Now and Then

This article about the demise of 35mm photography caught my eye, then got on my nerves. The newspaper darkroom technicians who must have lost their jobs are shrugged off without a care. And Flickr doesn't get a mention.

Technology's changing our lives, on the surface at least, so quickly. Thank God, for example, that it will soon be, if it isn't now, a thing of the past to have to patiently look through your friends' holiday photos at dinner parties or in the pub: remember the horror of it? They'd produce a fat envelope of crap photos of Crete, and you'd look through dozens them at 'this really canny bloke called George from Manchester' or some other pot-bellied stranger grinning his false teeth at you over a glass of lager, and his bloody wife...

And then you'd have to keep your face straight when they produced several more fat envelopes and you realised you were in for a night of it.

Now, or at any rate soon, almost everybody can suggest you look at their Flickr photo stream, or that they'll email you a few of the best ones.

Yesterday was yin, yang, and then ended up retro. We got talking about comics. Does anybody out there remember which character was usually on the front page of The Topper in the 1960s? I can't find much through Google, so any links to images would be appreciated.

And then on BBC4 there was Hollywood UK about British cinema in the 1960s, and that was followed by Alfie. I've seen it before, of course, but hadn't appreciated until last night what a bloody good film it is.

That's the world we live in, eh? Hi-tech backward glances.

Comments

  1. FactoBruntTue Aug 09, 07:27:00 pm BST

    That Guardian article really is a bit cack, and the comments on it are just downright irritating - bickering like little kiddies - "No, my digital camera's better than your film camera" - "No my film camera's better than your digital"... In my opinion, artistic quality, artful manipulation and snap-happy holiday snaps are all as difficult and as easy on each medium. It's just what you want out of the process that matters.

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