Old photos

[fbhjr]

The old photos I’ve scanned the last few days were more or less pulled randomly out of the pile of them we found last weekend. A few were grouped, but not many. Some were taken decades apart from each other.

But, from my point of view looking at them, they are very clearly grouped.
All of these old film photographs fall into a fairly small number of categories:
Vacations (This is the only category that is close to my current level of photo taking.)
Parties (Mostly BYOS, but a few birthdays and Halloween parties.)
Life events (Weddings and funerals for the most part.)
Troupe performance
Holidays

To me, this is very different from photos now. These days I almost always have a camera on me and it is rare to find a day where there hasn’t been something I’ve tried to save as a photo. Yes, despite how many photos I post, there are vastly more I take.

When I had to buy film (a couple of dollars a roll), put it in a camera, use the whole roll, then get it developed (usually for at least twice as much as the cost of the film) I didn’t take anywhere near as many photos.
I rarely had a camera with me and usually only if it was going to be a special event.
Months would go by without me taking a photo of anything. There are whole years of my life without any photos. (Of course I could get some of those back if I was willing to let my mother back in my life. I’m not.)

I remember taking a school trip into New York City when I was 13. I had my camera with me and was very aware that each photo I took would cost $1 no matter if it came out well or not.
(If the on line inflation calculators are to be trusted, that is equal to about $4 a photo now.)
I usually only had about $5 a week to spend when I was that age. So, I could only afford 5 photos a week.
I’d save them up for big thinks like the school trip. (And, I spent money on other things too…)

Now the cost to take photos is 1.3 cents. And, that assumes I include the cost of buying the camera and memory card and only using them for a year. The $1 a photo from my youth is just film. Not the batteries, camera cost, etc.
If I take out the cost of the hardware now my photos cost about 3% of a cent. (IF I took into account the times I charged my camera batteries at work it would be even less.)

That means for the old $1 photograph, I could now take 3,350 photographs. And, that isn’t adjusting for inflation.

I have to say, I really like this.
Ever since I got my first camera when I was in grade school, I have loved recording images.
I’m very happy that has become so much easier and less expensive.

Comments

[ravena-kade.livejournal.com]

I also and very happy that digital technology has made it so inexpensive to take photos. I also did film and slide photography with a big film NIKON, but the cost of developing killed me.

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

Something that was drilled into me from as early as I could remember was "Don't waste film" .. we were only allowed to take one photo of something and often it was disappointment when you got your photos back from being processed. I remember the thrill of capturing the perfect shot!
Once I went on a month long trip and took 12 rolls of film (36 shots) and I thought that was a lot but of course when I arrived home I couldn't afford to get it all processed at once. THere was so many shots I wished I could go back and take the photo over. I love digital cameras!

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

If I could have had something like this as a kid, I would have taken thousands more photos!

[endlessblush.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah me too

[chaquir.livejournal.com]

digitals are a bless!! Now you can take pics of everything ànd you can see right away if it's a good one or not.

ah the tension of having the rolls developed.. and see what was on it..
having several rolls developed was so pricy too that i often had them develop with a time in between according to my budget

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons we switched to digital was taking photos of the sword troupe. We just could afford to get them all developed.

[chaquir.livejournal.com]

i understand. But there -was something- about having them develop and waiting to see how they turned out.
The downer was that is was expensive but the albums from back than are so cool. I rarely print any pic these days and they are just stacked on my HD. Then a few years ago my HD crashed and a lot of pics got lost. :( You don't have that with the old system.
It had negative points but also a lot of charme

[postingwhore.livejournal.com]

$1 per photo?! I remember getting 30 developed for like $3-5 when I was a kid!

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

The $1 a photo was with an instant camera. A pack of film was $10 and had 10 photos.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

This was the camera. Not much info about it on line anymore as it was so long ago. But, whoever this person is, they have photos of what it looked like:
http://unequivocable.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/kodak-ek6/

[postingwhore.livejournal.com]

Wow, you remember the model you had? O:

Where exactly did the photo come out...? S: I can't tell from the photos.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

It came out of the bottom, which the camera is shown sitting on, which is why you can't see it.

[mystic-savage.livejournal.com]

I take vastly more bad photos than I used to take, which means that once in awhile I accidentally take a good photo. Not frequently enough to make Instagram worth it, but just often enough to encourage me to keep taking bad photos.