Photo Talk

I have written for club magazines over a long period. I'm helping with a magazine now, and will post the articles.

HOW I WAS CURED OF MY ADDICTION AND LEARNED TO LIVE WITH PHOTOGRAPHY

"Hello, my name is Mike, and I am a filmoholic….."

All I needed was a better camera, I told myself. One of those new multi-segment metered, auto-everything marvels that would free me from sordid technical details, and allow me to concentrate on the finer aesthetic renderings that would lift me out of routine club competition into the wider realm of Art Photography.

So I emptied my savings account and bought IT, with 28 to 70 zoom lens proudly mounted on the dull-gleaming, gently rounded body. I set forth on my quest, and began exposing slide film. Slides, they said, were the way to go if you wanted to be published.
Soon I found that I was getting too much in the slide, and my photographic adviser counselled the purchase of a 70-210 zoom. I could crop and frame my subjects to my heart's content-until I tried to get in really close, and the autofocus light thingy wouldn't let me take the picture. A true macro, said my mentor, gets you right down to 1:1 and only $900. Now I could depict those bugs and flower innards in all their glory.

The lenses dragged down the pockets of my jacket, so I got a gadget bag big enough for the lenses and my new computerised TTL flash unit, with little straps underneath to carry the tripod I now found I needed. I was happy, until a friend introduced me to a rather strange, withdrawn person, who took photos in black and white. One taste of those wonderful satin blacks and crisp clean whites and I was lost. Down to my photographic pusher for a large-format camera to enable me to turn out huge prints with no grain.

A darkroom was the next essential, and I was soon well-equipped to take up the challenge of this exciting medium. After the separation, that was, as my wife had given me the option: kick the habit or she would go. She had to go, anyway, as the laundry was the only available place to convert to a darkroom. Actually, socks and undies wash surprisingly well in a Jobo processor, and it gets well cleaned-out into the bargain. The lounge converted into an excellent studio for the avant gard fashion work I was interested in. My wife had taken the car, so I was able to buy a four-wheel drive vehicle to get me to inaccessible spots for superior interpretative landscapes.

I stopped attending Camera Club, as the effort of communicating with other users was inhibiting my creative flow. Total commitment, total fulfilment - but nagging doubts began to arise. I had to work three jobs to help pay off all the expensive equipment and maintain the four cassettes of film I was using per day, and I was getting so tired I was losing my ability to expose and process without error.
Cutting down my intake was no use. Withdrawal symptoms soon appeared; I could not face food, and did not even have the strength to lift the camera bag strap to my shoulder. Brooding alone in the darkroom, I came to the realisation that I had become an addict! There was only one thing left to do - photographic cold turkey.

I rang my estranged wife and begged her for support. Together we sweated out the crying, the head-banging, the bed-wetting - and my symptoms were even worse. I agreed to see a doctor; he was surprised by my story, as he had no personal experience of photography. Eagerly, I offered the loan of one of my cameras and we were soon on good terms. When I was able to give up a piece of my equipment, I passed it over to him. Mind you, his practice has since suffered and I believe his wife has taken the family and left - but I am so much better now, we can hardly believe it.

My wife has now moved back in (she's learned how to use the Jobo to do the washing), and I now know I can be a sensible and controlled user. Just a little point-and-shoot with 100 ISO print film which my wife takes in to be processed. She gives me two prints daily as a maintainance dose. I know I must use a tripod when the shakes get uncontrollable, and I was recently able to cut a matt board for an enlargement without slicing my finger.

I have been asked to assist in the formation of a badly needed local chapter of Filmoholics Anonymous; and my hope is that I will eventually be able to rejoin the Camera Club and once more hold my head high and take my place in decent society.

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