Tuesday, July 05, 2005

luddite vs techie

One of my jobs at this meeting is to run around taking photos of everything for the website. This means I'm carrying around my lomo and a little Sony digi camera and taking pictures on both.

I'm not really a fan of digital cameras. Partly because I like the waiting involved in ordinary film. You never quite know what's going to appear when the film is developed. Will the amazing shot you planned turn out right? Will something you thought wouldn't work surprise you? Digi cameras take away the wait by making your picture available immediately. I also find digital too...not sure what the word is. Flat? Quasi-realistic? I think that's it. Unsubtle, definitely.

Then again, perhaps the cameras I've played with have been too simplistic, too much like the snapshot cameras I've had that I never got good results with. And I'm taking pictures for work, not the pictures I'd take. I hardly ever take snaps of groups of people, I'd rather find interesting details, catch people unawares or just ignore people all together and find still lives.

I like my lomo. It's got enough settings to fiddle with to make things interesting, but it's not so complicated I'm scared of it. I think I was taking lomo-style pictures before I'd even heard of them, but with snapshot cameras that didn't really suit that sort of thing. Perhaps one day I'll want something more serious, but right now, this suits me.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm very curious as to what you mean by "lomo", here in the US I've never heard such a thing.

Pig wot flies said...

Hi Brian.

Have a look at www.lomography.com.

PWF

Anonymous said...

Personally, I have a passionate regard for my digital panasonic Lumix fz10 - 12x Optical zoom, a leica lens... It's not what you would call small...but I loves it!

Anonymous said...

You know if I had paid attention and seen the link to your lomohome I wouldn't need to have asked such a silly question. You have some very nice images there!

Anonymous said...

Digital Cameras are the way forward - my Nikon D70 is a touch bulky ( its only minus point) but I can take so many pics with it that I think my phootgraphy is improving much more than with my Nikon F55.
But I still think there is a place for film photography - but have a go with a digital SLR- and you will love it!