civilized ku # 3645-46 ~ scratching an iTch

evening light ~ (embiggenable) • µ4/3

cameras w polaroid cheese slicer ~ (embiggenable) • iPhone

recent sketches ~ trying to get back in the groove

recent sketches ~ trying to get back in the groove

A comment / question was written on a recent entry:

"How did you afford 8x10 color photography for personal work? The cost of materials must have been significant. And not exactly convenient for spontaneity of inspiration ... From 8x10 to iPhone is quite a journey.

The question is easy to answer - quite obviously, during my 30+ year career in commercial advertising photography, a whole lot of film passed through the film refrigerator in my studio. The percentage, relative to the whole, of film used for my personal work was miniscule. So, to use a common accounting saying, the cost of that film (and the cost color paper used to make prints from it) was little more than a rounding error in the business deductibles expense column on my long form.

A response to the commenter's reference to "spontaneity of inspiration" and "From 8x10 to iPhone is quite a journey." requires a bit more elucidation.

During my professional photography career, I owned and used a plethora of cameras covering a pethora of formats ... 110, 35mm (including a Widelux rotating lens panoramic camera), 120 (medium format), 4x5, 8x10 and polaroid. All of which got plenty of professional assignment use dependent upon the demands of any given project. And, I can guarantee that, had the iPhone camera format been available, I would have used it as well.

As result of that multi-format useage, I can honestly write that I never really developed a preference for one particular format/camera. Although, I can write that using the SX-70 polaroid camera and the tiny Pentax 110 camera (used 110 film cartridges) was a fun thing to do. And, together with my 8x10 field view camera (different from my 8x10 studio camera), those cameras were my choice for personal work (snapshots and "serious" stuff).

So, relative to "a journey", the simple response is that my journey was/is always about making pictures irrespective of the equipment used in their making. Or, give me a camera, any camera, and I'll make pictures. It's what I do ....

.... no "inspiration required ...

... since a very early single-digit age, I have always been making pictures. At first it was drawing and later-age 18-it turned to photography and later than that to graphic design. And, right up to this time in my life, I can write that I have never been much in need, if at all, of inspiration. Making pictures is just what I do and it might not be much of an exaggeration to write that it is a somewhat obsessive activity inasmuch as I do a lot of it.

Although, in fact, I do not consider my desire to create something an obsessive activity. It feels more like a preternatural / inherent characteristic of my personhood. If I were to visit a therapist about this desire / need and it were to be declared an obsessive compulsive behavior, I would say, after a life-long expressing of that desire / need, professional and personal, bring it on!. The more the merrier.