How many people think this way, but yet do they realize the amount put into it? When I started photography, film was the only way to make an image. The choices were which brand of film and should I use color or black and white, should I use negative or slide film...... Then learning how to take a good image. Most people started with color negative film, as I did. I continued to use negative film because it suited me most, with the dark room and making prints for display, but your learning, it came with a price. You could not know how your images could look until you had finished the roll of film and got them back from the lab, only to find they are all under exposed, blurry or had a color shift to them that just was not right. So as I did I ran down to the local library and would sign out books on the topic or buy them when I had the extra money. Some people would just take a course, I taught myself and I am very good at that. I can learn much quicker and at less cost, besides as I learned I also found that I wanted more equipment, a lot more!, which meant much, much more money! I spent all of my spare time taking photographs, the cost of 24 exp. film was about $4.00, then I would bring them to the lab, about $10.00, then do it again and again. As I got better I was bringing 10 rolls at a time in ($140.00), of course this was about a months worth. But as I learned I also found making a good image had so many things involved, such as filters like polarizers, ND`s, split ND`s which are still useful today, back then there were so many more like color correcting, special effects and so on. Today you can just view your image via a LCD screen, back then the only way that could be done was with a more expensive medium format camera with a polaroid back for viewing exposure, lighting ect, and then applying the film back to take the final image. Getting back to my point, I took a photograph one day, it was around eight years ago, I was at my Sister`s, It was my Nephew Bradley`s birthday, and all he wanted was his best friend to come over to share it with. I had my camera, of course like every day. I was sitting on the back patio and the kids were doing their thing out back playing, I just happened to look up and I saw them sitting against the large tree that was in the back yard and they were each eating a popsicle. As I reached for my camera and looked over, they were just finishing and they got up and went inside, Crap! missed it!! I was really upset cause it looked so good and it would have made such a good image. So I placed my camera down, sat back, as I was still cursing to myself I looked over and the kids came running outside all excited with ice cream in there hands and sat in that exact spot again.YES!, Thank You!!.......I didn't miss that shot and it was even better than the first because ice cream is what we all remember when we were kids on those hot summer days. I gave that photo to my Sister. I used color film so I had a lab develop it but after that I made prints in my darkroom. I decided it would look so much better in black and white, so the only way to do this was with Kodak Panalure select RC paper. You could make black and white prints from a color negative. After that I thought a little color would be so cool so I hand coloured the ice cream and cone with special coloured photo dye. Then I bought the matting and did all the cutting myself with a mat cutter for the 11x14 print, and put it in a 16x20 frame which cost me $39.99. Today making black and white with color is all so easily done with photoshop, it`s how I do it now but back then it took time and money. My sister put that photo on her living room wall and she still has it, about a month after that photo was taken, the Grandmother of the best friend in the photo went to my sister`s one day and seen it and had to have it. I sold another I had to make exactly the same, to her for $160.00. I asked for $170.00 but she only had what she had on her, so I said OK. The look on her face seemed to be that she was surprised at the price. I took the image with a 35mm X700 minolta, 70-210mm zoom lens with ISO 200, Fuji superia color negative film. Made the print with special paper, hand coloured it with special photo dye, bought and cut the mat, mounted and framed this photo which had her grandson in it. So my question is was that price to high? Do people not want to pay for quality or do they just want it for nothing? I never seen that woman again, my sister still talks to her, but I always wondered if she thought she got ripped off. And even today, if she said something happened to that print, I would be more than happy to replace it at no cost. So I would love to hear from some of you people about what you think, could she have done it herself or was that worth having someone else do it? And was that price to high?
From left to right: Robert, Brother Bradley, and best friend.
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