OK, enough nostalgia already. Let's think a little about the effect on photography and on the world of the technology that allows high quality images to be made by anyone with the money to buy an auto-everything digital SLR. I don't think this is a bad thing any more than Kodak's "Brownie" turning everyone into a photographer over a century ago. And maybe that's the parallel that should be understood.

When the Brownie was introduced for the price of one dollar 106 years ago, it allowed just anyone to make pictures. The camera was shipped to Kodak for film processing and reloading. The new photographers could make pictures, but couldn't directly compete with those using existing technology because the Brownie didn't have aperture of shutter speed controls, nor did the users have the understanding of photography necessary to use them if it did. But the world was flooded with photographs that couldn't have existed before, and the sheer quantity of pictures meant that some would be memorable and some would be important. The Brownie and its successors create the mass of images that Sontag writes about in her seminal work On Photography.

Unlike the Brownie, current Digital SLRs are capable of producing high quality photographs when used by people that understand the basics of photography and optics. Even point-and-shoot cameras and camera-phones may produce passable images. So once again, there is a popularizing of photography expanding beyond those who have studied the craft to those for whom study isn't necessary for technically good pictures. (Digital SLRs are also being used by many photographers who have decided to eliminate the cost, work and time lag of film, though the proportion of these to those who have never used film is probably negligable and will be ignored.) Along with the new ability to show these pictures to the world via the web, the new world is flooded with photographic imagery. Some of which will be memorable and some of which will be important.

As with the Brownie, DSLRs are adding to the quantity of photographs, but are not greatly adding to the "quality" of photographs, where "quality" is defined beyond sharpness, resolution and exposure. More things intended to be private are being made public - the Brownie didn't really allow that. I think the biggest impact though is that the chaff of pictures makes it more difficult to recognize or sort out what is good.

Though the needle's gotten marginally bigger, the haystack is now huge.

Jackie, tied up as she liked it, in my motel room in Minneapolis a few weeks ago. Fine photography? I don't think so, but I'll tell you for sure in five years.