Years ago, almost in another lifetime (it seems now), I fancied myself quite the photographer. Not in the sense that anyone has actually paid me for a photograph, or that I was all that, but just that I loved to take pictures (and lots of them) and had a blast figuring out light and shadow, and focus, and timing, and all kinds of stuff.

The other night I talked to a woman whom I’ve never met (a mutual friend asked me to call her) and she complimented me on photos I took five years ago, of a child we no longer have. She loved the look of the pictures and since she has a grandbaby due “any time now” she wanted to get geared up by finding out where I processed my film, etc. We talked for a long time, I explained that one lab I used to go to closed down a couple years ago, but there is still one left in town. You can’t really buy equipment locally anymore, the last camera store closed a year and a half ago. She asked if I thought everything would be digital.

I pondered that perhaps it would be kinda like knitting and quilting, still being practiced by folks that love it, but not really as easy to do as it once was. I imagine ordering film by mail or online (I’ve done this, it works great) and then mailing off your film to be developed might become the norm.

And now today I read that Konica’s closing for good. Nikon will only offer their top end 35mm camera, and this is a company that is FAMOUS for the cameras that were used by just about every news photographer in the world for decades.

Waaah.