> > Shel Wrote: Someone in an earlier thread likened many current photographers > as camera > operators, and I felt myself coming to that same conclusion about my work. > I point, I shoot, and give the balance of the creative process over to > someone else, to some further technology, to some expensive machine, make > the final interpretation. More and more the control and creativity moved > from my vision and my hands to someone else's, to a machine in a dark part > of a lab, where the "magic" occurs. Unfortunately, that magic all to often > was a trick created and played by another magician, one with a different > sensibility and a different audience. > > > I respond: It's why I shoot slides: I get what I shoot and then I scan what I > like.. > Vic
Regaining that control over my images was why I started down the digital path. I've never enjoyed messing around with the wet chemicals, so I never did that for myself except for black-and-white while I was at college. I did try to find labs that wouldn't scratch my film, and that changed their chemicals on a regular basis. I doubt if I could have improved much on their processing. The first step was to get myself a film scanner, and one of the first home photo-quality printers. That setup gave way to a better scanner (which let me switch to slide film). Now I'm digital all the way. It's funny how practically the same motivation has moved me to my current all-digital position, while Shel has returned to hands-on black-and-white.
