Girl in the Window

There is no real way to explain exactly why an image or a style of photography excites someone. There is no reason why some people are attracted to portraiture and some to landscapes and some to still life and on and on. There is just a feeling that you get when you think you are onto something amazing in the course of your work. It's hard to put into words how I realise when I am on the right track. It is just a feeling inside. An excitement that I am looking at something interesting. A little voice somewhere telling me that I should keep going because what I am recording is good. Of course, there is also a louder, more distinctive voice that I hear more often telling me to stop and desist because what I am in fact creating is crap. So when it feels like I am getting somewhere I try and hold onto those ideas at all costs because they are what keeps you going. They are inspiration.

I have a confession to make to you. It is this...even though I am a user of the magic of photoshop and a purveyor of digitally enhanced work, I wasn't always this way. I used to be quite strictly opposed to digital photography and programs like photoshop. I used to stand on my soapbox and shout about the quality of using still cameras that recorded onto film. Of using real darkrooms with chemicals and waterbeds. I can still work in this way, but slowly, overtime (and it was very slowly) I realised the benefits of digital technology. I think it was when I was standing with all my negatives wishing that I had a printer which would take them and let me feed them onto my computer so I could fix the prints more easily. Slowly overtime and through working at various digital photography studios, I realised that I could still oppose digital advancements, but if I ever hoped to carve out any sort of career in images, I would have to call a truce. I would have to join the enemy and learn from it. I convinced myself that in time I would the be able to defeat the enemy from within its ranks. I would learn its weaknesses and expose it for what it was. I never thought I would start to think that it could be quite efficient and helpful really. I started to get lazy and in this new laziness digital technology was my friend. I started to hate spending all my money on chemicals and camera film and in this new economic hardship digital technology was my friend. I started to crave efficiency and progress and technical skill. I wanted to be like a retro-techniques guru, but I started to get good at the digital stuff, and it freed up my creativity and whilst I wasn't looking it became my friend, dammit!!!!

That is not to say that I am a complete convert. Like all friends, sometimes we get on and sometimes we don't. Sometimes it still likes to remind me whose boss by running out of battery or freezing mid-job. But then there are good times too. It does what I ask without question. And it doesn't turn my skin a funny colour like the chemicals would sometimes do. I still have a love/hate relationship with digital. I still do not own a digital camera (although my partner does so I use that). I still do not overly like sitting in a dark room in front of a computer screen. But then I realise that if I wasn't doing that I would be standing in a darkroom in front of a enlarger and chemical trays, so I forgive my photoshop computer and pull up a chair and remember that my fingers don't look nice when they are a funny colour.

But, I have retained some things from when I was part of the resistance. One thing I still get excited by (and as I said earlier, there is no real reason why) is black and white images. I think when I was learning the chemical printing processes, my early work always turned out better when it was black and white. That was the first step I took into the wonderful world of photography and even to this day, I cannot help but get excited by black and white images. There's something very noble and righteous about a good black and white photograph. The image above was a so-so colour picture, but in black and white it is a beautiful image which reminds me of portraits from the 60's. The irony I now find is that it was not an enlarger and a negative and chemicals that helped me create that image. It was my new digital friends. Yes, sometimes its an uneasy peace and sometimes it can turn nasty, but when it comes to myself and digital technology, the truce is well and truly in place. I guess whatever your views about traditional versus digital, what should always matter most is the quality of the work, no matter what type of process you use to create it.