Digital vs Analogue

I have arrived in what most people would see as smelly and disgusting trashville, but what I consider heaven. On the outskirts of every great metropolis is all the evidence that civilisation exists close by. Everything that we have unwrapped, used up and discarded...rubbish. I am discovering with each little journt and short walk that I am within the eye of a gabbage mecca. I took a 40 minute train ride down the coast yesterday, to spend the entire jouney noting every station with an accompanying sketch of what eye sore of seagull feeding ground lay close by and a mental calculation of how I could reach it.



So with all this stimulation, why am I not crazy with the shutter release? It has come to my attention that even though I am perfectly content to take off hand, even candid snapshots and other peoples memories with a digital camera, my personal work I cannot.

The instant preview digital technology has brought to photography has it's benefits, but also it's downside. Yes, you can preview a shot with a polaroid back or for those with deeper more lavish pockets Live Capture. But I can guarntee that shot took more time, consideration and forethought to bring you to that moment then (almost) any digital equivalent.

Possibly I'm just an old romantic. But I know that when I have a camera loaded with film, not MB's, that I approach the subject with a different mindset. The moment is there waiting for me to find it. I look, search, compose, focus, adjust and refocus and with patience and possibly a little luck (we are talking about capturing light) the moment reveals itself...or do I?