By the mid-2000s and the quality level of digital imaging reaching a level comparable to traditional film-based photography, the decision to move over to the land of the jpeg finally made sense. Trading the smell of hypo from a traditional darkroom for the point-and-click mouse capabilities of the all-new digital darkroom was always appealing. But the sacrifice in the quality of the image-viewing experience, forgoing the tactile benefits of a hand-printed silver gelatin photograph or Kodachrome slides for a computer screen and an ink-jet produced print, was still too much.
In 2006 I finally broke down and rationalized the move: no more film canisters; no more waiting for results; no more extra cost from waste; no more wrong exposures. All good things, and -- with careful application of the new tenets of imaging -- quality images too. Of course, now just five years later as with anything related to the digital world, any trepidation for moving over from traditional photography seems so insignificant, so far removed. Granted, the process of extracting a brilliant print from a celluloid strip will always have it's place in the heart of a photography purist. But the benefits of today's computers with lenses attached, and the ease to manipulate the image after the fact has me hook, line and sinker.
The content in the following posts cover image-making from 2006 forward, excepting a few from previous eras that have been digitized and fall neatly within the selected categories.
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