He's going on about the 'old days' again ...

"I know you! .." said the Best Man as I shook his hand on Saturday "You did my Wedding photographs!.." he laughed.. "In 2002!...

Well it's nice to be remembered, although I could only apologise for my puny memory and the failure to say I remembered him too. Anyway, he proved his point by pulling out his 'phone and there, in glorious technicolour, was a shot I took of him and his wife cutting their Wedding cake all those years ago..

Yesterday I began the task of editing the 800 and odd photographs I'd taken on Saturday. I went to pop a couple of images on Facebook, only to find I'd been beaten to it with scores of images uploaded by numerous guests and family members. Every moment of the day was covered with snaps from their phones and tablets. It was as if they'd all watched the whole Wedding via their screens. A lot of the pictures - Grrr - were assorted copies of the groups I'd set up and which, in the old days, I'd have sold as reprints! My mind went back thirteen years to the Wedding of the Best Man - those dark, dank days of PD! Pre-digital! The thing is, although the image he showed me was on his 'phone, I could tell by the quality of it that the original photograph was shot on film. At his Wedding I was still shooting on a Mamiya RZ67 with a 220 magazine and .. oh, stop yawning at the back. Anyway, back in those days it was the photographer's job to take the photographs at the Wedding, and the guests got on with actually being part of the day rather than recorders of it!  I know, I know .. I'm going on about the 'old days' again and it's no good to moan about it now, 'cos times have changed and digital is God.
Like I say though, it was nice to be remembered ..

HP5 v Pixels ..

This photograph is one of my own personal favourites. I took it at an Air Show in Manchester around 1980. Last night I was scrolling through 'My Archive' - as it's grandly called on the Mac - and it occurred to me that, if I were to put one of the pictures from it online every day, it would still take over three years just to show you all of my favourite black and white shots! That fact I found amazing! And that's without all my colour shots - the travel stuff, the slide library! Man, when I had my little Olympus XA camera I just shot and shot and shot! And those were the days when you had to buy film, and spend money on darkroom materials (Not to mention the time to process and print everything!) I have nothing against digital photography - seeing as I use it all the time! - but it does make me feel good knowing I was a photographer when the art needed a certain amount of skill, knowledge and know-how! Smug gloating over...   

Still shooting .. (?)

It's been a bit of a quiet time at the studio lately, and the only thing I have on today is a passport shoot for a young lady who's off to America shortly. It got me thinking about this shot, which has resurfaced thanks to the work I'm doing on my archive of slides. It was taken in Luxor, Egypt, and is of a chap who was taking portraits for passports and official papers. His clients sat on the stool in front of his glamorous backdrop and he would expose a tiny piece of photographic film in his wonder of a camera, which then doubled as his darkroom as he developed and then printed a small photograph inside it. (You can see his bottle of developer and his 'wash' on the floor next to him!) I wonder what he's doing now? Is he still making a living as a photographer, or has digital done for him, too?..