30 or more. OK, you ask, what about processing costs and lab-work? Well, I built myself a basement darkroom and do all of my developing and printing myself; and it's so easy to do that it's almost scary. Darkroom work is not magic; it's part science and part artistry.
As for the consumables (paper, film and chemicals) well, they're both abundant and inexpensive. An $18 100ft roll of APX-100 or Arista makes about 25 30 frame rolls of film. Paper is $35 for 100 8x10 sheets and the chemistry is dirt cheap.

Finally, though, you know what it really comes down to? Apart from all of the monetary and artistic justifications either for or against, digital just doesn't float my boat.

And if tomorrow, there was no more film left anywhere, I'd go to making my own wet-plates before I went digital.

Cheers,

APX 100

Last summer I added a FED 5V and a J12 and J9 to my stable of favourite user cameras. I went with my family out to the Chaudière Falls south of Quebec City for a picnic and took my FED kit with me. I ripped off a couple of rolls of APX 100 and after developing I slid them into sleeves and put them in a binder. Sunday I was messing around in my basement darkroom and did this enlargement of the falls. APX 100 and Rodinal; what a stunning combination. Although I've replaced APX 100 with Fomapan 100 and Delta-100, I'm still gonna miss it. Even a crappy wet-print scan can give one an idea of the tonal range of APX.

David Emerson: Why The Ongoing Fuss?

For my first post, I just gotta comment on the tempest surrounding David Emerson.

See, the thing is, I just don't understand what all of the fuss is about; had Emerson been a Tory who crossed the floor to become a Liberal MP or even *gasp* a Cabinet Minister, would the furore have lasted as long? What if he were a wealthy, blonde woman? Would the journos still be cranking out news reports? Would people be drafting recall petitions? Recent history tells me no.

So what I really, really want to know, is: what's the difference between Belinda Stronach and David Emerson? Seriously...

I have a possible answer. Perhaps the individual voters of Vancouver-Kingsway are a little more *left* than most and therefore are outraged at their MP shifting to the right. Truth is, the left-of-centre class in this country is an awfully vocal group. Those who fall into the slightly right-of-centre demographic are so used to being beaten on by the Volvo-socialist crowd, that after the initial furore over a floor-crossing has passed, they just lie low. The Volvo-socialists, however, aren't used to taking a back seat to anybody; kick 'em and they'll raise cain.

So again, can someone satisfactorially and calmly tell me what the difference between Stronach's defection and Emerson's is?

Cheers