What became obvious to me from the outset in this Digital age was the fundamental difference between the Film Cameras of old and the Digital Cameras we use today. Photography in the 70’s was a complicated affair. You bought a roll of film with a maximum of 36 exposures on it, opened the camera back, inserted the film into a reel on one side of the camera, pulled out the leader end of the film, fed it into a tiny slot in the opposite reel and lined up the teeth sprockets, closed the camera, wound it on until you were sure it was on the reel properly then you were ready to take photos. After you took a photo you had to move a lever across with your right thumb to wind the film on to the next frame. You kept a check on the amount of shots by looking at a tiny counter on the top of the camera and you had no idea what your photos looked like. After the film was finished you had press a tiny button on the base of the Camera to release the film reel, wind it back into its case, flick a lever or pull a switch to remove it from the camera then trundle off to Boots or Max Spielmans (remember them?) to get the photos developed and printed (which usually cost an arm & a leg). Only then, when you got them back from the Printers days later did you know if you had taken a correct photo or not… Many a time having picked up my prints and filled with anticipation I opened the print envelope to view my efforts only to find the film had torn from the sprocket teeth half way through and hadn’t wound on after every move of the lever so I ended up with 17 or 18 exposures on one frame..!! What can you do but buy another film and start again…. Today, you just insert a battery and a memory card into your Digital Camera and you can take thousands of shots, you can check each one on the screen on the back of the camera to see if you have cocked it up or not, if you have, you can delete it and take several more….! Back then when I was developing Black & White photographs in the Darkroom I had to insert my hands into a black lightproof bag and by touch alone pull out the undeveloped film from the roll and roll it onto a larger reel and slotted that into a developing tank. I then entered the Darkroom to fill the developing tank with nasty chemicals, jiggle it about for ages to produce a negative film and hang it up to dry. Next day I cut it into smaller strips and had to place each frame one at a time; into an Enlarger to Nuke it with light and burn the image onto photographic paper, then soak it in 3 separate trays filled with smelly developer, stopper and fixer chemicals, all this took approx. an hour or so, all done practically in the dark I might add, (Red light) and only then you had your finished photograph… Today, you take your 16GB or more postage stamp sized memory card out of your camera, (8 times larger than the Hard Drive I had in my first PC..!!) stick it in your computer, transfer all your photos across to a virtual folder in minutes, then with the click of a mouse, look through each and every one in thumbnails or enlarge them into super magnified mode and with a couple of clicks you can import your images into computer software to convert them into to Eye watering Colour, Black & White, or Sepia if you so desire… With the Camera and Computer technology we have today we possess the ability to take and make pin sharp images with wonderful scenes in glorious colour, but increasingly (and I admit I'm guilty of this) we choose to make them look like a photograph that was captured a 100 years ago or with an Instamatic camera from the 70’s complete with bad focus, light leaks and oodles of grain…! Oh the irony…
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AuthorI'm a keen Amateur Photographer and I love to experiment with all kinds of Photography, not just one particular style. The soothsayers say you should stick to a style you are good at, but my passion for Photography won't let me do that. I will tackle headlong any challenge that comes along... Subjects I've Photographed...
Landscape Seascape Macro Nature Architecture Portrait Rugby Shooting Canoeing Kick boxing Mixed Martial Arts Weddings |