Showing posts with label cameras. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cameras. Show all posts

5.14.2010

Reckless Restless

Having trouble getting jump started today. Coffee isn't helping at all. Reflective, somber and sense memory overloaded.

Now that I've gone to all the trouble of digging out this gear, I'm surprised by how much camera gear is in my possession. It's sad because it should be used, that's what it was built for.

Every piece of gear, has it's own history. Whether it started with me, or has ended with me. I have a great old, circa late 1920's box camera.


A Kodak Rainbow Hawkeye No.2. Red. Uses 120 film, it's still available. On a good day it's worth maybe $35. And yet it's still usable for what it was designed for, taking photographs. Solid mechanical design, nothing fancy or complex, but it works... 90 years on.

Wait and see if there are any first versions of an iPhone 90 years from now. Things are disposable now. It helps fuel consumerism, if you make product with a finite lifecycle.

Braincase Query
Do we ever truly own something, or are we merely caretakers of it?

5.11.2010

Old School v. Tech Cool

Tuesday, garbage day. 7:30 AM

A better nights' sleep, but I still don't feel rested. And, again this morning, my stomach is upset. Most of that's caused from the looming ethical issue surrounding yesterday's post, in particular the second paragraph. At least that's what I'm telling myself. It started around the same time, and the more research I did, the worse it got.

So, Tuesday, bloody, Tuesday. The list of things I should have well underway, has grown by one item.

There is a 'new-ish' photography club is town, they have an ad on Kijiji looking for darkroom equipment. Not the run of the mill amateur gear, medium and large format. In a previous career, not only did I work as a freelance photographer, but also, as a darkroom technician. Black and white photography is a passion of mine, and around the age of 13 I was smitten with it. Hook, line and sinker, I was lured to it. Later it became a career. Yes, there was a period in my life, when I got paid to do what I loved. It was always just enough to pay the bills and eat, but it was 1000 percent better than any McJob I had ever worked at.

There's lots of gear packed away... somewhere. Most of it was going to get binned, so I took the decent stuff home when the 'digital revolution' started. I found most of it a good home, and the rest became mine. So I need to make a list for the guy in charge of acquisitions. So he can pop 'round see if they want to buy any of it.

Hopefully they have a need or use for most, or all of it, because that's what it was built for, to be used. Not hoarded away gathering dust. This stuff takes up a lot of room, I could use the space and the money. I won't sell it all though, I'd still like to keep enough to have a working darkroom, should I ever wish to return to the dark arts.

I'll be keeping cameras, aka the retirement fund, in the hopes that it will eventually pay off, and that my small collection, will be worth something.

Does anyone even 'print' photos or is it a post thing now. I have negatives, a tangible archival hard copy, from which to make reproductions, until my estate gets them and my rights of copyright for fifty (50) years after my death.

Braincase query: In an age of digital photography, and the pre-planned or built-in obsolescence of technology (e.g. hard drives, memory cards, etc.), will there be a generation of kids that have giant gaps in their photo history? Sorry honey but the photos from when you were 5 to 9 were 'lost' in the hard drive failure of 2007.