Perhaps when you've found that you've learned or experimented enough with film, you'll find digital affords new levels of learning and experimentation (at least that sounds better than surrendering yourself to its ease and speed). Of course, when there are all these wonderful alternative processes for making photos, you'll need a live-time-plus to find that you've learned or experimented enough. (On a side note, it is sad that traditional printing methods are now referred to as "alternative.")

I also think digital cameras make great light meters. Again, like you, I tend to use my Canon Powershot S5 a lot for this. It also proves useful to use the Canon much as they used to use Polaroids–to test a particular shot or even to document "the making of" a particular shot. If, for instance, I have a pinhole shot going, I'll create a digital image that represents the set up for that shot and/or I'll place the digital right in front of the pinhole to represent what the pinhole saw. There is no reason why I couldn't use another film camera as a light meter or for documenting a shot, I just tend not to.

Of course, the time I'm most thankful that I have the Canon Powershot is when I need (or want) to take 600-700 pics at one time, especially when (or if) I'm taking those pictures for someone else. The more-or-less instant visual feedback that digital cameras afford helps to ensure that I've gotten the shot/shots I needed to get. I can also make subtle adjustments to the composition or to the metering and just keep shooting–not having to worry that I'm wasting film.

My uncle (a film-maker and photographer) once asked me why I shoot film when Photoshop allows one to achieve similar results in a fraction of the time. Since time is not really an issue (I have time to play around, I enjoy working with film and would rather do this than almost anything else), film affords me the sense of being more intimately connected to the image-making–from choosing a camera and film to work with, choosing a location or subject matter, deciding how I will approach the subject matter, getting the exposed film ready for development, developing it, and so on. I like tending to the film and the overall process. A lot. Tellingly, when I take a decent digital shot, I usually remark: "Wow, look at what this camera did!!" When I get a decent film shot, I tend to frame things in terms of what I did. Of course, in either case, I know it's really more accurate to say it's a matter of what the camera and I (and the settings, environment, subject matter etc.) were able to accomplish together, but still.

Importantly, I'd also like to believe that my current habits play a part in helping to ensure that places like Freestyle of B & H will continue to make available the materials needed to shoot and process film. I hate to even think about what life would be like if shooting film (whether because of availability or cost of supplies) was NOT an option. Yikes.

Clearly, I enjoy learning about the potentials of film, processing techniques, darkrooms, etc. I wonder though if (or when) I feel that I have learned or experimented enough, I'll become more like my uncle and favor the relative ease and speed working with a good digital camera affords. Sadly, I think I will.

My goal for this project is to try it match the subject with the media that records it. So, for an old decaying barn (one that is rapidly falling down due to the crazy winds we've had lately) the older and more decaying the media the better. That's why I particularly love the Canon AE-1 and Kodak Target images: both cameras are of another era. A more manual time, just as the barn was. I need to learn more history about the barn itself and when/if I do a goal would be to use a camera that is contemporary with it's creation.

This is why I also love the Polaroids with the expired film. Reified within the images are the technologies of another time. This makes them historical and not only cognitive artifacts (which all photographs are–and perhaps they all are historical artifacts, as well). One cannot view the images without thinking of of the history behind them, the technologies that made them, and so on. And, we often see echoes of those technologies in the emulsion lines, errors, and so on.

How to the Holgas and other toy cameras fit into this? Dianas have a long history. The Holgas not so much. But the plastic and imperfect lens is also asking us to rethink what an image is an can be. The lack of sharpness asks us to rethink about the sharpness of digital images.

I'm just starting to struggle with the question, Why digital? For a while I was using digital because I didn't have the financial resources to use film. Buy a digital camera and you have your images. It wasn't even the immediacy of it; it was more along the lines of this is what I am able to afford these days. It was also a lack of access to a good photo lab.

Fortunately, I'm now in an position where the barrier to film has been significantly reduced, and so I have the freedom to experiment with things like subject and medium. But, I do think that digital has a place other than just using $1200 worth of equipment for something other than a glorified light meter (which my Nikon was used as quite often when taking these shots, along with a regular light meter). Perhaps the point is that a contemporary subject should have a contemporary medium to record it? Auto racing, football games, and so on?

My statement above was mostly in response to the aesthetic feel of the images. They have character. A lack of artificiality. Perhaps, authenticity? I don't know, but they exude something more than a digital image does of the same subject matter, such as in this one, this one, and this one. Don't get me wrong, I like those digital images, but there is a new-car sensation to them that, for now, and for this project, seems too glossy.

What have your thoughts been on the "why digital?" question? (It is, perhaps, the ultimate question of our age.)

I do want to ask about a statement you make at the start of the post. With reference to the work you've been doing with the various film cameras, you say: "They make me wonder why I would ever shoot digital again."

The "why digital?" question is one I routinely ask myself. I'm wondering what you would say are the main advantages and/or disadvantages of working with digital vs. film cameras. . .