I receive all too many reports from people who have purchased a new dSLR camera that they cannot open the camera Raw files, or their computer doesn’t recognize the file format. The same thing with Adobe Photoshop, Elements and even LightRoom users, they can’t access the images from the Raw files their camera saves. Sometimes it as simple as downloading the latest upgrades of Adobe Camera Raw from the Adobe web site. But too often it’s is not that easy. Older Photoshop versions for instance do not support the latest versions of upgrades to Camera Raw, or even the computer operating system will not support these newest dSLR Raw file formats.

The severity of and multiple factors that caused the recent economic crisis are a force of change. For a time fear has frozen activity economically among a lot of people at all levels, but that will thaw as people find they need to get along in their lives and the market for essentials remains substantial, even automobiles will pick up in sales as many will need to replace what they have out of necessity. And as most people get back to their lives, they will also return to the activities that are essential only to their enjoyment of life, including photography.

I don’t think my town is all that much different from a lot of places in America today. Not that many years ago there were three locally owned and operated camera stores, and today there are none. The only local selection of camera’s and photo gear is Walmart has to sell. Yet in the current economic situation the pundits and politicians talk about small business as the source of jobs and economic recovery, while I see ever more empty commercial spaces where another locally owned and operated business has disappeared; and the businesses that remain are big-box stores and corporate fast food, drug and office and home supply outlets. Maybe they (McDonalds and Best Buy) are a part of the businesses the media and Congress’ count as being “small”.

I came across a YouTube video of Stephen Shore the photographer commenting about photography and his approach to it. In one scene about his experience teaching, Shore comments that photography is a solitary occupation that involves visual thinking, but teaching is a verbal activity that requires words that express those visual ideas. I had a parallel experience for a different reason than Shore’s, interviewing photographers first as a staff editor at Petersen’s PhotoGraphic magazine and then later on for a time as editor of PhotoPro magazine. I found many photographers are like Shore described, used to the solitary, purely visual experience of making photographs, and often not prepared or comfortable verbalizing what they did with a camera or why.