The terms analog photograpy or capturing a photograph are not in my vocabulary. There seems to be a renaissance in analog (using film with film cameras) photography now but I believe it is only limited to black and white.

My longtime friend Jeff Gin who is the manager of the Lonsdale Kerrisdale Cameras tells me that young (mostly male) under 30 chaps show up at his store for and want their film processed. They ask for 3x4 inch prints. When they come to pick them up Jeff asks them if they want the negatives. They don’t.

I started printing colour negatives and slides around 1979 in my Burnaby darkroom. One day my Rosemary told me, “You have been complaining about your inability to print colour. I have signed you up for tomorrow Monday for a course on the subject at Ampro Photo Workshops.

She helped me improve my career as I could print for magazines overnight when there was a rush for the magazine to go to print the next day.

And most important using the magenta, yellow, red, blue, cyan and green Kodak Color Print Viewing Filter Kit taught me to understand and correct the photographs that I take in colour with my digital camera,

But I must pleasantly add that in Vancouver now I can purchase colour negative film and Kodak Ektachrome in both the 35mm format and 120. Our local The Lab will process it overnight.

To illustrate this blog I have scanned stuff that I have that I find difficult to trash. If I throw it all away it would seem like I am getting rid of an important part of my life.

In the box of  the Veracruz thin cigars I used to smoke I kept my Spotone kit. With these inks and the brushes we would spot (remove white dust spots) from our photographs. Sometimes I had to scrape stuff from the photos and that is why the razor blade is there.

The 3 Kodak manuals were my manuals for many years. They have information on colour temperature, depth of field and lots more. Lastly the blondish woman was called Sherley. We used the negative to calibrate our colour enlargers. Shirley famously was a problem for the very good photographer that Oscar Peterson was. His subjects were black so Shirley was not help. I believe that the term "the colour purple" came from the problem of printing negatives of black people. For years Kodak marketed film made in India that rendered darker complexions better. Some photographers used that film to add a built-in fake sun tan.

Now with my excellent Epson V700 scanner and my Epson P700 colour printer my inkjets are superior to anything I might have done in that last century. They are properly colour balanced thanks to my Rosemary.

I wonder if the analog photography guys will ever warm up to colour?