Ol' Chair.

Lately, I've noticed everyone has been using these apps on their iPhones and other smart gadgets that make their photos look all vintage like. This phenomenon seems to go against everything people have wanted from their digital images over the past couple of years. When I first started selling digital cameras in 2000, the major knock on the cameras were their graininess and lack of detail. Fast forward ten years and technology has improved so much that digital images are nearly flawless. Digital imagery has become so perfect that people yearn for the imperfections of the past. They miss the happy accidents that the old cameras and film provided. So do I.

Now, I don't have a smart gadget to help mimic the "look" of the vintage cameras. But, I do have the next best thing... actual film AND a vintage camera. This is from a test roll I put through my new 56 year-old Zorki 1C Rangefinder. This camera has been occupying a bookcase for the past couple of years until I recently photographed it for a previous blog update. A friend saw the blog and asked why I wasn't shooting with the Zorki as it seemed to be in pretty good shape. The only reason I could think of was laziness. Digital imaging has made me lazy and impatient when it comes to photography. I am so used to the instant gratification that my digital camera has given me that I forgot what it was to wait for something to develop. The fact that I had to wait 5 hours before I could actually look at my test roll from this camera nearly gave me an ulcer. But sometimes the wait makes the result even sweeter. Something about this process made me feel like I was much more involved than just pressing a button and watching it appear instantly on a screen. I actually felt like I'd created the image and not the camera. When I picked up the negatives fromt he photo-lab there was a sense of joy that I have not experienced in quite a while with my photography. I think it's something that I'm going to have to make a habit out of.