The Empty Mind -- film vs. digital

[JeffS7444]

I like to play a little game with myself by silencing my inner dialog for awhile (surprisingly hard to do for any length of time!), and just looking at stuff without judgement. I find this very useful, because if I'm too wrapped up in my thoughts, I may walk right past stuff without seeing it. I mostly shoot digital, but I shoot a little bit of film too.

Shot with Zenit 412 + 50/2 Zenitar and Ferrania P30: A triple combo that I didn't have a lot of experience with, the film in particular. But I really like how it worked here: To me, it seems to "sparkle".

 

[Retro-Grouch]

With you there. I ‘walked’ our Basset Hound as a teenager. Since then I’ve only looked on unenviously at others ‘walking’ their dogs, while I enjoy my walk along the river. At home though a Reg Doll cat seems to think he’s a dog, wants out, where he cannot be let free, and wants games. My son’s verdict: self-inflicted, a two word distillation of pet ownership. But that cat has taught me and each member of the family so much, keeps time, reflects our moods and comes close to nurture those in need. He can empty his mind and enter the zone, sitting on the table next to my laptop. He loves work, and can watch it for hours. He will stalk a small spider patiently for an hour. I’m sure if he took up photography it would be medium format, with film.

Of course it would be with film, perhaps medium format, but definitely with a pinhole camera. Open your shutter, then curl up and take a catnap for a half hour. All very relaxed.

 

[Godfrey]

The Daniel Klein book sounds interesting ... I'll pick it up too.

I do the same thing with cafes and photography: I ride my bicycle around, stopping to sit and watch, and think. I have ideas for projects and sometimes I get a project of five or six photos going. I am An Olde Man and have no driving need consuming me, but I don't set down my cameras because seeing with them is how I see, and I like to see.

I shoot film, I shoot digital. I enjoy the differences between them; in the end, they're just recording mediums. I shoot, and process, them both at about the same pace. One week I'll enjoy my Minox subminiature, the next my Hasselblad, the next my Leica digital. Each affects my eye differently, and subsequently makes different photos. It's all good.

I visit my old friend Don every month or two. I mean old friend ... Don is thirty years my senior, and the finest photographer and printer I've ever known. "What do I do with all this?" he asks me, pointing to the mountains of fabulous photographs, books, and gear his home is full of. "No one wants it, no one is interested! Why do I still do it?"

"Because it is you, Don. It is your heart and soul and life in vision and joy. And when you depart, I will not be sad to hold some fraction of it and remember you." We smile together.

"You keep me young," he says at age 94, "but it can't last forever."

"You keep me young," I say back, "and forever is beyond our ability to comprehend. Lets just enjoy the moment while we have it." And I make another photo of us together.

This week and some it's a Minox 35GT-E I'm using. Next week ... I don't know yet.

onwards! G

I saw this thread pop up into my stream and clicked on it. It opened at the post I made above.

And I felt tears well into my eyes: Don passed away in July of 2022. He was a wonderful man, a brilliant photographer, a dear friend whom I loved as a brother. He made it to 95 years old, still there until the last month or so.

"It's all gone. I can't think straight any more, I can't even hold a Minox now. My time is over, I'll be leaving soon. Don't miss me too much."
And he gave me all his Minox equipment, a huge lot of his prints, and three of the hand-made books of photos he had produced. "No one in the family wants this stuff, and all my other friends are gone. Take them, give the cameras to people who might use them, do what you want with the prints."

He went into hospice and left that week. He will always be with me.

Since, I think of him often when I'm out walking. I often used to look at his photos and marvel at the utter mastery of light and shadow, the superb craftsmanship of his prints, the exquisite balance of the pictures he saw. He, on the other hand, admitted to me in those last days that he was jealous... "You bring me a couple of your 'quick shots' and I cannot imagine how it is that you and I can look at the same scene and I see nothing, and you produce these glimpses of extraordinary beauty despite that: you see things there that escape normal vision. Keep doing this, keep seeing as you see, and showing others in the world what they don't see all around them." And I meditate on his thoughts and his insight into my photography.

We are all different. We all see different things, different worlds. And we try to take what we see and make it into something concrete, fixed and real, that we and others can grasp and cherish, and know Time as it races past.

This is my clear mind and hope of vision. I might not see it all the time myself, but if others can see it in the work I produce, then I'll keep on working at it until my Time comes. What camera I use doesn't matter. Whether film or digital capture doesn't matter. All of whatever it is I am achieving exists in the photograph that emerges, and how I see and make those photographs I think I prefer to remain something of a mystery even to myself. Because it doesn't help to overanalyze why you do what you do, how you feel what you feel when your vision is triggered and you make a photo. It happens because you're engaged, you're there, you're seeing in the moment, and you must capture it and make it into something that takes a brief moment of time and makes it Real in a way that fills your gut and maybe affects others to see it as well.

That's what it's all about. The details of how to get there are just teknos, the question of why is just noosz. That it comes to be is what's important, in the end, and that it can inspire others to join together in our vision of the world that is our Time, fleeting and fragile, yet eternal.

G

"The price of Life is that we must suffer Death. The price of Love is that we must suffer Loss."

 

[sojournerphoto]

I saw this thread pop up into my stream and clicked on it. It opened at the post I made above.

And I felt tears well into my eyes: Don passed away in July of 2022. He was a wonderful man, a brilliant photographer, a dear friend whom I loved as a brother. He made it to 95 years old, still there until the last month or so.

"It's all gone. I can't think straight any more, I can't even hold a Minox now. My time is over, I'll be leaving soon. Don't miss me too much."
And he gave me all his Minox equipment, a huge lot of his prints, and three of the hand-made books of photos he had produced. "No one in the family wants this stuff, and all my other friends are gone. Take them, give the cameras to people who might use them, do what you want with the prints."

He went into hospice and left that week. He will always be with me.

Since, I think of him often when I'm out walking. I often used to look at his photos and marvel at the utter mastery of light and shadow, the superb craftsmanship of his prints, the exquisite balance of the pictures he saw. He, on the other hand, admitted to me in those last days that he was jealous... "You bring me a couple of your 'quick shots' and I cannot imagine how it is that you and I can look at the same scene and I see nothing, and you produce these glimpses of extraordinary beauty despite that: you see things there that escape normal vision. Keep doing this, keep seeing as you see, and showing others in the world what they don't see all around them." And I meditate on his thoughts and his insight into my photography.

We are all different. We all see different things, different worlds. And we try to take what we see and make it into something concrete, fixed and real, that we and others can grasp and cherish, and know Time as it races past.

This is my clear mind and hope of vision. I might not see it all the time myself, but if others can see it in the work I produce, then I'll keep on working at it until my Time comes. What camera I use doesn't matter. Whether film or digital capture doesn't matter. All of whatever it is I am achieving exists in the photograph that emerges, and how I see and make those photographs I think I prefer to remain something of a mystery even to myself. Because it doesn't help to overanalyze why you do what you do, how you feel what you feel when your vision is triggered and you make a photo. It happens because you're engaged, you're there, you're seeing in the moment, and you must capture it and make it into something that takes a brief moment of time and makes it Real in a way that fills your gut and maybe affects others to see it as well.

That's what it's all about. The details of how to get there are just teknos, the question of why is just noosz. That it comes to be is what's important, in the end, and that it can inspire others to join together in our vision of the world that is our Time, fleeting and fragile, yet eternal.

G

"The price of Life is that we must suffer Death. The price of Love is that we must suffer Loss."

Beautifully written, inspiring and encouraging

Thanks G

Mike