Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The toy camera experiment

For Christmas Will got me a Diana Mini, which I have been honestly struggling to make to work. The first roll was a complete flop, and the second, well, let's just say it was a vast improvement and I only got about 6 pictures out of a roll of 36. None the less, the ones that did work are pretty cool, and I'm determined to continue the challenge of figuring out a technology that is older than I am.


It is, if anything, a note on how today's technology can make almost anybody relatively good at something that at one point took a lot of dedication and skill. Photography is the perfect example. I can shoot something with my digital nikon, perhaps photoshop it a bit and wham, it's an amazing picture that looks like I caught the light just right, and knew exactly what shutter speed would produce such a gem. I know this is pessimistic, but I can't help but feel we're cheating a little. Not that I'm not guilty of it by the way, I think these pictures prove that. I just find it funny that in this day in age, with all the technology that surrounds me, I am drawn to take pictures on a little plastic camera, taking time, money, and much frustration to produce something that would take about 30 seconds with a digital camera and a computer. 

A final note: Google spellchecker recognizes the word "photoshopped", that should tell you something.

No comments:

Post a Comment