I photographed Christopher Hitchens a while back for the Village Voice.   I just read that Hitchens will be going through chemo therapy for cancer.  Love him or hate him I don’t think you could deny he’s an original and speaks his mind regardless of the trouble it may get him in (read the comments at the linked article and I’m sure you’ll find equal number of people wishing him ill as wishing him well). He’s been one of my most interesting subjects to date and did not disappoint with what I was expecting (among other things, rolling out of bed at noon with a cigarette in hand and a constant flow of cigarettes thereafter).  I hope all goes well with the chemo therapy for Mr. Hitchens.

Hitchens’ memoir, “Hitch 22: A Memoir” was just recently released.  You can read an excerpt on Vanity Fair’s website.

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Just as I suspected in my last post:

From film to digital and back

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There must be some kind of movement going on. It seems to me there is a digital backlash at the moment. Maybe not a full scale revolt, but it seems to me like a lot of photographers I know who had all but switched to digital are now shooting more film.

I know I started shooting film again about 6 months ago when I decided to buy an old Rolleiflex to carry around with me from time to time. Just this week I went ahead and bought a Mamiya RZ67 Pro II (for really cheap I might add… a barely used demo kit with lens & film back for only $850!!!). And, a little over a year ago I bought a 4×5 camera primarily to shoot Polaroid Type-55 (that idea unfortunately went out the door quickly with Polaroid film’s demise).

Now, I must confess that most of my film shooting will be for personal projects. I’ll sprinkle in some film shots on editorial shoots when budgets allow for both digital fees and film related expenses. For commercial projects, it’ll be digital for sure since the Art Directors usually like seeing what’s going on as we shoot. But, for the projects that actually mean something to me, I’ll likely be using one of my film cameras (not that my paying jobs don’t mean anything… but you know what I mean).

I just got done shooting an editorial assignment for Inc. magazine. I brought out my new RZ67 and shot film for the first time on an editorial shoot for quite some time. Having never used an RZ67 before I didn’t want to rely on it alone, so I got the primary shot out of the way with my digital system (Contax 645 w/ Phase One P25+). But once I did, I switched over to the RZ67 and had a bit more fun with it. It was nice shooting and not running back to a monitor every 10 shots or looking at the LCD on the back of the camera to see what we had.

This isn’t digital vs film quality debate. I’m not going to say one is of better quality than the other. I’m not shooting film again for quality reasons. They are just different. I shoot differently when shooting film. I like the way I shoot with film. I slow down and think about things more than I would with digital. And anything that can get me to think has to be good.

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