I was dragged kicking and screaming into digital photography.It took well over 20 years before I would raise a digital camera to my eye and acknowledge that there was something to be seen as the shutter release was pressed.
My disdain for the digital world was curious, a giant inconsistency in my life, since for the past 25 plus years I had made my living as a software engineer. I avoided this form of photography because I felt it was inauthentic: a digital image could be manipulated indefinitely.
The solemn precision of film was the absolute finality that occurred as the photo was taken. Certainly the making of the print afforded the photographer the opportunity to be personally suggestive, to draw attention to or obscure detail as was necessary to breathe life into the image. The articulation of the print was indeed the photographer's signature on the image.
How was one to determine what the photographer saw when the photo breathed and yawed for so long, perhaps achieving finality only at that moment when it was uploaded to a website somewhere. I wrestled with this dilemma until late in 2016 after I had retired. I was driven to return to photography by the images I noticed unfolding before me every day. A chance trip back east sealed the deal when an old friend suggested which camera I might want to purchase to begin again with. Obstacles unfolded quickly as the camera with only a prime lens was too heavy to carry around my neck comfortably. I was rescued one day after scrolling through page after page of digital cameras online when I noticed the Fujifilm 100 series cameras. They emulated the look and feel of the Leicas I used to carry at a far more affordable price.
I was elated The six or so weeks I spent becoming familiar with the internal mechanism of the camera was time well spent. The first subject I turned my eye towards was the family of cats that shared living quarters with our family. Health issues kept me house bound for several months, so for the better part of each day, I observed and recorded the cats as they went about their daily routine.