I stayed up late reading (finally) the owners manual for my new camera. My dreams became affected. They were all coming packaged with file extension names. For example, one dream had someone wanting to coach a jpg basketball team, because they unpacked so well.
Last night I attended a presentation by Canon’s Erik Allin on the new Canon 1DS Mark II (What a bizarrely uninformative code for a camera name. It must mean something to someone). I feel like I’ve been beamed aboard the Starship Enterprise and given a tour of the technology of the 23rd century. What happened to cameras when I wasn’t looking? Way more than I can absorb. Yet something in me covets this camera. It can do soooo much! There’s so many buttons on it! It’s priced in the neighborhood of a mid-range car. I think digital now truly surpasses the quality of film, something I never thought I’d hear myself admit.
Right now I’m having trouble managing the ineffability of the digital image. There’s something inherently not-real about the process. There’s nothing to touch, nothing to hold. Film exists. I can hold it and examine it, and I can know where I have placed it and I know where to find it again. Digital is fugitive. It scurries from one electronic gizmo to another, and images that I remember making, but that I never really believe existed in the first place, vanish into thin something after I’ve transferred them onto the computer. There’s a folder missing from my bus ride after the library shoot, and I can’t find the images. Did I just dream about making those images. Did they ever exist?
HAHAHA.... I have had that same feeling.. I'm glad it's not just me. ("Did I just dream about making those images. Did they ever exist?")
Posted by: stephan | December 30, 2004 at 10:54 AM