how precious is this?

I recently saw a really sweet Kodak commercial about sharing pictures, specifically, digital pictures. I thought that was interesting coming somewhat on the heels of their abandoning the most beloved film of all time, Kodachrome.

I started shooting with film in 1976, and I don’t even remember what kind of camera I had. But I do remember cutting class on rainy days and heading down in my green VW to San Pedro, or up in the hills behind the Hollywood sign, to take pictures of the rain. I have a lot of those old slides and negatives, probably most of them, and I keep them in a vintage Coke cooler that sits by the entrance to our house. In a fire, I would grab that cooler. It contains my first foray into film as a teenager as well as most of my daughter’s baby pictures. On film.

I stopped for awhile while I was a single, working mom, raising my daughter. Actually, I stopped when my camera (and my tv, and my stereo) was stolen from my apartment and I didn’t have the money to replace it. Later on, I got a “regular” camera, like everyone else had, and took snapshots of the important events in our lives: graduation, moving, things like that. I didn’t pick up and shoot a pro camera again until 2005, a couple of years after using a point-and-shoot to reacquaint myself with the profession that I had always wanted to pursue.

I still have my original camera bag, the one I carried as a 16-year-old, cutting class to take pictures of moody, depressing scenes (because 16 year old girls are drawn to the moody and depressing, I suppose).

Ok, so now I’m just reminiscing. It’s one of those nostalgia days, and as I started to go through photos of Virginia and Mike from this past weekend, I remember telling her to keep those sunglasses on, because with the vintage dress, and the scarf, she was just oh so very 60′s Brit pop, and I guess for a few hours I felt like a 16 year old girl again. I actually did shoot 5 rolls of film of them, as well as a card of digital. (See, there’s that nomenclature getting in the way: a roll of film vs. a card of pictures. I have a hard time loving the sound of the latter.)

I love this photo of them, though it’s not really a Polaroid. I looked at this and thought, “this should have been a Polaroid.” This is the kind of picture (and I talk about this often) that is not picked for the album. It’s a throwaway, because they’re not looking at the camera; Michael’s mouth is open because he’s talking to Virginia, and he’s unbuttoning his sleeves and she’s listening to him and it’s like I’m not even there. This the photo I would treasure if I found it in the back of the junk drawer. This is a moment, caught not on film, but on digital. I’ve processed it to look like film because that’s what it reminds me of.

I fear that when gbaby is a grown man, film and negatives and slides will be rare and the love of a photo will be lessened because of its lack of rarity. Because of its ubiquitousness. Almost all of us have a picture of our parents as children; maybe we have just one. That’s what makes that photo so precious. Yes, it can be scanned and copied and distributed all over the internet; all over Facebook and Flickr and on the web it will live forever. But that original print of the original negative; it’s irreplaceable.

That’s what fim is, and what it does, and what it means. And that’s why I still shoot it.