Kittens are Great Subjects

Even people who don’t like Cats seem to love kittens. Here’s a shot of one of a few kittens I recently discovered hanging around a local coffeehouse. They would not let me get too close but seemed at home at the coffeehouse so I’m guessing they were at least partially domesticated.

This is another photo taken with the Pentax ZX-30 loaded with Velvia 100. Note the warm but fully saturated colors, fine grain and sharp detail. One of the great things about shooting film is that just by changing film you can explore a whole other interpretation of a composition. I know you can do similar things with post processing digital files but somehow sitting at a computer (and I do spend a fair amount of time doing that anyway) just doesn’t seem like photography to me. I have read about digital photographers spending an average of 45 to 60 minutes in post processing for each digital photo.

Years ago I got “talked into” setting up my own darkroom for processing film and making prints. In those days you were not considered a “real photographer” unless you had a darkroom. It didn’t take long for me to realize I did not like being “locked up” in a dark room with smelly chemicals. I wanted to be outside taking pictures and was happy to pay someone else to do my processing.

In the digital era it seems you are not considered a “real photographer” unless you shoot RAW files which of course implies and usually requires a fair amount of post processing. I’ll pass! I either shoot film or jpegs, make my choices up front and take what I get. The good news with film is that once you know and understand your films it pretty easy to get the results you want.

With digital, shooting jpegs is quick and easy and since I really don’t want to spend hours in post processing anyway it works fine for me. You can still use many of the same techniques used with film to achieve a jpeg with the desired outcome.