Today is a special day.  Kodak Ektachrome is now up for sale.  After over 5 years of being off the market, there is now Ektachrome available to shoot.  I am ecstatic.  I have read a bit on the development of the film up in Rochester and saw some test images.  It is all so exciting.

So what the hell is the big deal about film?  That is like asking me why I prefer vinyl records to cd's - I do not do MP3's, people.  There is a rawness to the medium.  It is also more deliberate.  You must be fully engaged in what you are doing.  It is like the difference between hanging out with a person who looks you in the eye and talks and listens to you versus hanging out with a person checking their cell phone every few minutes.  I can honestly say I am obsessed with analog because there is a different, more pure inherent quality to the media - photographic, musical, you name it.  I do shoot digital and lots of it, but the images just do not reflect my inner thoughts and emotions they way analog does.  I have not a clue as to how that happens, but it does.

The part I like about teaching is watching the kids go from not knowing a thing about analog to being obsessed with it.  I see it in a kid in my first period.  He talked about how great it FELT to shoot with the film camera.  Listening to a girl's A-1 shutter whoosh open and shut and the thrill we got from that cannot be duplicated digitally.  The kids are getting.it.

The administration?  Not so much.  Technology, technology, technology.  But what about those chemists and photographers who are working to bring back the analog methods and media?  Where is the career path for them?  Who will introduce them to this when you get rid of my darkroom and push me out?

I am excited about the return of film and know that if they do push me out here, I will find a path to preach the gospel of analog, one way or another.