Digital BW, The Print

Steve, I appreciate you are writing for entertainment value here. 
But to answer you:  Actually, yes, I have a great deal of fun.  

Every tool -- and a camera in the end is a tool -- every tool imposes
its own limitations.  In my view of the world, having a tool that is
self-sufficient is
liberating in many more ways than it is limiting.  And as a creative
device, the flexibility
offered by a view camera cannot be touched by a digital camera. 
Imitated, yes, but not touched.

Ultimately, every person has to weigh the tools available and choose
one that best fits his or her creative vision. I choose a world
without electrical cameras.  Why does that bother you?

True story number one:  I shoot Polaroid emulsions with hotlights,
through a 95-year-old 
Dagor lens, with the aperture wide open.  When my model is turned
away from the camera, 
I swing the front standard to bring the focal plane parallel to her
face.  This has the effect 
of keeping her face in perfect focus, but blurring other parts of
her.  For a sample 
(contains nudity) see www.pbase.com/sandersm/image/36078782 .   I
have 
received several emails from digital shooters, asking me how I
blurred the image in 
Photoshop.

True story number two:  Several people, who have seen my work, have
written to 
compliment it, with the caveat that they wish I would stop adding
those silly Photoshop 
borders into my images.  That's when I have to tell them that it's
not a PS
effect, but the actual emulsion of the film itself, that the PS
effects were designed to
imitate.

What this tell me is that I am so old that the people now getting
digital cameras and 
calling themselves photographers find film such a remote part of the
past as to be 
completely beyond their comprehension.

But I digress.  Granted, Steve, I cannot do many of the things you
can do with your electric 
cameras.  But there is no way on God's earth you could make my
images, either.  And it's 
just as well that way.

Sanders McNew
www.mcnew.net

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Steve Kale
<stevekale@b...> 
wrote:
> And that in turn will define in the end the sort of photography you
can
> do... Have fun.  By the way do you own anything electrical? <g>
> 
> 
> > From: <sandersm@a...>
> > Reply-To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> > Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 11:10:10 EST
> > To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> > Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Digital Camera
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > In a message dated 12/9/04 10:53:01 AM, Steve Kale writes:
> > 
> > 
> >> You can't possibly be serious!  A courier can carry a DVD,
memory card or
> >> other storage device.  Camera power is an identical issue for
both digital
> >> and analogue cameras. 
> >> 
> > 
> > I will not buy or shoot a camera that requires electricity.  
Rolleiflex,
> > Graflex, Sinar.   Camera power is provided my dry bony fingers.
> > 
> > Sanders McNew
> > www.mcnew.net