Get real

I was watching my 6 year old play on the computer, while his friends stood next to him looking on.

Why don’t you guys play a real game like Life, or Connect Four,” I said.

“Dad,” said Oliver, “they have Connect Four online.

“Sure,” I said, “but sometimes it is good to touch real plastic.”

Real plastic. I started thinking about the absurdity of that, and how “real plastic” seems like some fancy substance in this digital, virtual world we seem to be living in more and more. Just this morning, I “borrowed” money from a loan account online, and transferred it to my checking account, where it instantly appeared. Wow, I thought, I can create $4,000, and move it through the air from one account to another…but of course I realized that I actually didn’t move anything physical at all, just a credit in one account, and a debit in another. Probably there is no actual money in any of my accounts really- just a big plus in one, and a bigger minus in another on a hard drive somewhere in the world.

So what does this have to do with photography? That there is something missing in this digital photography world, where images only exist as ones or zeros on a hard drive, or plastic disk, and can only be seen with the aid of a electronic liquid crystal display, or printed on an ink jet printer.

Yes, you could argue, previously photography consisted of invisible grains of silver nitrates on a clear plastic substrate, that first needed to be transformed by chemical reactions before anything was visible, but at least when it was developed, you could take the image out of its sleeve, hold it up and see, maybe in a negative form, but a pretty recognizable representation of the image without any mechanical or electronic device.

It was somehow more real than a digital image- more tangible, and also at the same time, more fragile and more unique as this was the actual film that went through your camera at the moment the image was recorded, the film that traveled 10,000 miles with you, the film that was exposed to the light of another hemisphere, perhaps at great personal risk, or expense.

Not a copy of a copy of a transfer from a flash card copy of data copied from a digital sensor manipulated by a bunch of transistors on a circuit board in a camera/computer. This (the film image) was it- take good care of it or there is nothing left.

And I do miss the smell of freshly processed Kodachrome slide film that you used to get when you first opened the little yellow boxes….

SLPS XII aka pool party

Last night was Slideluck Potshow XII- if you don't know what that is, you are missing a great event.

What was really fun about this one was it was outside, in McCarren Park pool, an abandoned 6 acre, 72 year old swimming pool in Brooklyn. You can read even more about it here.


It's hard to tell if it was really crowded, as when you are standing in a swimming pool- sans water- the size of a city block- well, my block at least- it is hard to feel crowded. The threatening weather held out, even with a few not too distant rumbles of thunder, and just literally 45 seconds of water drops at one point near the beginning of the show.

Due to time constraints, the intermission was virtually non-existent, so it was about two hours straight of images- phew!

As usual, there was a great assortment of things to eat from freshly grilled items, to yours truely's roast vegetable pesto pasta salad to a Polish cheesecake.

And, Calumet was there giving an equipment demo that mainly consisted of shooting attendees in a wading pool full of water, the most appropriate (or inappropriate, depending of your viewpoint) of which was a tall tattooed mermaid wearing practicality nothing. And no, I don't have any pictures of her.

I do, however have a few more of the pool- look a real pool in the pool:














And this "pool" of sorts....


















The night is still young.....