Old School Ways

My camera has died. At Christmas, the USB thing broke off into the camera. Mark bought a card reader though and I was able to happily go along taking more pictures and just removing my card and putting it into the reader.

The other day I was taking a picture of the kids. I sat my camera down and when I picked it up it was turned off. I thought maybe the batteries were dead. So I changed them. About ten times. My camera has died.

Now to some people, you may think so what? To others with kids you may think oh no, there are so many little moments to capture. Photography has long been a passion of mine. I took photography in school and learned on an old school SLR camera and developed actual film in a darkroom. I loved that. My uncle sent me an old Pentax SLR just like the one we used in high school. I still have it to this day. I also have another SLR film camera that is a bit fancier. It took me some time to give into the digital age. Mark had to force me into it. Hence why we only have two years of digital images.

I love taking pictures. I love taking off pictures and capturing people when they do not realize you are getting them. I have some beautiful black and whites of Emma from when she was little. Black and white is my favorite. While I love that with digital you can see your shot right away and know if it is good or not, there was something exciting about shooting a whole roll of film and getting it developed, hoping to get a few excellent shots. There was something more to it when you had to really work at getting a good picture. Back in the days before Photo Shop and all the software available now that allows one to manipulate a picture to its death. Back in the day when all you had to manipulate was the light, the aperture opening, the shutter speed, and the camera itself. Back when you then developed that film in the dark room and then used that one piece of film to manipulate it some more for printing. Over exposure or underexposure. There were so many ways to play with film in the darkroom. And I loved it all.

Now everything is digital. While I enjoy the convenience of this and the fact that I can take a picture and immediately see it then send it to anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds, I do miss the old school way. The waiting for something and the anticipation of wondering if you had any decent shots. I wonder if this is just another way that we as a society want what we want, when we want it. We do not want to wait for anything. Ever. And we really do not have to anymore. Everything is at our fingertips. Readily available. Not always a good thing.

The last picture I was able to take before she died.

That is Davis on top of the laundry basket and Emma is the dark spot under the basket. He trapped her in there.