 |
||||||||||||
From analogue to digital in fine monochrome |
||||||||||||
 |
The comforting thing is to stay with the old ways. Britain could originally have stayed with the wooden battleships of Nelson’s era - there were lots of people in the navy of the day who really wanted to. They were proven in effectiveness, and they looked so impressive. After all, there are still many people who enjoy sailing aren’t there? But nobody now would pretend that sailing could ‘rule the waves’. It is a bit like that with digital technology. It is comforting to stay with the techniques we have polished and honed and which give us the status of expertise. What right has someone to take away our comfort zone? If we opt to try the new, we put ourselves back at the very first learning step. In fact, horror of horrors, novices may progress faster than we do. Easier to pour scorn on the new and laud the superiority of the old maybe - to complain of the cost of new technology and its rapid obsolescence. It is all a cover for fear, really. Of course, there are plenty of evangelist users of the new who rubbish the old - you frequently hear then talk of ‘smelly uncomfortable darkrooms - I work in a clean lightroom’, and that’s equally ridiculous. Both antagonists operate from identical fear. Since technology is moving on, though, it will eventually be the die-hard conventional photographers who miss out, not the evangelists for the new. No, I do not dismiss and rubbish the old. Just as there are platinum printers still working effectively, there will be silver gelatine workers who maintain the craft. I hope I will be one of them. But I want to do so from a position of use and enjoyment of the new too. The funny thing about change is the difficulty about making the first step into the new unknown if we are skilled and have status in the old. There’s a paralysis somehow. Indecision freezes action. Yet the strange thing is that when we actually take the first step, through force or choice, there is a release of energy, a rush of enjoyment. We may be unsure, we may make many mistakes, but we know we are moving on. We have a new comfort in knowing that we are not being controlled by others and the force of technology, we are using it and maybe learning to ride the wave of change. Next Page >> |
|||||||||||
© Barry Thornton Page 2 of 9 |
||||||||||||
• Latest Issue |
||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This website is © 2008 |
||
|
|
|