adetorrent; photography, lifestyle.

La Bodeguita Del Medio | Havana, Cuba Isn't it funny? Now that technology has overcome most of the technical difficulties that were so hated back in the days of film and analogue cameras - e.g., vignetting, lens barrel distortion, scratches, e.t.c., technology has also given us ways to re-ruin the photos to make them look like 'back in the day'. Every year around about this time, I usually do some digital housekeeping. That involves cleaning out hard drives and consolidating photos from various locations. This was when I stumbled upon some photos taken 'way back'. No, these are not film photographs, but rather digital ones taken on my first iPhone - the iPhone 3 GS. I was hit by a cold wave of nostalgia tantamount to looking through an old box of photo prints discovered in an attic. I kid you not. Havana, Cuba Havana, Cuba Not only were these photos quite lo-fi, thanks to the 3 Megapixel camera and tiny sensor, but I took them using the Hipstam...

When the iPhone 3GS was released, I could no longer resist. I had the O2 Xda smartphone running Windows Mobile - Or was it Pocket PC? Whatever it was, I made do, all the while convincing myself that I didn't need an iPhone. However, once I saw the Apple commercial featuring the voice commands - "Play songs by Kaiser Chieves!" - I drank a gallon of the apple flavoured kool-aid. The iPhone was many things apart from a phone. One of which was a capable point and shoot camera in my pocket, all the time. "Take your camera with you at all times" was no longer the mantra reserved for Lomographers and street photographers, it was for everyone, including me. Again, that online benchmark revealed the iPhone as the primary source of images uploaded. For many, it quickly replaced whatever camera they previously used. I was no exception. "Ah, I'll just leave the camera behind, I've got the iPhone". Then social networking hit the big time. Fac...

The world moved on. Film went out of fashion and affordable digital cameras rolled in. Film photo labs closed down all over the place. Consumer photography transitioned gradually from emulsion to silicon. Inevitably, I too stopped reaching for the film camera. One day, ten years or so ago, I placed my camera (with unfinished film) into a drawer, and simply forgot about it, till this year. There it laid, the boots 500AF, dormant, the battery slowly draining over the years, waiting for the day I'd pick it up again and snap it's positive battery contact. I quickly grew frustrated with the Nikon Coolpix 775. The image quality appeared to deteriorate over time.  The apparent loss in quality was of course relative.  It's a digital camera. Zeros and ones then, are zeros and ones now. It was in fact other people's photos that had improved. Annoyingly enough, at some point there was a sudden spike in the quality of photos on Flickr (yes yes). It was as if Earth had been inv...

I found it!  It was stashed away in my PS3’s cardboard box with other wires and cables of electronic/electrical devices past. I’m talking about the Nikon proprietary battery charger. Hate AA batteries all you like, but they’ve been a steadfast standard for many, many years. Being digital, the camera may well be a paperweight without its battery/charger. It is too light to be a doorstop. This time round, I was more obedient to the instruction manual and let the battery charge overnight. This was of no consequence of course, as it wasn’t the ‘first’ charge, but there you go. ‘Twas a cold sunny Saturday morning – the weather man had been right, for a change.  Coincidentally, Spotify mobile just went ‘free’. I used to be a premium (paid) user of the service, as such I had created many playlists for on-the-go musical bliss. To be appropriate, I loaded a playlist that most closely approximated the sort of music I was into back when I first got this camera, and headed down the s...

So here it is, my first ever digital camera. Actually, that’s a teeny-weeny fib. I bought one from Maplin the day before which I owned for about 2 hours before taking it right back to the store.  As it happened, 2 hours were all it took for the square block of Vivitar metallic ugliness to burn through 2 AA batteries. I guess it was the early days of consumer digital cameras, but what were they thinking?  It had a 1.3 megapixel sensor I remember, with an always-on LCD.  That was probably what killed the battery so quickly. I think I managed to take 2 photos with the thing and I recall being resoundingly disappointed with the outcome even back then. So here it is, my first (unreturned) digital camera – the Nikon Coolpix 775. I remember doing all the research about this camera after purchasing it, which may sound pointless until after you've heard the story behind that. Long time ago in an Argos store far, far away, I opted to buy a 1.3 megapixel camera wit...