Going Through the "Big D"

And I do mean digital. Yes boys and girls I bit the bullet because Kitten, as much as I love her, is not so reliable any more. Faithful tank that she was, she is now a stunning shelf sitter, a beautiful example of Canon's attention to aesthetics.

It must be said that a photo junky with an economic stimulus check in her hand is a dangerous, dangerous thing. I don't think ebay is quite what the fed had in mind when they handed me that check, but it's okay. I was cruising for an old 1Ds MkI but apparently everyone else had the same check in their hand and they went from selling for $1k to $1500. Ouch. I then turned my gaze to a 20D but those were in my book over-priced and I didn't want the lame EFs lenses they were coming with.

Despite the fact that I never like to agree with Wade, he did make a good suggestion. I picked up an old D60 (yes that was a Canon model before Nikon came out with a D60) that was selling with a 28-135mm IS lens. I couldn't argue with the price, the lens was worth more than the high bid, so I waited until the last minute and bid like a mad woman.

A holiday interfered with the joyous arrival of my new baby, but a few days later, there she was. I gleefully cut open the box and dug through the packing peanuts. Just peaking out of them was the beautiful Canon logo I know and love. I was giddy, for a moment.

For some reason I just can't get that excited about her. I think I've taken all of 6 pictures since it arrived a month ago. Of course getting totally cheated and robbed by the F&M didn't help her lack of use. I don't know what it is, but I still feel this strange devotion to Kitten. I took the White Tiger (70-200mm f2.8L) off Kitten the other day to put on TW (that's the new kid's name, short for Training Wheels) and I felt terrible. I know it's only metal, plastic, and electrical circuits but I am convinced she has feelings!

Right now Kitten is sitting on the shelf, staring at me. I'm sure I can see a pained look in her pentaprism. I know she just wants to go shoot some chrome, like old times. She longs for the feel of my hand held snugly under her palm grip. She'd give anything to be in a dusty rodeo arena again. My heart breaks to see her sit there. I just wish I could justify the repair cost amidst arguments to "get with the times."

I'm here with the times, but like the crusty old men playing gin at the bar, I miss the good old days.

Ask me to flash you

I'm scanning my negatives from this weekend and it appears that "The Darkness," as I've named it, continues. I feel it describes what is happening to my images and, in a teen angst sort of way, the impact it's having on my life. Even worse, something happened to a roll of film that has to be development because I have this strange, wavy, chemical streak on some of them. This is potentially a shutter issue, no way my camera did that. My shutter is not shaped like cheesy decorative edge scrapbooking scissors. This angers me immensely. At the very least they owe me my money back and a roll of my beloved Fuji Press 800.

All the nastiness aside I still sort of have a camera, even though EOS is coming to mean "Every other shot" more and more each day. I still love her, it's just hard to see her go.

On the upside I conquered, or at least chipped away at, my fear of using flash. I could have totally tore it down, but I got told I couldn't use my flash. Makes very little sense to me considering that everyone in there was using little P&S cameras with mosquito-esque flashes going left and right. My flash was worth more than their cameras and at least I have the timing not to shoot say, as they're jumping.

I should have remembered, I knew their was a no flash allowed Olympic sport I just couldn't remember which it was. Nonetheless this is my first picture using flash I've had the courage to develop. I just trusted my camera's brain (which is still good) and let her rip. Sure enough, it came out alright. Not bad for a dank, dimly lit hallway. The skin is a touch blown out, but my fearing for the worst was obviously not needed.

Hooray! Now I can officially continue on with my plan of world domination!

Hold on baby, mama needs you

It's funny the attachments we form to inanimate objects. Some people love their cars enough to spend entire weekends in the garage. For others it may be a pair of shoes that make them feel sexier than ever before, or the fishing pole that reeled in that trophy bass.

It makes sense, if you think about it. Those things do something for us. They excite us, show us a good time, or just leave our feet aching. What makes those bonds even stronger is that in some way they define us as "car guy" or "fashionista" or "fisherman." Amazing how these simple objects can help us define ourselves in the world.

My inanimate object is my camera. My definition, "photographer." Holding her I hold the world. And I can show others the world the way I see it. She's gotten me into places I shouldn't have been, and inspired me to go places I might not have. She's made me money, and cost me a lot more. During my deepest, darkest funks she's called me to go out and play.

Our relationship is so simple. We have fun and try and hang out as much as possible, but neither of us is angry if we simply can't make time for each other. I can be myself around her, take risks, and take shots that may or may not work out. So now with a dark cloud looming in the viewfinder I don't quite know what to do.

I'm rationalizing it right now, begging and pleading for it to not be so. I haven't moved very far through the stages of grief. I'm hovering around denial and will be staying there for a while. I refuse to believe that the ominous darkness showing up randomly in my images could possibly be my shutter taking it's last exposures.

It's not that I can't replace her, I can, rather inexpensively. Everyone tells me to give up on film and just "go digital" but I don't want to. The magic of photography for me was always the excitement of waiting for film to come back from the lab. After I developed my first roll of black and white in the high school dark room I was done. The wonder and awe I felt pulling a roll of exposed film out of the canister was like that of a native of the tropics seeing snow for the first time.

Film is so real for me. When I die someone is going to find a binder full of negatives that prove I was here, and I explored, and loved, and cared. Cared very deeply about writing with light. Negatives are something I can hold onto, and there isn't much like that in the world anymore. The same can't be said for a laptop full of digital files. It's simply not the same. Magnetic memory, while cheap and effective, is not that reliable, or resilient.

I've been here before with Kitten, and it was just as scary then. I had taken her to a repair shop for a quick once over just after I bought her. Holding her up to check her shutter speeds, the repairman gave me grim news. Her shutter was shot, and repairs would be $800, at least. He reasoned that at least I didn't pay much for her, and asked me to wait while he answered the phone.

Sitting in the waiting area with my then fiance I was crushed. I finally had a nice camera and it was worthless. My fiance paced the waiting area like a parent in the hospital waiting for what he knew was bad news. I just felt sick, sick and defeated.

After his phone call ended the repairmen picked up my camera. Sheepish sounds came from his mouth as he realized his error. The shutter wouldn't actuate unless the door was closed, or at least the door pin was depressed. My new baby was going to make it! I was once again as jubilant as the day she arrived. We made it out of the hospital that time, I can only hope the same can be said for this time around. I cannot afford to lose her, in more ways than one.