Overexposed in the Photo Shop Say, what did you give the little old lady in the park?

? I gave her a 125th at F16" The Shy Photographer by Terry Southern Today history has about a two-month, half-life which means that in a month the w orld either has changed or you forgot what it was like yesterday. We forget that just a few years ago, taking a single finished picture required a lot of actual work. To use the term, digital photo, presently, does not really mean much more than j ust "photo". Why? Technology not only moves at break neck speed but has a way of making us think that cameras and photo taking has always been what we see today . So it can be said that "almost" any picture or camera around today is digital. There are some who hang back in the ancient and esoteric world of film cameras and photos... back in the dark halls of the aficionados and artist. So, what is ancient? It seems that the digital world for cameras was birthed out of the movie industry. The development process was slow at first, starting arou nd the seventies with Texas Instruments cracking the patent egg. Digital technol ogy picked up speed in the eighties with more big firms jumping in the pool. However it did not really get moving until the mid nineties when Apple, Kodak an d Sony, to name a few jumped in. After that the photo world was quite a mixed ba g for some ten years. Now that brings us up to a period hardly ten years old, when the film camera, as it was known for almost 100 years, virtually disappeared. Not just the camera a nd the film process but the actual memory has just gone away. Think about that! Well, don't think too long or you may be shopping for new photo equipment. Techn ology changes fast. It would be of interest to stop and think about the general difference of the at titude between our present day photo taking and that of the camera buffs of the "past" era. There was indeed the Kodak Brownie and small box camera group of cas ual and family photograph taking. During this time the serious photographers use d the big and cumbersome "view cameras": large cameras with bellows that used sh eet film. The modern era began slowly in 1913 with the first of the highly sophisticated L eica 35 MM view finder cameras. This camera and its spinoffs, opened the door fo r the more serious and dedicated photographer to get out of the studio. These w ere expensive and fast but nothing like the digital camera of today. 100 years ago this business really got off the ground with a camera small enough to travel with, yet could still do serious high quality work. Now within a rece nt ten year time span, Leica is not even in spell check, never mind known to one in a thousand people today who take pictures of almost everything in sight. Today's camera work is best expressed by last week's contest winner: "A Perfect Gum and Upper Molar" taken by a Colgate Digital Tooth Brush and run through a ph otoshop. Really! Sometimes we get so absorbed by technology and the act of makin g photos that we fail to consider what may really be a good picture. So with that comment in mind, we will next move into the dark room of yesteryear and see if some light could be shed on picture and film developing without bein g overexposed. Wade Swicord Hey drop a note to: wade@photoexpert.com CLICK on the banner and get Five Free excellent instructional videos on How To Use Photoshop. No Obligation!