Siren Song

About 10 years ago, a young idealist I know intimately dogged digital photography within an inch of it’s life. She swore digital would never be better than and definitely would never replace film. Film was just better by such a large degree, it was unfathomable. Ahh, the innocence of youth.

Flash forward to 2004 and by this time, digital photography has grown by leaps and bounds that that photographer. . .ok I never had thought possible. In December of 2006 I purchased my first Digital SLR a Canon 30D. I was in LOVE! It cost me more than any of my film cameras, heck more than all of them put together (I will admit, I saved money by purchasing old reliables from fellow photogs with the desire to upgrade).

But the cost was not so bothersome to me because there was another cost that was entirely obliterated by the advent of digital. The costly processing of film and having to have every photo printed. And then came the weeding out of the “bad” ones. So my 3 or 4 Canon SLRs got packed away in a camera bag along with loads of unused film only to see the light of day every once in a while.

One of those times was when my husband and I planned a trip to Piedmont Park for him to try his hand at photography a bit more than he was used to. I brought out one of my old faithfuls and the accompanying rolls of film in order to not feel empty handed. It was torture not seeing the fruits of my labors right away and whether or not I got the shot. Sadly, it was not torture enough because they are still lying around undeveloped. My curiosity was evidently not that great. . .

. . .or rather, the real culprit is my frugality and the fact that there are no decent local film labs in my area that could lovingly develop my film and scan it to CD for me so that I may view my film creations in the same ease that I do my digital work. Either that or the ones I find have the ability to bleed me dry in the area of my wallet. {{inward groan}}

Early this summer, before my Canon 30D was sadly demoted by the acquisition of a 50D, I shot a couple that you saw before on this blog here. As I shot with my trusty 30D, I loaded one roll of film for Spencer to shoot at his leisure. Knowing my tendency towards procrastination, I got the film developed and scanned to CD right away. . .at Wal-Mart. :( I even got a set of prints for kicks and giggles.

I was thoroughly surprised by the results. They were creamy and rich in a way digital is not always. Sadly, the following images do not do the prints justice.

The above images were completely untouched by Photoshop. Straight out of the camera.

For those who do not follow closely the buzz in the photography industry, the reason this post came to be is because there has been a lot of said buzz in the photography world about film. Now, by no means do I plan on going back to film as my sole media as do the amazingly talented Jose Villa (please check out his phenomenal work which is a source of inspiration to me) and several others that I have come across (Joseph Canlas is another good one to check out that is 100% Film as his blog proudly bosts) but there are certain things about film that I miss.

One day, some time ago, I came across an order a bride had placed with me for prints from her wedding that she never retrieved (lesson learned there that we won’t get into right now) and I marveled at several facts.

1. I have grown by leaps and bounds in the past 5+ years.

2. I was amazed at the memory of the confidence I used to have shooting weddings and such. I looked over the images and recalled how it used to be when I would shoot roll after roll of film, trusting myself and my abilities enough without the possibility of seeing how I truly did until anywhere from a few days to weeks after the actual event. {{sigh}} Those were the days.

As I typed this, I looked over at my dear 50D and picked it up and changed the review time of an image after shot from 2 seconds to None. I still have the ability to push the play button, of course, but I am going to endeavor to resist unless necessary.

As wistful as this post may sound, I do not plan on giving digital the heave ho by any means. Too blasted convenient. However, relegated to the post of “knick knack” is my first ever SLR (single lens reflex) that I bought from a pawn shop for $100 of hard earned money. My dear Pentax K1000. Also there resides my overpriced TLR (twin lens reflex). An $80 E-bay find. My Yashica A.

As I mentioned on Twitter just the other night, I have 35mm and 120mm film lying around the house and an itch that needs scratching. We shall see how this turns out and I will be sure to keep you updated.

P.S. “This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were removed.” Mitch Hedburg

P.S. For real. Check out this blog of an old friend of mine who has also succumbed to the siren song of film.

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OSP South Cocktails – Macon Georgia

About a year ago, I sent an e-mail to a pretty influential photographer asking her a technical question of some sort. Well, as you can imagine, an influential photographer is pretty busy and can not answer every little question sent their way…but, what I appreciated was that she had it set up to where an automatic e-mail was sent telling fellow photographers who e-mailed her where they may be able to go to get answers to their questions.

One such place was David Jay’s forum, Open Source Photo Forum. Very glad for that. I have learned so much from being a member of that forum that I honestly don’t know how I would have learned otherwise.

Well, this October 19-21 was the annual OSP gathering for the southeast area photogs which I signed up for. Boy, am I glad that I did. It was an amazing experience meeting other photographers from the area that I had no idea existed. It was great meeting new people, learning new things and being able to meet people that I had been talking to on OSP for quite some time now. Not to mention picking the brains of people much smarter and more accomplished than I.

Well, to make a long introduction short, this post is all about the cocktail party. ;) YEAH!

I am a wallflower and love to have my camera at the ready so enjoy the fruits of such below. And hopefully I won’t make too many enemies after all of this is said and done.

The party was at SoChi Gallery in downtown Macon. Small venue but nice and very chic. We had desserts laid out for us. . .

and a limited cash bar on demand. . .

. . .and DJ Kevin Nichols endeavoring to make sure the party never stopped. He did an amazing job even though not all of us were willing to get out on the dance floor.Animated conversations were to be seen throughout the evening. Some of us did eventually start warming up to the idea of dancing.Liana was an amazing dancer and was not shy of strutting her stuff. Neither was her partner seen here, Jenny.Liana is so awesome, she even makes up her own moves.Kate rivaled her for excellent dancing skills.Heather stood on the sidelines a lot but got out there occasionally.Ashah pretending to take blackmail pictures.Danielle and her husband were the cutest couple.Oh look! A fellow wallflower like myself!Ashah may look like she was just chatting up the DJ Kevin for no reason. . .but she had an ulterior motive. . .she wanted to borrow his camera. Another fellow wallflower, Chris, looking radiant. A covert shot of Heather on the dance floor.Tracee and Karlin finding something Shaun is saying very interesting it would seem. Amber having an animated conversation with Jason and a person who shall remain anonymous simply because I do not know who was behind the wall. I am not going to even attempt to figure out what Shaun was doing here. Looks like he was trying to sell me an invisible watch. Karlin explaining to TimCo that if her heart was not already taken. . . ;)

Nathan telling it like it is.

Whatever Shaun was saying must have been quite amusing and interesting as his listeners are paying rapt attention.

Okay, I’ll admit it, he can be pretty funny at times, as Tracee seems to have found out. (side note: what an amazing smile she has!)Kip felt left out so I got this quick (and somewhat creepy) shot of him. I have a feeling he is not going to be happy with me for posting it. Nathan and Amber enjoying another animated conversation.Ahh! The Karaoke was finally busted out and TimCo had his moment belting out Billie Jean. And doing a pretty darn good job at it. Dancing resumed. . .or should I say continued, as it never really stopped. Just bust a move.This lady here with Kip was, not only a phenomenal dancer, but entirely instrumental to getting OSPS4 off the ground and running. I would like to give a round of applause to Mrs. Ginger Moseley herself! And I will leave you good people with a few images of what a Heather sandwich looks like.

Thank you and good night! :)

Coming soon: I have so much more to post: shots of “class” in session as well as the amazing models we photographed on Tuesday.

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OSPS4 Rocks the HIZOUSE!!!

I just had a mind-blowingly awesome time at OSPS4. I went into it not sure how it would go or if I would make friends or what I would learn. I came out of it having the best time, lots of new awesome friends and learning SO much more than I thought I would.

I have nothing but praise and thanks for the wonderful Ginger from A Moment in Time Photography who took the time and effort to pull all of this off. (All of my other thanks will be coming on a later blog post because there were so many wonderful people who helped make this a success)

I will do my bestest to get more details and images up soon. I am currently typing in bed because I drove home last night and am desperately wanting and needing to catch up on sleep.

Before I go, I will leave you with one SOOC image that I posted on Twitter the other day.
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