Stubborness or what?
Stubborness or what?
I was out today at Newlin Mills with my Rollei 6X6 and found myself surrounded by what appeared to be some kind of local photo club. Newlin Mills is about 35 miles away from my home. It's got a beatiful long mill run that I've been photographing for many years. The kids in this group seemed intrigued by my equipment and asked question after question. I just smiled at them and continued doing what I was doing, which involved trying to figure good zone placement in lighting that continued to change and between their continuing questions and the light shifting had to struggle not to snap at them. They all had a good laugh at the duffer with his "ancient film" equipment. "Are you for real?", they asked me? "You know", one said, "You don't need that light meter". "Just get yourself one of these, pointing at his digital SLR, it makes all the decisions for you, and you get great pictures. " I smiled at him, explained how I preferred to make those decisions myself, and continued doing what I was doing. He finally asked what I was spending so much time doing. I explained that I'd been making pictures of that mill run for at least 10 to 15 years, and still was not happy with the results. As it turned out, he was a photography student. He attempted to "educate" me and talked about the zone system and how proper placement would help me to achieve my goal. I then asked him politely to shut up, while I worked out my readings. His friends had wandered off while we chatted. He talked about his darkroom experience in his photography class at the local community college. We talked a little about N- and N+ zone system issues. I took my readings, made my notes for each exposure and made my three pictures. When I finished, he also asked me if I had anything against digital. I said no, but that I preferred my approach. He was amazed that I developed my own film and then scanned it. He couldn't understand why I would go to all the "trouble" I do to make pictures. He found his darkroom lab work "a drag". I guess I could have talked about development chemistry and its effects, and the excitement I still get waiting for the image to appear, but didn't bother. He couldn't understand delayed gratification. At his age, faster is always better. My oldest son is a photojournalist and has expressed many of the same sentiments. He's frustrated that I persist in working with film, but is really annoyed that the 20D he gave me is still sitting in the box in my office after three years. Anyway, just thought I'd share this.