My Precious
“I don’t make it a secret. Call me ‘arrogant’, but I really don’t like the democratisation of photography.” says Christian Leyk.
“I grew up with pocket and reflex cameras, when photography was a hobby that one would dedicate himself to. I have to admit I did very little of developing pictures myself (though I did learn it), I usually used slide films. Does anybody today still remember all the jokes about evenings filled with boring slide projections of bad holiday snaps? Well, I hope nobody was saying that about the pictures I took…
But as a hobby, photography was expensive. Of course, those who didn’t take pictures because they were afraid of wasting film were not supposed to take a camera in their hands anyway. And then of course there was the waiting when you were sending the film(s) to the lab..”
With digital, all has changed. Nowadays you don’t even need a camera, everybody can take snaps with the phone. And while it opened a whole new world to the creative people, it also caused the world becoming inundated with millions of photographers – we especially love those who don’t even know how to switch off their flash – and subsequently, a pile of bad photos taller than Mount Everest.
Many years ago, when technology started changing we were, of course, rather excited about the new possibilities, even though digital cameras were a far cry from today’s quality and certainly no match for a real reflex camera. Little did we know…
“We designed a digital camera with an attitude. The idea was that it would either open to allow communication between photographer and subject, or close, to keep the (valuable) photos taken safe. From today’s point of view the design could easily change a bit. The lens is a bit on the big side and people don’t look through a viewfinder anymore. Still, the semantics still apply for the creative hobbyist and in terms of ergonomics smaller isn’t necessarily better. Come to think, it might be worth following up some of those ideas.
Out there, I believe there are still people that take snap shots more serious…”