Don't forget the heritage

The 1950s Kodak Retina II as seen through a 2016 Nikon D7100

Today I was taking some images of my Kodak Retina II which friends gave to me some 25 years ago. At the time I was sharing an apartment with Jörg Wüstkamp, who got me started on photography. He was doing film photography then and I guess they thought I might be interested too. And I did take some pictures with the Kodak, but the whole darkroom business wasn’t for me really. It was only later when it all went digital, that I got interested.

But although I am very aware of the history of photography as you can tell by my admiration for Steglitz, Adams, Weston, Evans, and others, I don’t feel like I have to pay my dues by doing film photography. Even when I am doing exclusively digital photography, it doesn’t mean I betrayed the heritage of analog photography. Just as I can think of the Nikon DSLR in this picture as a beautiful thing in its own right just as the Kodak.

I don’t have to compare them, rank them or judge them. I just have to acknowledge both of them. The cameras and the art forms.