digital news photos/concerns

[ted grant <75501.3002@compuserve.com>]

Paul wrote:

<< Which of us has not come back years later and discovered jems in our old
slides, which we didn't pay attention to because it didn't fit with the
project we were working on at the time?>>>

Paul,

I guess if I have a major concern about digital it is the archival aspect.
When you move into the twilight zone of your career and age, you begin to
realize how important "archives and information" become.

We as young folks (photographers)  don't think about being in our
60's-70's, "hey that's along way down the road, who cares!"  But when you
reach that point and start printing negatives that are 30 or 40 years old,
that's when you realize the importance of the "archival aspect of your
life's work!"

Digital today is for speed of meeting deadlines and beating the
competition. It has absolutely nothing to do with longevity!

Generally we as human beings think of today and the moment number one. We
retain a bit of  yesterday only if there is an effect to influence today.
But rarely do we relate to the future and what influence we will have on
that future. We as photographers are the eye of our past and if we all run
out and go digitally mad, we wont have much of a photographic future
history.

Let me tell you, there isn't anything more beautiful than a great big B&W
print coming up in the soup!  I'm completely in awe of what digital
cameras, computers, Photoshop and all that wizardry can do. But the
darkroom is the dessert in a fine meal of picture taking! And to loose
that, is loosing the best part of the meal!

Where would we be today if HCB and other greats of our Leica forefathers
were using digital?  We, if we were lucky, might have a few images of some
indiscernible content unless each and every image were constantly
"up-graded" to keep them a viable great images.

I'm not a digital techno wizard by any means, but there seems to be at the
moment a  "permanent image" problem purely from a storage situation, if
nothing else. As I understand from an associate in a wire service that the
"storage space alone" could cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars a
year just to store images.

In our profit driven world of today, who in their right mind is going to
spend $250,000 or more just to keep a bunch of electronic images "just in
case?" Sure as hell isn't going to be all us Leica photographers!

I believe the electronic world of digital cameras is getting there at great
speed, however I believe there are many more race courses to be run before
they come anywhere near "real film" cameras and archival aspects.

ted