Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/09/22
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To: >INTERNET:Leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Ted Grant asked:
>> 3/ What enlightment do you have after being engaged in the works at the
>> "killing fields?" How do you feel about the future of mankind?
Most of us haven't been there. Can you, who have, tell us whether
it really matters? Simply knowing about all these 20th-century
episodes (Turkey, Germany, Rwanda, Cambodia, etc) at a distance --
with the aid of photographs, of course! -- is enough to give up any
thoughts of optimism, enlightenment, or progress. (Just where one winds
up on a scale of pessimism is probably a matter of personal taste.)
>> 6/ How important is the art of photography in today's society?
I think it's very important (see above), in both still and video
form; though I'm sorry that still photography has been so much eclipsed.
>> 7/ Will conventional photography gradually be phased out by the modern
>> electronic equipment and video-cameras?
Yes, but more gradually than most who ask the question seem to
think. I hope that it will still be possible to use conventional
cameras fifty years from now, though they likely won't be a mass-market
item anymore. In a hundred years, they'll be a thing of the past, like
glass plates, still used (if at all) by only a tiny handful of
aficionados. But camera and film makers must think there are several
decades of life left in it also, or they wouldn't have bothered with APS.
>> 8/ What are your re-actions to the paparazzi of this past incident?
Oh, please everyone, let's not get into that again!
-- Eric Meyer.