The digital luddite thread reminded me of something from yesterday that made me chuckle. I had to photograph the head of a local cancer center with their new hulking nuclear linear accelerator for deep tissue cancer treatments. Any of you who do annual reports, corporate work or business news do these kind of shots often: you put the camera on a tripod, light the room and subject in an interesting way with strobes while burning in the pretty lights and displays of the machine with the room lights out. Not a tricky shoot if you’ve done them before.

So I’m setting up my lights, get a few meter readings and then take a test shot and take a look at it just to make sure that I didn’t forget anything. The subject says “How did you ever do this before digital.” I told her that it was the same thing only I shot it on film and would take a few more shots to back me up. I’d still be able to have a test shot if I used my medium format camera with the Polaroid back. No big deal.

But to her it was. People are gotten so used to the idea / marketing chatter that digital is “easier” or “better” that they forget all the shots that were done just as well before digital was around. Funny huh?

Do any of you get that kind of response from people? They are used to us carrying around very high-tech gear but do they act differently when you, say, shoot a film camera? I certainly get conversation going when I pull out my 2 1/4 twin lens.

But still to some people it’s like we couldn’t make photographs worth a darn if we didn’t have a 10MP, 8 fps, digital body with a big zoom lens and stabilization.

Funky huh?