A portrait of my lovely film camera, taken by my digital SLR
Last year I bought a used camera. It’s compact, so I can carry it in my purse easily. It’s discreet, so I can shoot street photos without distracting my subjects. But my favourite part is it’s theft-proof. Face it, no one would want to steal a point-and-shoot film camera. Heck, no one even wants to be seen with one these days. It’s not even a question of digital vs. film anymore.
But why? My camera (which I bought for $3 at a garage sale) works fine. Maybe I’m a fringe weirdo, but I still prefer a film camera. I like loading a physical film (vs. a memory card). I like the suspence of waiting to see how my photos turn out when they come back from Black’s. I like sliding those shiny prints into my album’s plastic sleeves. Maybe I can’t mess around with my pics on Photoshop, but I don’t really care about Photoshop anyway.
My compact digital camera (before it got dropped and broken), the second-best thing to a film camera until I could find one
The bottom line is this: think before you upgrade. Do you really, really have to? Do you even really want to? Or is it the ads, the people around you, the sales pressure? My camera example might be a little extreme, but the latest iPhone (the iPhone 4) is a perfect example. iPhone 3, iPhone 4 – what on earth is the difference, really? Every time I see the electronic-waste/computer drop-off site outside Rona, I wonder how many items are broken and are actually junk and how many still work perfectly fine but are simply last year’s model. I don’t want to sound doomsday, but the fact is our natural resources – the precious metals used to make these disposable gadgets – are running out, and I think we consumers should take a little more responsibility about what we choose to buy – and what we choose to say no to.
Meanwhile, I’ll continue to walk fearlessly through large urban crowds with my camera dangling by its wrist strap, excitedly counting down the number of pictures left on my 24-exposure film.
wasteandwant 