“RNP the Blog”

Robert Benson has an interesting piece on his blog about shooters that still use film.

A talented group of shooters including a few personal favorites like Amanda Friedman, Simon Watson, and Bryce Duffy.

As any of you know that read this blog consistently I am one of those photographers who still uses film. For me film is almost always used for personal projects (been a long time since a client has asked to shoot film) and most of my film cameras are ones that my father Larry Nicholson has passed down to me. For me beyond the difference in process and product there is a connection that I feel shooting film with my dad’s cameras that I don’t shooting with a digital camera.

Recently I have been spending a few hours a week with my father pouring through his vast archive of images. I am not sure how many total images are in his archive (and neither is he) but it has to be in the hundreds of thousands. Various file cabinets full of negatives (from 35mm to “8 x 10″) and thousands and thousands of slides.

I even started a blog to document the experience….My Father’s Archive. I will be updating it on a weekly basis with new images.

Here is my Dad rockin’ the Deardorff.

I have to say that it is cool that I can literally put my hands on my dad’s work, it is a tangible thing not just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s that create a digital file/image. I have wondered what is going to happen to all these images I have that are stored on Hard Drives, DVD’s, and Cd’s. Will that digital information still be around in thirty or forty years? Of course many of my father’s negatives were ruined in a flood in the 80’s and they are difficult to view and organize so like all things you take the good with the bad.

Ultimately camera’s are tools and each photographer is going to pick and choose different tools to complete the job. There isn’t a right or wrong answer just personal preferences.