It doesn’t seem that long ago, but it really was when I bought my first SLR. I was in college between my junior and senior years. I had caught the photography bug in a basic class I took as an elective for my print journalism major. It cost me about $400 to buy a Canon Rebel at Milford Camera that summer.
The camera store gave me a roll of film to test the camera, including free processing. So I took the camera to Short Beach in Stratford, Conn., a place I spent a lot of time as a teenager during the summer. It was the closest beach I liked to where I grew up. Plus you had the added feature of being near the airport and could see the planes taking off or landing. I’m not quite sure what ever happened to the photos, but it was an overcast day at the beach. One of my photography professors said those overcast days are sometimes better for shooting photos. Direct sunlight, especially in the middle of the day, can be the enemy of a photographer, he told us.
Last weekend I was back at Short Beach for a few hours, and the morning was still overcast. I had my camera with me and shot a few photos. I was reminded of that first day with my first camera. Much has changed since then. I shoot with a digital camera, not film. It’s the third SLR I’ve owned. I can easily convert a color photo to a black and white while a decade ago I had to shoot with black and white film. Plus Milford Camera closed its doors for good a few years ago.
Update: My buddy Charles Pillsbury expanded on his comments below in his blog. Find it by clicking here.
Jen, liked your piece on the SLR. It reminded me that the first camera I used professionally was a Speed Graphic, and I had to fill my pockets with plates. It was a miracle of technology — in ’60 — when we could blow a 35 mm print up to two columns for our weekly out in the Chicago burbs.
Now my old 35 mm rangefinders and SLRs, plus a Sony Mavica that used a 3.5″ floppy for storage, are gathering dust in the attic like so many undead zombies.
My first SLR was a Rebel too. I think it’s still sitting in my closet somewhere (along with my favorite SLR I’ve ever owned, the EOS A2E). I love the smell of Dektol in the dark, and, as much as I love digital, I miss film.
I think the difference may be that of poetry in pen vs free verse on a word processor. Churn enough words and you might end up with something pretty nice, and shoot enough pics with a fancy digital SLR and you’ll probably end up with a few good pictures. But the film medium, like writing your verse in a nice fountain pen, doesn’t lend itself to taking 5000 shots and selecting the best. It requires, or should anyway, a little craftsmanship. You should understand what an F-stop means to your picture, and what the ISO rating combined with the lighting is going to do.
I do love the egalitarian nature of DSLR and how so many more people can take so many “better” pictures. And I hope that it brings more people to look at the photographic craft and art. Ultimately I think it’s mostly just that, as I’ve aged, I’ve grown to appreciate more the things that require a little effort to do, and do well.
I fell in love with photography because of the whole darkroom experience. There was just something relaxing about getting lost in the dark room for hours watching what you shot on film become a print. I miss it so much. I had wanted to build my own dark room at one point, but today I bet you couldn’t find the equipment for it never mind the fact so many camera companies don’t even make film any more.
Shooting film was hard enough. Shooting on slide film was even harder. You had absolutely no room for error. I still have some slides around I shot. I remember shooting slide film one night of the Capitol in DC (since that’s where I went to college) and of the cherry blossoms, but I have no idea where those slides went to. I’m sure they’re in my parents’ house somewhere.