[rollei_list] Re: Oddball Musings from This Mutabile Soul
- From: Kirk Thompson <thompsonkirk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Rollei List <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 10:12:22 -0700
> Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:40:07 -0400> To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx;
> rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> From: marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx> Subject:
> [rollei_list] Oddball Musings from This Mutabile Soul> Carlos still fights
> the Good Fight with film. I shoot about three > shots a year now, and all are
> digital and generally get deleted. The > joy is gone from photography. But,
> then, I'm an Old Guy and my joys > are in listening to Big Band and Swing
> music and in rereading books I > first read forty years back.> Marc
I can't help responding re: the joys of photography dimming with age. Feeling
that photography – either gelatin-silver or digital – is over and it's time for
golden oldies, cigar smoke, and musing after 60 is a personal viewpoint that
others might not regard with empathy. OK for you, not for me!
I can understand if/when disability makes photography difficult or impossible.
I mentioned once before that Lee Friedlander had such a crisis when his knees
gave out in his mid-70s, but knee replacements put him back behind his camera.
My experience is the other way around. I retired without thoughts of returning
to photography, intending it to be a time for scholarship. The gift of a
little digital camera (an amazing 3 MP) got me started again, and I've since
been equally happy with film and digital. I belong to an active photo group
that holds monthly critiques, and I find that the younger people, while they
regard their oldest member as a rather an old-fashioned 'formalist,' treat me
and my work with the same respect that they show one another. We're quite a
mix of ages and backgrounds: we're pleased to have, besides aspiring young
artists, a couple of retired commercial photographers who've turned to
personal art-work, and a retired university-level photography teacher. A
number of members are film photographers (with a preference for Holgas!).
We've grown way past film-digital hostility and have put on respectable group
shows.
This is hardly a diminution of the joys of photography, and I know other
enthusiastic seniors. Flickr even has sites where the elderly share their
work.
Just my 2 cents, coming from the opposite direction – and hoping I have
company, especially among users of those old vintage cameras with two eyes.
Kirk
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