James P. Jones || Photographer

After our email exchange and following the subsequent posting of my email; I had interesting conversation with Andrew Hetherington. Under the pretense that phone is easier and quicker than email, he gave me a ring (after I sent him a massive list of questions).

Now, although I am accomplished in my own work (which includes photography), I am a relative newbie in strict contract photography. So, an opportunity to hear from a working NYC commercial photog (who is, I believe, less than a decade older than I) was a rare opportunity. He is regularly published in magazines across the country, I am not. He was in the PDN 30 list a few years back, I am not there yet.

Given that his second question was "are you recording this?" I'm not to go into the conversation itself. But, I can say what it was not. I was hoping that a film based hasselblad (or other medium format) camera user would have a thriving, growing, niche market that could be shared around. But, it doesn't seem that the niche really exists yet. Perhaps we are too close on the heels of the Digital Revolution to see a backlash yet. In Japan film has been sticking around, but in the US it seems endangered.

Now, he mentioned to me a PDN article regarding the plummet of film camera sales in Japan this past quarter, as an example of the decline of film. I guess it is giving everyone the impression that film is quickly dying in Japan. Far from the truth as far as I can tell. Here is a video email I passed along to Hetherington (quicker than typing it out).

So we ended up on the phone for quite some time. I ended up pondering our conversation for the rest of the day. One piece of our conversation was a discussion of the article on SportsShooter by Vincent Laforet. It's worth a read. Things are definitely moving quickly. I don't think there is a "good or bad" direction; just forward.

Now, the photos you see here are low res captures from a point and shoot I took to an Alkaline Trio concert on Sunday. Apparently, "pro" gear is not allowed by policy, but point and shoots are fine. I wonder how long that will last. I won't post it here, but I shot a bunch of video that is extremely good looking, with stabilization, from a distance. The sound is terrible, but the video could be used in many capacities. With 24 minutes of 30FPS recording at 640x480 with great quality (better than these pictures by a long shot), I have to wonder what the next 5 years will bring. I never moved position. But, this little point and shoot has an optical 10x zoom (~28mm-300mm) at 7 MP with optical stabilization. Not too shabby. The only bummer that day - I couldn't find my custom earplugs.

I haven't gone to a rock show in so long I couldn't find them. My ears were ringing for a couple of days.