^Here's a nice bridge photograph I found a few days ago. Click on it to enlarge. How much has photography changed in my lifetime. One son's first camera is a Canon SLR digital and now he tells me he is thinking of buying an emulsion camera so that he can learn more and develop and print his own pictures. I find that the mouse has mainly replaced buttons and focus rings.
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4 comments:
That is SO cool that your son wants to do some old fashioned film photography -- the darkroom trip and everything... Seems like an experience everyone should go through -- the magic of it all... It's all great fun, but dust is always a problem, as well as keeping everything consistent...
If you son is anything like I was at his age, he's going to probably make you park your car on the street so he can convert your garage into a darkroom...
Nikon f4 body only right now. It seems to me that digital and emulsion lenses should be interchangeable, but he doesn't think they are. I dabbled with an enlarger years ago. The only fun was seeing the picture grow, otherwise I thought it was all a great pain and quit. One advantage at that time was that second hand equipment retained its value 100%.
If your son is interested in learning a little more about photographic imaging, including the darkroom-side (as opposed to the dark-side), then I recommend he check out the Toronto Image Works at 80 Spadina Avenue http://www.torontoimageworks.com/ In addition to all the digital photography courses they are offering in the new year, there are a couple of courses including an introduction to black and white printing http://www.tiwi.ca/ced_photo_bwprinting.html and an introduction to photography http://www.tiwi.ca/ced_photo_35mm.html
Let him "ease" into his current infatuation with photography by taking a course or two rather than filling the house with equipment. The investment in chemicals alone would be substantial to say nothing of the basic equipment necessary for developing and enlarging. There are probably darkrooms in private homes all over this city that are filled to the brim with enlargers, safe lights, trays, expired chemicals and boxes of fogged paper, et cetera. Besides, photography should be a shared experience and some courses at the Toronto Image Works might enlarge his social sphere with like-minded neophytes.
Thanks Golomar. I will pass all that on. He actually bought a very fine Nikon body from an impoverished friend. Already his equipment seems a long way from the second hand Yashikamat, which I got when I was interested in such stuff.
Particularly in Europe, I gather, some people are going back to pin hole boxes. Now THAT is photography! Imagine having to pull a plate out of the back of the box and get it into a bath of chemicals which you have mixed yourself. More like alchemy than the ease of point and shoot.
I have a project to record, or "film", an actress on a lit stage. Could I rent a goodish camera at Vistek, do you think? Just another fantasy project to get me through the winter.
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