Monte,

At 75 I am not inclined to change, been there done that. But relative to your remarks, I look back at a friend some years ago, one of California's very best photographers, Morley Baer commercial, architecture and environment, and from what I know he used primarily one camera for some 40 years, an 8x10 Ansco view camera (folding type).

What do you really need, or is it just wanting for the sake of having it?

Good point David. There is so much to want out there today I tend to forget what It is I need. I think back to basics. For me that is looking at what i need to find inside so all outside works together, Thanks.

It might sound like I am speaking against my own interests, because ultimately the photo industry is the basis of my livelihood, but what is the best photo strategy in hard times?

Generally it is to obtain more value from what we have, and consuming only what we need. It does not help with our unemployment rate to buy a camera made in Asia, even though it may keep someone working in a factory in China or Taiwan and Japan. And isn't the change in times from bad to ever worse partly the result of consumerism gone wild, of consuming everything we think we want without consideration of what we really need and can actually use?

Yes we need to keep the economy percolating with some spending, but if we go back to the same habits of the past is that sustainable, economically . socially or environmentally? Using less gasoline by planning our trips to get what we need using fewer miles on the road, is no real sacrifice, but the reduced demand seems to be keeping gas prices down. But how does that kind of thinking promote the enjoyment of photography, support the economy and get us to a better future, look like?

Well maybe do more with what you have, which could be making prints with American made paper. Instead of buying a new digital camera, maybe get newer and better photo editing software made by an American company. Or maybe instead of just thinking about it, set up a modest studio with electronic flash lighting made in America, like Dynalite or Paul Buff.

David, what you say makes a lot of sense. In the Midwest were I live many of my friends and people I know are losing their jobs. Many are forced to 28 hour work weeks. I for one am lucky so far. I have worked the same job for 34 1/2 years and it seems secure for the moment. I have learned to get along without credit cards and limit my debt as much as possible. This year I am not selling prints but instead selling them to ones you want them at cost. Not a money making thing but I enjoy it.I just hope somehow I can contribute some joy to this troubled time.

Monte,

It's hard times in a lot of places. Here in California unemployment is approaching 10% and the home foreclosure rate is one of the highest in the nation.

But life continues one way or another, and there are still options for most of us. The worst is to succumb to fear and assume there is no reason for hope. But just because times are tighter does not prevent us from living and searching for that which gives experience meaning with some creativity; anything that can put a smile on someone's face.

David I for one have no real fear of whats to come or changes that are taking place, but I feel anytime one has the ability to create someone befits by that creation. One this site and all over there is so much talent and creative forces. People who found their place through their creative talents touch many including myself by sharing their creative knowledge. So your points are taken well to heart here thanks Monte.

Hi everyone,

Yes, it is easy to get caught up in the thinking that newer is better. Many people I know are always looking the the most bells and whistles when it comes to cameras.

Yes, technical aspects of photography can be important, but I always remind myself that photographs depend on light and the camera is the tool we use to capture the light. However, I have always believed that making good photographs is a function of personal vision and imagination. Some would call it "having a good eye", and I suppose that is as good a way as any to express it.

Hi Monte,
reading your first posting, it looks like you are suffering from a similar disease as I do. Over the last three years I have also emraced the digital world of photography. Do I get better pictures? Maybe, because I can check them immediately. Definitely, I get a lot more pictures, many "sleeping" somewhere on my hard drive.
But there is this empty feeling. I look at the pictures, often less than three seconds, next!
I remember your long discussions on this forum, if you should go digital. Again, same problem here. After a Nikon D100 I upgraded to a Pentax K200D.
On our last vacation in Cuba I decided to take my Rollei 35S along, as well as the K200D and a little Kodak EasyShare. I had to control myself because I had only 10 rolls of slide film with me! That good feeling and satisfaction came back again! In two weeks we will go to Europe for an extended stay, My 2.8 GX and the little 35S will certainly in the bag!
Maybe you should get your 2.8GX out again, and, maybe, you will get this old feeling of satisfaction back!
Best regards,
Siegi

Siegi,

Excuse me for butting in, but I must say after 57 year of making photographs, mostly for a living and so I could also make photographs for my own enjoyment, not all that much has changed. Although I don't have an 8x10 Deardorff like I used to in the 50's anymore as I don't have the energy and strength to lug it arund at 75 I had in those days. What I do have now in my arsenal is a Canon EOS A2 with extension grip and a Canon EOS D5. Both cameras use the same lenses which of course is a savings and convenience. Both bodies are about the same size and weight, and by someone not familiar with CAnon SLR's could be mistaken, they look alike, weigh about the same, and handle similarly. One is 35mm film the other digital.

I shoot C-41 process B&W with the A2 and color with the 5D. The film has to be processed, I get it in one strip and then scan the negative to produce digital files (Tiff). With the 5D I have to download Raw files to my computer to convert to Tiff. Slight difference there. But I use Photoshop for final minor adjustment to the 35mm B&W film images or the converted Raw to Tiff images from the 5D. I use the same printers, either a Canon iPF5000 for big prints or an Epson R2400 to make smaller prints, either B&W or color.

So where is the difference? For me as it has always been, and remains the entire process of creating images, from seeing and recognizing a picture in what I am looking at, to all the decisions necessary to record it, whether on film or as digital information, and then recreating the image finally in a print. It is making that process work as best I can that provides the satisfaction and and enjoyment. The one aspect that has changed, and I welcome, is a computer instead of a wet darkroom, which has been a benefit to my health and well being.

We can't make the clock run backward, even though I wish I had the health and well-being I enjoyed in my youth, time moves just in one direction and each day is a new world that demands we live in it or die, there is no other choice, only what we do with what we have each day. I'm still making pictures and enjoying it after 57 years, and for that I am grateful. How many can say they do what they love for an entire lifetime?

So maybe your answer is like my recent situation chosen as practical convenience, a 35mm film SLR and a dSLR that are the same make and look a bit alike, shoot the same, and just forget there are any differences, the process is still photographic and a photograph is a photograph once printed, by whatever means.

David,
I am not disagreeing with you. You are a professional and probably went in one year through the same number of rolls of film as I will in my entire life. I am an engineer and had to make a similar choice 25 years ago: design on the computer rather than a drafting board. It would be difficult to go back, even though I still have my drafting board in the basement.
I believe this issue at hand is very much like comparing in general a photographer to a painter. For me, and I believe for Monte, this is a hobby. we spend relatively little time in the darkroom, and modern chemistry is not as harmful or nauseating as it used to be.
Whe a hobby becomes a profession, much of the glory will be gone. If I were to design car components for a hobby here and there, I probably would use the drafting board. But I have to sell my work and do it fast and adhere to the rules of the industry, so I use the computer, and to tell you the truth, I enjoy that too.
So, for the amateur, it comes down to what he or she enjoys. No pressure here.
If I have to take pictures on the job, like in tear-down studies, it is all digital. Immediate results, and I can share them with my colleagues in Detroit, Germany and Tokyo.
Sitting on the computer almost 70% of the the time, analogue photography is almost like an escape. And the peace and quiet in the darkroom is not bad either. The "Do not Enter"-sign at the door guarantees an afternoon all by yourself!
Best regards, and Good Light,
Siegi

Siegi,

Actually I don't know if "professional" really means anything associated with photography. Part of the reason is that just about anyone who has photographed a wedding or two and was paid to do so can call themselves professional - they don't need any formal training or even in most cases a license other than in some communities a "business license" which is really a receipt for paying more taxes.

Ansel Adams for a good part of his life did a lot of commercial photography to pay the bills, it was only late in his life that his landscape print sales brought in enough to sustain him. So was Ansel Adams a professional or an artist, or an amateur hobbyist? Does the level of price for his prints afford his status as a professional and another price level as an artist. That idea would be arguable at best.

But that brings up another murky designation relative to photography. When photography is a society's dominant visual folk art how does the artist photographer get his work recognized as a fine art, and the maker as an artist?

Sure I made a lot of photographs over my years because I was doing it all the time, but in reality I probably didn't get to make many more photographs just for the fun of it than anyone else who had to work at something to make a living. Only the idle rich can afford to be a dilettante.

All I am suggesting is that photography has an unusual place in our world, and maybe using the usual thinking about it and those that do photography does not readily describe a "photographer" or photography accurately using the kind of thinking that applies to other activities.