On the road to the city of minilabs

On the road to the city of minilabs, the Photographer found himself putzing about in a central business district, looking for something to photograph. He came upon a group of old men at a street corner. They were tapping away on their phones on social media, preparing to ratio a young man who was standing nearby with a battered Nikon around his neck.

“What’s this about?“

“He was caught in the act of taking photographs with a film camera, scanning them, sharing them on the internet, and never printing them on silver paper. The penalty for this is excommunication. Maybe death.”

“And you are certain of this?“

The chief-apparent of the angry old men scowled. “We are.”

“And you are fully committed to photochemical photography?”

“Indeed.”

“And are your consciences clean of digital intrusion or incomplete analog output?”

The men all nodded.

The Photographer furrowed his brow, ever so subtly. He stroked his clean-shaven chin for a second. From the ragged-edged back pocket of his jeans, he produced a square pad of Post-It Notes and the stub of a number 2 pencil. He looked a man in the crowd in the eye, wrote something on a page, peeled it off, and handed it to the man. He and did it again until each of the crowd held a small scrap of paper. Each in turn read a message, shrugged, crumpled the sticky note, and threw it in the general direction of the young man. And one by one, they drifted away.

The boy collected the notes, flattened them out, and silently read each one to himself:

“Dylan, you exhibited only archival pigment prints and giclees.”

“Terry, you have used an outside lab your entire life.”

“Ron, you take more pictures of your Leica M-A with your phone than you do of real subjects.”

“Las, no one would be making the materials you use if it were not for the people who ‘only’ scan film.”

“Luke, you are no stranger to Ilfospeed Rapid RC printed on a Lambda.”

“Andre, you’ve spent more time on Instagram than any of your work has spent on a gallery wall.”

“Bob, you have not fired up an enlarger in 20 years.”

“Cyril, you were a news photographer. Not a thing you photographed escaped being wired and digitally reconstructed.”

“Charles, you crossed a line on Photrio by posting digital pictures of your prints the analog channel.”

“Algernon, you think that Beseler made good enlargers.”

“Val, did you not say once that your middle name was Frontier?”

“Travis, your alternative prints are technically perfect but have no interest and no soul.”

When the boy looked up, the Photographer asked him,

“Who is left here to flame you?”

“Nobody.”

“That question was hypothetical.”

“Oh. What is the takeaway here?”

“Why does everything need a takeaway point? I dunno. Just come up with something.”

The Photographer continued his walk, where he came across a second young man fidgeting with a small digital camera, talking to his friends about film simulation recipes.

He shrugged his shoulders and walked on.