A few early "still-life-ish" experiments with a digital camera in 2000

Up until last springtime I had not used a digital camera before. For the most part the results I had seen from them (at least with the cameras that I could afford) were pretty poor so I had settled on the use of conventional film in conjunction with my film scanner (it is a Canon product too . . . ) as a way of minimizing the use of a wet darkroom in my photographic practice.

While teaching in Halifax I had the opportunity to borrow a new Canon s10 digital camera from NSCAD and make extensive use of it. I am now convinced that the technology is a viable alternative to film for many kinds of pictures. In recent years my images have become equipment bound and ponderous (in lockstep with my age) so it was a thrill to make images without feeling inhibited by my gear and the prejudices that kept me from engaging in free wheeling visual creative play.

It has been many years since I made hundreds of pictures in a day or two (that I kept! and let's not even think about how many I edited away...) This tool allowed me the luxury of real time feedback with my subject (like a polaroid only better and cheaper ) combined with pocket size portability. I am going to get the new model which has a larger filesize so that I have lots of headroom for editing and I will embark on some project that entails taking pictures obsessively and without guilt.

Here are some very conservative pix taken with that tool. I think my landlady kept a functional and lovely house - here are some pictures from her kitchen which is where I figured out how that camera worked.