Lunch customers at Magoo's bar/restaurant, Chattanooga.
By the beginning of 2003 it was becoming apparent to me that I was going to have to reconsider my devotion to film photography -- a medium I had practiced for 35 years and in which I had developed (if you will excuse the expression) a considerable skill set.
An art photographer friend who had for years been producing beautiful darkroom prints from medium format film negatives showed me some prints he had made from a small Minolta digital camera. I couldn't see any difference from his film prints.
At the Southwestern Photojournalism Conference in February, 2003, I talked to friend Bill Bangham, who was at that time editor of the Southern Baptist World Mission Board's award-winning magazine The Commission. He advised me to go digital.
So I did. Reluctantly, but I did it. I bite the bullet and sold some of my equipment and bought a spanking-new Canon EOS 10D. For $3,000. The most I had ever paid for a camera, and still to this day the most I've ever paid.
Among the first photos I made with my 10D were the two above, at Magoo's, a bar/restaurant in the East Ridge section of Chattanooga where I ate often because the food was good (and cheap). No one noticed me as I sat at the counter, set the camera's ISO to 1600, and quietly fired off several exposures, just to see what they would look like. I was blown away by what I saw on my screen.
I know these shots are not very good, but at the time they were a revelation. If I had been using film I would have had to use an ISO 800-speed color negative film and pushed it one stop to ISO 1600. And the results would have been no better.
These shots were jpegs, just as they came out of the camera, because at that time I knew nothing about shooting in RAW to correct color and exposure. But what amazed me was how easy it was.
"Easy" is digital photography's best feature. And it's worst. It's easy to get a sharp, well-exposed picture with today's digital cameras. And that can be deceptive. Sharpness and proper exposure do not a good photograph make. We all make the occasional lucky shot, but whether we're shooting film or digital, consistently getting good photographs takes skill and work. It's seldom easy. (And the harder I work at it, the luckier I get.)
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Photography and text copyright 2024 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
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