Now look here my young man; it is due to your enthusiasm and organisation of the first LF workshop, that Helen and I have both managed to spend severeal thousands of squid on these lovely strokeable pieces of wood
In answer to your question; occasionally I am good enough, sometimes I am downright brilliant but most of the time I am frustrated that I can't spend more time taking my pet log for a walk and seeing more of the world through its eye. This may be down to pressure of work or the weather but, when the planets align and the clouds part, there is nothing, I repeat nothing, to compare with having the wherewithall to go out and produce images of stunning quality (unless I get it wrong
) that I could only ever dream of until you introduced me to "the greater thing".
Unfortunately, you have to face up to the fact that photographers are born but only very rarely created. It is evident from what I have seen of your work that you will always have a need to express yourself in photographic images, as will I and many others in this forum.
The pain of parting with, yet more, money to enter the digital age is very real, especially if one has already spent out on analogue printing and gotten oneself hooked on the hypo vapours
But, the truth of the matter is that, if you had gone down the digital camera route as well, you would more than likely spent a great deal more on "the next greatest thing" which is what seems to drive that market.
We started out our
adult revival of interest in photography by buying Nikon D100 cameras, together with a couple of lower cost but not cheap Nikon zoom lenses. Now, 6 megapixels seemed like the ultimate in camera quality at the time but the truth is that as soon as we bought those cameras, they were out of date and the newer, higher resolution cameras hit the market.
We are then told that Nikon are not as good as Canon, but then again, Nikon are playing catchup and it all depends on whether you are wanting to take landscape or sport or wildlife or ... Deciding that our investment in Nikon lenses was sufficient incentive to stay with Nikon, we then bought the D200 to try and overcome the lack of detail in the D100, only to find that, unless we were prepared to spend £25,000 on something like a 'Blad or Mami' with PhaseOne digital back, there was absolutely no way we were ever going to
approach the quality and satisfaction that we were now getting from 4x5 sheet film scanned in to the 'puter.
Unfortunately, digital photography doesn't seem to be just a matter of buying a camera and getting your piccies printed at the local supermarket. It is every bit as frustrating to get back prints that prompt you to say "I could have done better than that!" than it is to not be able to get the exposure right yourself
To the kind of photographer who contributes to this forum and others like it, the joy of photography is not simply the achievement of perfection, it is often the struggle to attain it that gives pleasure.
Helen and I have never met such a great bunch of people as those with whom we have had the pleasure to share the workshops, not to mention spurious local outings.
So, Are we good enough? No, I am not and hope that I will never be because it will mean I am above the right to ask fellow members for their honest criticism of my work, even if that does involve a certain person suggest that square is good
As to the justification of the cost of moving to a digital printing solution; this is a big question that doesn't have a simple answer. You need to take into account the number of photographs that you will take and whether getting them printed commercially would be cheaper and to your liking would be as cost effective and satisfying as doing it yourself.
The biggest problem with getting anyone else to do your printing is getting someone that you can trust to return prints that express the way you envisaged the end result. Apple came over to our place yesterday because he had a transparency that he needed printing but that had a couple of wierd blue lines in the emulsion that would have been very difficult to remove without the use of something like Photoshop.
Yes, it costs to start with; yes it costs time to learn but, in my opinion, digital printing has to be the most satisfying and cost effective means of achieving the result that I wanted and that you seem to seek.
We may never make enough money from our investments in gear to justify our present levels of expertise but photography is very rarely about making money, it is invariably about doing something creative that achieves a result with which you are satisfied and which will gain plaudits from your peers.
Ansel Adams said that if you get 12 good pictures a year, you will have had a very good year. And this is from someone who spent a lot more time doing it than you or I
There are very few people who have the right to criticise my photography; and all of those so entitled are in this group; thanks Paul
