it's the moments, you know. i finally bought the nikon slr that i'd been thinking about since last summer. there's something about photography -- something that captures moments, thoughts, emotions, feelings, cliche to say the least, but snapshots of that hundredth of a second of a minute of a day that can never be recreated.

even though my old sony cybershot has well earned its use these past 3? 4? years, there's something superficial about digital photography. the instantaneous responses almost make moments trite and insignificant.

on the other hand, darkroom photography, you must work for. each carefully aimed shot, only one in thirty six can you can take, chosen with the perfect aperture and shutter speed and focus and lighting, then rewound into a tiny cylinder of unprocessed film, pried open in a bag only to be wound around that plastic spool into the light-sensitive container, taken out and poured in with processing chemicals, shaken, buffered, shaken again, processed once more, shaken, take out of the liquid and clamped down and dried, cut up and put into sleeves, examined, with one particular frame chosen to put under the enlarger, exposed at five second intervals, processed, gently slid up and down in the chemicals, with finally an exposure time chosen, with or without (most like, of course) the red filter, then exposed, splashed into processing chemicals, shifted up and down, buffered, then finally set, taken out, put under the dryer and out into the open air and light where finally you have a.... that moment.

... compared to digital.
where all you have to do
is point
and click.


maybe i'll take a photography class sometime at school.