SHOOTING PLEASURE..

I was talking with an old college friend the other day about the importance, and difficulty, of continually making pictures in these uncertain times. My issue was mainly the cost of shooting with film, processing, printing, travel. These were costs I may not be able to recoup for some time so I often found it hard to justify my camera outings. My friend on the other hand had gone the digital route some eight years ago had recently purchased a high speck digital camera for the same price as a small house. He was finding it hard to find the time to go out and shoot and had discovered that the processing and getting that image how he wanted took far too long. He also had to pay off his camera so needed some kind of return.

We both came to the conclusion that in the eighteen years since we were at college together our work had matured to the point that it was not just a case of going out and snapping away, but it was more about going out and producing something that could either be sold as a fine print, or it had to be something you were getting paid to do. In other words the days of shooting for pleasure were over...