We're Idiots
Tuesday. We're starting to hear comments about film now that digital has pretty much wiped out the mass market film industry. Nikon has announced they are discontinuing the manufacture of all but two of their film cameras, one of which, the F6, I own. I also have two F5's, both of which I love dearly. I also love the F6, but it's the newcomer in the house and I'm not sure I should laud it too much, given the pictures my F5's have produced over the years. Maybe I should axe the F5's. Maybe I should buy another F6. Maybe I should sell all of them. But I won't.
The problem is I really like the black and white I've shot with film. I'm not certain my color photographs, now that everything is digital color, have half the impact. I'm a black and white shooter. I started in black and white. I feel sympathy in black and white. You can convert digital to black and white and I know the necessary PhotoShop adjustments, but film feels better. This is going to be an internal argument I'm not going to be able to avoid. Someone mentioned recently he was “shocked” I'd made the transition. He doesn't know how successfully I've avoided developing my own film unless he's been reading the journal. I could add it to the list of reasons to retire: I'd have the time to do my own negatives. Right.
An aside on Iraq. A major argument against the invasion was always the danger of instigating a sectarian war that would slop out over its borders and destabilize its neighbors. Lots of Sunnis and Shi'ites in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and places like that. It seems to be evolving in exactly that direction. We're idiots.
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