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Published
in Gulf News, November 7, 2006
The future's
on a roll
It's
amazing
how easy it is to forget. After a busy week of photographing a festival
of plays in Bangalore, I packed away my gear and spotted something
in my camera bag that I haven't used in a very long time. A film
picker.
With
a start it hit me that though life behind a viewfinder has changed
as much as times changed after electric light bulbs and running
water, I've never really stopped to marvel.
The
film picker is a plastic device that is inserted into a roll of
film to pull out the leader after it has been retracted. It's used
in case of accidental retraction or when you've rewound a roll halfway
through because you wanted to use a different kind of film.
It's
just one of the many quirky things about analogue shooting that
have all but disappeared from my life. Some, such as worrying about
cumulative exposure to airport X-ray machines and persuading security
to hand-check your film, I don't miss at all. Especially these days,
when merely sneezing in line to get onto a flight to the US could
get you arrested.
Other
aspects of film photography I miss now and then - when I remember
them. The pleasure of getting mounted slides back from the shop
and that first view of them over a light box. The satisfying whirr
of a roll rewinding in the camera. The boxes of film sitting in
the fridge waiting for their moment in the light.
Digital
cameras have made picture taking so much easier and cheaper, that
pressing the shutter release isn't momentous or reckless any more.
The clatter and whine of a series of rapid shots is no longer accompanied
by the sound of money pouring down a dark-room sink; it's merely
space taken on a memory card.
And
then there's the preview screen. My relationship with this most
obvious of digital advantages is a shaky one. I fully appreciate
being able to check my pictures as I take them; I wouldn't think
to shut the screen off. But this option can make one so lazy that
I'm relieved I learned about light and exposure the hard way - by
shooting "blind" on slide film. Slide film isn't as forgiving
about exposure as print film, so if you really must be thrown into
deep end, as I was when the photographer at our magazine left and
there was only me and my new-found hobby, you might as well take
some Fuji Provia with you before you go down.
These
digital days though, I don't look properly at what I'm shooting
- I just click away knowing I can instantly check the exposure on
the screen. I can even get a histogram of every picture I take,
though I still only pretend to understand them. And the fact that
digital sensors are even more picky about exposure than slide film
isn't a good thing. It just makes me more dependent on the preview
screen.
However,
inspired by the sight of my dusty film picker, I dug out some slides
to look through them. It was breathtaking how the colours popped,
and how realistically shades blended and faded. They made even my
most carefully shot digital images look like daub. And, even years
down the line, when 20-megapixel cameras are the norm, my 6-megapixel
images will languish, but the slides will still hold their own.
Just as in music, the format of the future is in the past - analogue
is investment. And that's just the trouble. Catch me going out now
and buying 10 rolls of slide film, exposing them and then actually
paying for their processing.
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