[rollei_list] Re: Oddball Musings from This Mutabile Soul
- From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:19:42 -0400
At 01:12 PM 3/29/2012, Kirk Thompson wrote:
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
Thanks, Kirk, for the sharing of this. Carl
Mydans kept going to his office at Time-Life
after his leg had been amputated when he was in
his eighties. That lad died, I suspect, with a
camera in his hands, an inspiration to us
all. One of our List members taught me about
Mydans, a friend of his. Again, the Rollei List
combines good manners and deep expertise.
Marc
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