–Ancient Text, on the Mesa, Taos, New Mexico, January 2003, Kodak C-41 negative print by QuoinMonkey, © 2003, all rights reserved
I used to shoot one photo at a time with a solid, black bodied, manual Minolta: 5 lenses, 9 filters, and a viewfinder. The metal body was covered in hard, black cardboard that would later peel away with age.
To haul all this around, I carried a heavy, powder blue canvas bag with multiple packs of extra batteries, a hotshoe mount, dedicated flash (by no coincidence, the exact size of a shoe), and never fewer than ten 35mm film canisters strapped to my body. Cameras, lenses, film, and photo paper were expensive. Nothing was to be wasted.
Now I pick up my light, plastic, Canon digital, swing out the LCD monitor, try to make out the distant image through the sun’s midday glare, read the manual cover to cover to decipher symbols representing functions that can either do this, or that, and possibly my laundry, and take as many shots as I need to get the precise composition and depth of field I’m looking for.
I used to go to the darkroom and spend hours drenched in safelight red: developing and exposing negatives, moving sheets of FB (fiber-based) Ilford, Kodak, and Fuji paper between developer, stop, fix and two or three baths of rinse water. I would watch in wonder as black and white gelatin silver images rose to the surface as if by magic from the bottom of the gray troughs.
Then I’d throw the wet prints into the roll drum, wait for an hour while they rinsed, hang them to dry with wooden clothes pins or press them one by one through a heat drum dryer, then lay them between archival sheets of paper and tote them home.
Now I sit down beside my laptop, plug the white connector cord into the USB port which automatically pulls up the software I need to automatically download hundreds of photographs into predestined, neatly labeled folders of light and color. I can then print them, send them by email, view them as a slideshow, flick them across my screensaver, or do absolutely nothing with them. They take up virtually no space.
Virtual-ly. No space.
I used to spend hours writing in watermarked paper journals, choosing just the right tooth, texture, ink, and pen, and display them in neat rows on oak bookshelves. I’d go back now and then to read and touch and taste and smell how the paper had soaked up the odor of the place I was living in at the time I was writing on it. I would turn page after page and wonder at who I’d become.
Now I type everything into a plastic computer on a tone deaf keyboard at a speed that keeps up with my brain. Except when I’m doing writing practice by hand (by hand, now there’s an old phrase), or making a grocery list, or jotting down a quote I hear on NPR, Fisher Space Pen to ruled pocket notebook, while driving home from work.
I’ve been thinking about choices. Choices have consequences. I’ve been thinking about sketch books and journals since reading One Journal, Ten Thousand Journals and handmade photographic processes since I wrote the Pinhole photo piece. I spend so much time in front of the computer.
And then there I was the other night, wooden pew 6, in the heavy, ornate, 150-year-old church that is Plymouth Congregational on Franklin, listening to Mary Oliver during the question and answer session mouthing, “Computers are bad,” with that little impish smirk on her face.
Mary Oliver doesn’t own a computer. She writes her poems on paper, draft after draft. She said she likes having all the crossed out words in her hands, holding the creative process. Natalie Goldberg is another writer who doesn’t use the computer. She writes her books by hand in large spiral notebooks and then has her assistant type up the manuscripts.
It got me to thinking, how many other writers, photographers, and artists are still using the old-style methods of creating?
Photoshop? Or sandwiched negatives, gurgling vats of water, and darkroom collage. Microsoft Word? Or handmade paper journals, brisk, soft, and cool to the touch.
I’m not the only blogger writing about changes and choices. Fluent had a piece last week, To Laptop Or Not to Laptop…. and Starting Over had a post about 10 Things to Do Without Technology. These are topics worth exploring. Because the thing about paper processes, notebooks, darkrooms, paint, graphite, and canvas is that they ground us.
Creative people are noticing because we are losing our ground.
When I’m at the computer 24/7, I’m often spacey and stir-crazy by the end of the day. It’s so familiar to me, I barely notice anymore. But there are days when I want to jog 10 miles (I don’t jog), yell at the top of my lungs, or run down the street screaming, “Stop the insanity!”
Why does everything have to be fast and speedy? When did we begin to need everything instantly and become afraid to patiently wait? What happened to slow and steady wins the race?
I want to be more in my body. I want to choose paper, not plastic. But I love the speed, connectivity, and community I have found on the web. A person anywhere in the world can read this post. Does anyone still find that astounding?
I predict there will someday be psychologists going to grad school to specialize in abnormalities resulting from constant computer use: time spent in the head, no time in the body. Maybe there already are.
Tonight Liz and I are going over to the Fairgrounds to buy perennials, annuals, shrubs, and trees for our gardens. Friends School of Minnesota is having their yearly sale.
They say they prepare children to embrace life, learning, and community with hope, skill, understanding and creativity. They are committed to the Quaker values of peace, justice, simplicity and integrity. That’s something I can really get behind.
I hope they remember to teach the little ones that everything around them will move at the speed of light – and they’ve got to learn how to stand still, how to stand up, in the middle of a tornado.
I’m suddenly longing to turn off my cell phone, slip the Dell into hibernate, and dig my hands into rich, wormy dirt. I’m suddenly longing to turn off all the buzz, and walk outside where my feet can be firmly planted on the ground.
Saturday, May 12th, 2007
Rich post, QM. I left my cell phone behind for extended periods two days in a row, once by accident and the second to attend a wedding for which I didn’t have a purse to match my dress. (So vain.) In the first instance I actually had to stop and use the pay phone (they’re now 50 cents a call) to make the call I would have normally used my cell phone for. I’ve become so dependent on my technology. And I, too, long for stillness.
Your recollection of old style photography reminded me of when I worked at a Santa Fe ad agency in 1984-86. Computer graphics were just taking off. The art director at our agency was old-style, and I think he was hoping he could finish off his career doing paper layouts and never bother learning the newfangled stuff. Fortunately his son joined the agency in the 1990s and took on the task of bringing it into the digital age. And the father is still working in the business.
Technology and the pace it inspires is such a pain at times. If I were Mary Oliver’s age, I don’t think I’d bother either.
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Yesterday when we worked in the garden, I left my cell phone in my pants pocket. It was on silent. I never heard it again until I got up this morning to call my mother for Mother’s Day. I can’t remember the last time I stopped to use a pay phone. I never even notice them anymore.
The other thing I’ve noticed is I no longer memorize phone numbers. After they are programmed into my phone, I forget about them. I don’t even have my new home number memorized yet. Liz laughs at me all the time.
I remember when Computer graphics was taking off. It was right when I was getting out of art school. They had just added a computer lab and I did have a few lessons in Photoshop before I scoffed away swearing I’d always do the dark room and remain a purist.
Well…you see that didn’t last. Here I am immersed in technology every day of my life.
I admire the art director at your Santa Fe ad agency. Because I used to be him. Technology is addictive. At the same time, you can’t stop things from moving forward. And the community connections are invaluable.
Regarding Mary Oliver, yes, I don’t blame her at all. If I was in her position, I don’t know if I’d bother. I do want to say my mom taught herself how to use a computer when she was in her sixties. And I really admire her for that. She IM’s, blogs with us, and enters info on the family tree into electronic software that tracks all the details.
I think it’s good to keep abreast of what’s happening in the world. But I’m heading outside to garden again today. Yes, one more day away from the computer. A little break from the buzz.
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“that everything around them will move at the speed of light”… nice way of putting it. All about balance I suppose. Or about getting old enough and wise enough to appreciate technology in our lives but not letting it BECOME our lives. Very thoughtful post! Regards, Anita
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Thanks, Anita. Yes, balance. I’ve met great people through technology. And been able to write across the miles. Today, I spent the entire day outside in the yard and gardens. It felt so good. And now, here I am back at the Ravine. Balance. Maybe I am getting a little older and wiser. 8)
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QM,
Good piece!
My dad used to type all of his prescription labels one at a time on a manual 1960’s vintage Remington typewriter. It wasn’t until the twilight of his career when he worked for a large corporation where he was forced to use a computer.
He kept immaculate records on every customer. If a customer needed a certain refill, he could go back to the customer’s file, look up the prescription number, then go to the prescription file and pull up the original doctors script to see if it was refillable or not. This sounds tedious, but my father could fill over 300 scripts a day. He had a good team of people working for him behind the counter. (Laws have changed and now require an associates degree, these workers are now known as pharmacy techs. We were all his “techs”. This included his long-time employees, plus all us siblings [four of us].We all had to do time behind the counter, writing receipts, filing customer records, filing away scripts, etc.) His personal expertise even allowed him to alert a doctor or customer about drug interactions.
The power of this system was HE KNEW his customers. It kept him grounded to the community he was serving.
Last summer I had to get some prescriptions filled. My insurance was covered by Wal-Mart, so I drove out there and reluctantly handed them my slip of paper. I was faceless to the tech and pharmacist, just another Wal-Mart customer.
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MM, your time behind the counter at the pharmacy reminds me of how when Liz was a teenager she spent time behind the counter of her father’s dairy in North Dakota. And how he knew all the customers and the people in the community. It made a big difference in the way business was done. Think of how we get milk and ice cream today, a totally different story.
The things you write about your dad make me think I would have liked him. I like what you say about how old ways of doing business kept business people grounded in the community. There are some corporations that still make effort to do this. But not enough.
I think that’s what’s happened to education, too. It seems disconnected from the community and what’s really happening there.
It’s strange because I can get nostalgic for the old days. And want things to move slower. But I wouldn’t want to go back in terms of human rights or women’s rights.
And every time I read the writing of authors in the 1920’s, 40’s, 50’s, I hear them say some of the same things – the world is crazy, and unfair, and it moves too fast.
It makes me wonder if every time in history feels like this. (?) It’s a question I wonder about a lot.
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If that’s the case then our threshold for how fast a pace we can withstand must have increased.
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ybonesy, I hadn’t thought of it that way. Brilliant. A whole new insight. The world really is moving faster – but the baseline for “fast” in each generation gets much higher. It’s the old moving target theory. Works every time.
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It’s hard to give up the physical for the digital. I can’t do it. I own a digital camera, yet always take my fully manual old Canon with me everywhere. I have a blog… but everything on it is scanned images that I drew on my old-fashioned drawing desk. I still bind all my own journals with real paper and leather. Because I just can’t imagine that typed, digitally floating, feelings have the same impact. But I’m trying to imagine it:)
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esai: I agree. It’s VERY hard. I remember when answering machines first came out – I refused to have one for years. Finally, I gave in. Then it was the cell phone. A digital camera is new for me. I love the old processes and they are very grounding.
I want to say – DON’T CHANGE. We need people who are slowing down enough to keep the old ways of working alive. It’s grounding. Let yourself love the old processes and keep going with them as long as you can. Eventually, the time will be right to integrate. And you’ll know when that is.
The photo at the top of this post is a Kodak C-41 negative film image that I had transferred to a digital disc. When I take film these days, I get them developed and don’t cut the negatives. At the time they are developed, I have the place transfer the negatives to disc so that I still am able to post film photos as jpeg’s. Works great.
BTW, I checked out your site. You’ve got some amazing work there. I love your mapping clusters. Good process and practice. People can learn a lot about the creative process from viewing your site.
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esai: I remembered I wanted to say one other thing about your comment:
Because I just can’t imagine that typed, digitally floating, feelings have the same impact. But I’m trying to imagine it🙂
I don’t think the digital images do have the same kind of impact in terms of process and using the hands to develop film, make paper, bind journals, draw and sketch. Digital (for me) is probably never going to be able to do that.
But what I do love about digital is the immediacy of it. And the vibrancy and saturation of the colors in the photographs because they are all LIGHT shining through the ethers. There is nothing solid about them. Which can be cool in and of itself.
Digital allows me a great freedom from process. And can save time. It also has afforded me the opportunity to share my photographs with tons of people instantly who would not have been able to see them before.
Those are the things I am learning to love about digital. But, for me, it can never fully take the place of film and a trip to the darkroom.
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Ditto what QM said on your site, esai. Great illustrations, and I love your handwriting (I assume it’s yours).
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ybonesy: yes, esai’s handwriting is like a work of art itself. I noticed that, too.
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