The other day, my daughter picked up one of my film cameras, a Nikon F90x, and pretended to take photos with it. I told her that when she gets older, I would develop her love for the darkroom.

I loved shooting film. The entire process fascinated me. From the lens to the film to the paper, I was in control. Although my workflow is entirely digital now, I still miss those days and hope to, very soon, return to those days.

I actually have an “almost complete” darkroom set at home right now. I say “almost” because I need a few more pieces to complete it: a neck for my enlarger, a timer, and a safe lamp. I’ve been scoping out craigslist for a while now, and I hope to get my set complete soon, considering how hard it is to get stuff for film these days. Film is slowly becoming extinct

Another sign of extinction is the announcement and articles about the end of the line for another long-standing and well-respected film: Kodachrome. I’ve been following some articles on the story:

Wikipedia on Kodachrome

Kodak’s discontinuance notice

A Tribute to Kodachrome

RIP Kodachrome

The End of an Era:1935-2010 (Steve McCurry, shooter of the last Kodachrome roll of film ever made)

I’ll have to admit, I wasn’t much of a Kodachrome user. I like Ilford, myself, but it does sadden me a bit that the future of film looks bleak. Nevertheless, this 2011, I’m going to finish off my darkroom collection and keep shooting and developing my photos. And, I will pass my love for the darkroom to my kids, and will continue to keep film going with my family until the last roll of film is sold!

Film isn’t dead — yet!

Shutterfly, an Internet-based “social expression and personal publishing service,” released the results of their Wedding Trend Survey.  Some of the findings included things like “the old adage: ‘Always a bridesmaid, never a bride’ might not be true,” and that “blue is the color of the season.”  Most interesting, to me at least, one of their findings was that 22% of brides felt that they should have “spent less on the dress; more on the memories.”

That’s an interesting observation that suggests that brides are finding increasing value when it comes to their photographs, and that they wished to either have better quality, or more products to help remember the memories that were created during their wedding day.  Yes, this is a little self-serving, being a wedding photographer myself, but articles like this reveal why I strongly believe in continuous improvement and attention to quality — so that those memories are recorded beautifully and preserved for generations to come.

To read the entire article, click here.

We’ve all been to trade shows and gotten them…  bags of assorted things from pens, lip balm, t-shirts, mints, candy.  More often than not, though, all this stuff will end up buried at the back of our drawers, never to be seen again.  Well, it looks like Canon may change that for some lucky Olympic photographers! Apparently, Canon has been giving travel mugs that look just like their 70-200 f/4L lens!  The optics on this lookalike probably aren’t that great, but it’ll keep your drink warm!

Here’s a picture of the mug:

I’m not a Canon shooter myself, but this mug would definitely work for me!  If anyone has access to one, I would, seriously, be really interested in getting one for myself!  Hey, Nikon, maybe you can make a venti-sized 70-200 f/2.8 that I can drink out of?

Original article here.

Looks like there’s a Facebook group for it too.