Confession: I Still Don't Own a Digital Camera

I found this old commercial for Polaroid's landmark SX-70s instant camera:



It's 2011, and I still do not own a digital camera. I used to wear this as a badge of cool, but now it's simply part of who I am. And while I tend to ignore how film cameras currently hold some kind of hipster cachet, the primary reason I do not have a digital camera is I like all aspects of photography: the tactile pleasure of snapping open a film canister and loading into a camera, measuring light, f-stops -- things that have gone the way of the dinosaur in favor of digital photography's convenience. Plus there's an almost buttery quality to a really well done conventional C-print that I rarely see in digital prints, even good ones.

If this makes me a snob or a luddite, well, I guess I have to own that.

The thing is, it's the only outdated technology I desperately cling to. I had no issues forgoing CDs for iTunes, and I'm definitely planning on buying a kindle before the year is out. I had a cell phone long before it was a prerequisite for modern living -- it was as big as a man's shoe and just as heavy. So it's not as if I am afraid to embrace new technology, I'm just not embracing this one. And as long as I can buy film online, or at the handful of places in my city that still cater to us film dinosaurs, I will.

(Recently, two long-time favorites bit the dust: Kodak's iconic slide film, Kodachrome, and Polaroid's instant film. As a child of the 70s and 80s, the latter was the bigger blow. It's funny, now, speaking of it as a "classic," when during peel-apart film's introduction, it was commonly thought to eventually replace conventional film.)

Another reason I've been resistant all these years to buying a digital camera is that when they first hit the market, they were well out of my price range. Photography was always something I did relatively cheaply, buying most of my gear at thrifts and learning how to process my own film. (Thank god for windowless bathrooms.) I liked learning the craft of photography -- it wasn't something just anyone could do. Okay, yeah, anyone could pick up a camera, but that didn't make one a "photographer." As much as can be done with digital photography, a lot of that art is lost.