New Photographs to Love-Hate-Hold

So I have been photographing over the past few months, mostly with my D300 and my Polaroid camera. I have learned that I am afraid of digital cameras. I am completely and utterly terrified of the process that they hold and use.

I suppose that the thing that scares me most about using a digital camera is the certainty that I feel it has. Digital photography seems to be even mroe certain or capturing than film. Film has an aura or mystique associated with it in the sense that it has to go through a chemical process that can vary in several steps. Even though most labs are very well maintained, there is also the very nature of making the print that seems to have more flux and variance than digital photography.

Digital photography has a more mechanical nature to it than traditional silver halide photography because of the very precise nature of sensor specifications, hardware specifications, images processing specifications created by software engineers and finally the very fine tuned nature of color managed printing with an inkjet printer. Perhaps this overwhelming control isn’t or shouldn’t really be an issue, but perhaps right now at this moment it is for me.

I think that the more I shoot with a digital camera maybe the more I will understand it as its own medium, but I have to remain steadfast in my belief that it is different than the traditional photographic practices. It has its place, its place is here and now, but it cannot overwrite or make us forget the past practices that got us to this point.

WIth that in mind, here are some photographs… I have made these with my digital SLR. What do you think? Can you sense my uncomfortableness with the digital camera? Also, this is the first portrait that I have shot and shown in over 3 years… is it anything?