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Last night I was out at Sir Benedict’s Tavern having some drinks, and there was live music being played on their stage. One of the performers in the group just happened to be using a double bass. While watching him play, I thought about what would happen if I went up to him, in the middle of his performance and said “You know that they make electric version of those now that are much smaller, and sound pretty much the same. Plus they have these things called ‘frets’ on them, so you don’t even need to know what a C# sounds like to play it. It is a much better system that you should switch to.”

I’m pretty sure that we can all agree that I’d have looked like a complete jerkface if I’d have actually gone up and said that to him.

I also think that I’d be drawing a very close parallel to every digital shooter who approaches myself, & other photographers around the globe who haven’t switched to digital and drops comments like “Where do you stick the memory card in?” or “Does that have a shutter, or do you just use a hat?” in a tone that sounds like they think we are somehow dumb for not advancing into the modern age of photography. Or that we have somehow managed to remain oblivious that such wonderful new gadgets exist, and need to be enlightened.

Guess what? We don’t. If you happen to be one of the people who have made such comments, and happen to be reading this, pretend we are the guy playing the double bass, and things should be clearer.

For the record, I do give elbow jabs back to my digital shooting friends with comments like “Batteries? Your camera needs those things to function? Weird?”, and actually do have special situations where I’m going to start bringing a hat to function as a shutter. 98.341% of the time it is all in good fun both ways. The norm that I’ve experienced is that people who make the small comments are often just breaking the ice, and and are actually interested in the equipment I’m using. This post is mostly directed at the more rare instances of actual attempts of belittlement that happens by some pompous shooters. (Mostly on Internet forums) I just want to try to put it into perspective on how silly they come of sounding to all of us on the traditional side of the fence.

So I went and picked up the first roll of slide film that I shot with my Yashicamat 124G today. It was from a twilight/night shoot last week. I wasn’t all that impressed with the light conditions that were present during dusk, and just as I suspected, none of the photos from that time period are really worth of being up here. All a bit flat, and lack any WOW factor.

But, when the sun was pretty much gone, and I was heading back towards my car, I ended up just walking past it knowing I still had four exposures left. This is when I set up for what I believed would be the keep shot of the roll. And I’ll be damned, its a keeper.

Last color photo to hit this site was exposed in April 2004. The last time a color photo was married to a night photo and hit this site, was exposed in October 2002.

Those streaks have come to an end, and I love the results. [Click, click click]

Remember the Yashicamat LM that I mentioned a few weeks back? Well, I went ahead and acquired a Yashicamat 124G as well, and last week I put it to some good use.

On Thursday I loaded it with some Provia 100F and stomped around the shores of Lake Superior at dusk to do some night shooting. Also the first color that I’ve exposed since 2004. These should be ready for me to pick up after work tomorrow.

Saturday I chewed up seven rolls of Delta 400 in the thing shooting the 31st annual Grandma’s Marathon. Nothing like an endless stream of some 17,000 people to waste film on right? It was a fun outing, and I learned that I really like the TLR format for shooting people. Waist level composition & shooting is pretty nice. Most people expect a camera to be lifted to the photographer’s face before they shoot, so it is a lot easier to get some candid photos without them even realizing what is going on. Not having to raise & lower the camera creates a certain disconnect from the subject that I find enjoyable. Shooting doesn’t feel so confrontational when half they time they don’t even realize that a photo was taken.

Seems like a nice machine, and a good balance between my Olympus Trip 35 & Large Format gear. I’ve had a lot of fun using it so far, and i’m sure I’ll get plenty of use out of it in the future.

About fifteen minutes ago I was out doing some night shooting with my Speed Graphic. The main part of the scene metered at 5:30 minutes exposre after factoring in reciprocity, however, the darkest parts that I wanted to register where pretty dark, so I needed to use my flash to build up some density.

I opened up the shutter and went off to do my flashing. I added all the light I felt necessary and returned to the camera, and what do I find? Cobwebs! Come on, I know that shooting large format is often slower than other formats, but to return to the camera and finding it covered in cobwebs is just rubbing it in my face.

It wasn’t long after noticing the webs, that the spider making them came back into view zipping back and forth across the top of the camera leaving the webs behind it. It was fun to watch him work, knowing that it was all in vain because I was going to destroy them shortly anyways, until the spider started down the cable release to the open lens. At that point I had to give it a big breath of air and blew it back into the night.

End of Story.