[Leica] My first postings for the year....

[drodgers at casefarms.com (David Rodgers)]

David,

I have many old photographs that I look at and think, "I wish I'd taken
more of that time and place." 

My advice to any photographer -- young or old, but especially young --
is to look for obscure things that define an era, and photograph them.
Photographs gain value over time. I think it's possible that film is the
better medium for documentary work. There are too many questions about
digital alteration. At it might get worse. Who knows what a person will
be able to do with Photoshop ZZ. OTOH, film is tangible.  

A documentary mentality opens the door to all types of subjects. As
crazy as it sounds, I shot slides of the WWW back when it was a virtual
unknown (1993). I had to do a presentation to a group of people about
this new thing called the World Wide Web. At 1200 baud it was too slow
demonstrate in real time (and maintain the attention of my audience). So
several nights before  I spent an evening navigating through different
screens. I photographed each screen after it loaded. A few days later I
breezed through the presentation, using an Ektagraphic projector.  I was
just looking at those slides the other day. The Yahoo screens from 1993
are a hoot to look at. FWIW, a Yahoo search on the word "accountant"
yielded a whopping 285 hits. 

Most people didn't think much about the web then. But a few had
foresight. Someone in the audience actually registered a domain name
right after my presentation. They registered an acronym for their
company. They later sold the rights to for a substantial sum. I don't
recall exactly what the domain was, but it was something like "gmc.com".
All I have are some silly old slides. Maybe they'll have value someday.
:-)  

I wish that I had a better eye to see history in the making. 

DaveR
    

-----Original Message-----
From: David Cochran [mailto:cochranpr@mac.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 3:57 AM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: Re: [Leica] My first postings for the year....

When I look at photographs that are not particularly aesthetic 
champions or life-changing subjects, I look for another value. These 3 
photos I value as documents of how people lived at a certain period of 
history. Same goes to party pictures, everyday snaps of people, well, 
just being.

One day, we may look at all the parked cars and think, wow, cars were 
really different on "those days".

The gut sitting with his laptop makes me ask, is he having Cappuccinno, 
Mocca or Hot Chocolate while he browse.


peace


david
On Jan 3, 2006, at 9:06 PM, Kenneth Frazier wrote:

> Well, I finally made the time to get a bit caught up on processing 
> some film.  Here's the first submissions for the year, taken during 
> the holiday season.
>
> Here's the link:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/6sc2r
>
> Comments welcomed, as always, and thanks for looking.
>
> Ken
>
> ------------------------------------
> The Rev. Kenneth Frazier
> Connecticut Conference, United Church of Christ
> Current Leica Photography: http://tinyurl.com/6sc2r
> Skype: +1 8606328546
>
>
>
>
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