EARLY DIGITAL CAMERA AND PUBLISHING FIRSTS

Tear sheet showing a stand-alone photo taken with the Kodak DCS 460 as it appeared in the May 11, 1996, edition of the Philadelphia Daily News. Was this a first?

Last year I read an article on Popphoto.com titled "The 30 Most Important Digital Cameras of all Time," and the first thing that struck me was how many of these cameras I had the opportunity to use or at least get my hands on and the second thing was how far we've come in both quality and price.

It also got me thinking about the first image I had published that was taken with a digital camera. Actually it was published twice.

The Kodak Professional DCS 460 Digital Camera was introduced in 1995.

The camera was a Kodak Professional DCS 460 which had a list price of $35,600, a 1.3x crop factor and at 6.2 megapixels was the highest resolution digital camera available at the time.

In May of 1996 I was a photo editor and producer for Philadelphia Online (now Philly.com) and was working on an interactive seating map of the Blockbuster Sony Music Entertainment Center in Camden, N.J., and since I had access to the DCS 460, I decided to use it as I photographed the stage from various sections of the arena. A great time saver over shooting on film and scanning the negatives.

On the way to the venue, I came across an accident on Spring Garden Street where a car had smashed into the front window of Panichelle's barber shop. As I drove by I thought I caught a glimpse of the barber inside continuing to cut hair, so I parked, grabbed the camera and walked back to the barber shop and started shooting photos.

Stand-alone photo as it appeared on the May 10, 1996, homepage of Philadelphia Online. View full homepage from that day.

After I returned from the original assignment in Camden I downloaded the images from the camera and was showing a few editors the shot when one of them suggested we post it to the Philadelphia Online home page as a stand-alone photo, something we hadn't done previously. This was a first.

The other suggestion was to show it to the photo editors at the Philadelphia Daily News, where it was published as a stand-alone photo the next day.

So was this the first digital camera photo, not from a wire service, published in the Philadelphia Daily News? Hardly a case for the History Detectives, but I know if I had shot this with film, I probably wouldn't have processed it until the next day and by that time it would not have been news.

FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS

Backyard Astronaut in1994 taken with a Nikon N90 shot on Ilford HP5 Plus. I barely remember taking this photograph, but it has become one of my favorites.

A coworker recently commented that I must have a ton of great photographs of my family, especially my son growing up. I started to wonder if that was true. Did I really document my family the same way that I photographed assignments around the world or even in my own backyard?

Nikon FM2 shot on Kodak Plus-X. There was a time when my family would not run or cover their faces when I pulled out the camera.

If you ask my family I think they would say that I didn't photograph enough. I would counter that they just didn't always see the final results. This became apparent to me recently when I was digging under the eaves in search of some old darkroom equipment for a pinhole photography project and came across dozens of boxes and binders full of negatives and slides.

WARNING: Don't go digging out those old slides and negatives unless you have hours to spare, because once you start going down memory lane, it's a long journey.

I also tried to rationalize that when the family is talking about missing photos, most often they are referring to formal portraits. And it is true that at some point my family just wasn't going to sit for portraits as I tested new lighting or posing techniques. Plus, I figured that I always had an out since there was the school pictures that documented each year thus leaving me with the much more prestigious job of documenting everyday life.

Scotland Vacation in 2004 taken with a Nikon D2H. Found this file on a CD-ROM backup.

So looking back, how did I do?

Well for the answer to that question I'll refer to all those negatives and slides. Apparently I took more photos than I realized of my family and have taken great delight in converting them to digital and sharing, many for the first time. (Learn how I convert negatives and slides to digital files in my post, GRAB A LOUPE - A NEW YEAR WITH OLD NEGS). I also pulled out that collection of CD-ROMs that were at one time my digital backups, but over time and after some hard drive failures, had apparently become the primary files. Another word of caution, get those photos off those disks and back on hard drives with another copy in the cloud.

College Graduation in 2013 taken with a  Nikon D3S. One of two frames I was able to grab before I was told that was enough. Some things never change.

If your family is giving you grief about not photographing enough of... well the family, ask yourself if perhaps what they are really asking is to just see the results. I'm not talking about sharing what's on the back of your camera, handing them your cell phone or even what's plastered all over social media. I'm talking about making a print, putting it in a frame and hanging it on a wall or placing it on a table. Or if you are really ready to share, then why not upload your files to a service that will make 4x6 inch prints for under 15 cents each that you can then put in an album. Remember those.

That's what memories are made of. Or what memories can still be made of.

JUST PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS ON THE SHELF?

I was at the Arlington County library a few weeks back doing research for a book I'm currently writing (not photo related) and found myself in the photography section. I guess I was drawn there by some invisible force.

Anyway, while looking over all the titles and authors the thought hit me that there have been so many incredible photographers over the years and yet for the past couple of years I've only been following current, mostly young, photographers.

In just one small section of one shelf there were books by Mary Ellen Mark, Arnold Newman, Edward Weston, Robert Capa, Man Ray, Annie Leibowitz, Eve Arnold and even a copy of Edward Steichen's The Family Of Man, a personal favorite.

Before I go any farther, this isn't a post about how today's photographers are nothing compared to the pioneers of the past or about how you can't possibly understand the art of photography if you don't study the masters. I suppose what really struck me is just how soon I forgot. Why did I temporarily forget about these photographers.

Unless you are studying photography in college or at a university, is there really a need to look back and see what came before? I've heard and read this question many times, almost as often as whether you can be a true photographer if you never shot film, or for that matter worked in a darkroom.

The first thing I thought as I looked over the titles wasn't just the fact that its been a while since I thought about these photographers, but that's probably because I haven't seen them on Google +, Facebook or Twitter.  For those photographers still with us, do they have a website or blog? You see, more and more that is how I follow photographers and I suspect that is how you follow them too.

The photographer David Douglass Duncan is a personal favorite of mine and in 1995 I built a website featuring his work. The Web was still new and since there was nothing available online, I did my research in the library and copied a variety of Duncan's photographs with my camera. For years after that I would hear from publishers requesting to license those photographs, or for information on contacting Duncan. All this despite a clear disclaimer on the site that I did not represent Mr. Duncan and that this website was produced for a college electronic journalism class. What if Duncan had access to publish his photographs on the Web or participate in Google Hangouts? I suspect as private a person as Duncan was the result would be the same, however I've been surprised by others adoption of technology.

Today's digital cameras and software make it possible for photographers at all levels to take better photographs and then instantly publish and share those images widely, offering new and old photographers alike the chance to grow, improve and even create a nice following. Plus there are a ton of tutorials, many free, to help you along the way, even without a formal education.

So with that I challenge everyone to visit the library and spend some time looking through the stacks where you might be surprised at what you discover. The first surprise you might notice is that not every technique or subject you've viewed on the Web is new. It's only the Web that is new.

So if you find yourself following the same photographers all the time, and are craving something different, I might suggest you start with any book from the photograph at the top of this post.

And keep shooting and sharing.