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What's your favourite kind've recording medium? What freezes the moment with the most clarity and truth for you?
I like SLR cameras, that are mostly manual and go "ker-CHUNK" when the you take a shot. They feel real. I have a Nikormat that's older than me, solid metal, and heavy enough to kill a man with a single blow to the head. The quality of the recording image is very high, which helps maintain that moment in time. But, in many ways, the weight and feel of the camera itself is what sparks off the memories for me. If I'm leafing through old photographs, I like to have the SLR there beside me.
I have a fairly new digital camera as well. Which is all funky because it's immmediate and has that ephemeral never-real-to-begin-with quality. I find that most of my recent shots are on digital, though this is more due to its ease than anything else. The camera itself holds less nostaliga for me, and it won't, no matter how long I have it. The electronics will always seem replaceable, something that the largely mechanical apparatus of the SLR for some reason don't. However, the sheer volume of shots that I can take with the digital means that I capture moments that the SLR would not allow me to.
Though often for true memory-jerkers, polaroid is da Boy! It's as near to the event as one can get. The actual light caught right there on that piece of paper. Not filtered by enlargers or printers. Polaroid rocks. Holding one in my hand I almost feel like I'm reliving the event. The print seeming strangely fragile and precious, due to it's unique quality.
But the actualy quality of the shot does detract from it somewhat. It never captures light just right, or the texture of someone's skin or eyes.
Then again, my most treasured piece of audio was recorded at my 25th birthday party (one of the best weekends of me life!) on a gag gift. One of those 'record 30 secs of audio' gadget watches. The quality is appaling, but I've never recorded over it. It's just 30 secs of noise in a restaraunt, where I can make out the voices of various friends shouting and laughing. The audio adds a whole new layer to the memory, and it's a little fragment of time I'd like to still be listening to when I'm wrinkly and hanging around my retirement ranch, whittling sticks and bursting any footballs that come over my fence.
Which brings me back to the digital camera, it can record video. Which is something I rarely keep, but it captures such life and tone (audio and video). Often people come to life in their movements in a way that a static image can never capture.
On the far side of the technological valley, my pencil drawings often bring back moments with a still, quiet, and surprisingly clarity.
... But by this stage I'm rambling, so I'll wrap up, what type of recording medium works for you? Why? How much does the technology interfere with/enhance/alter the memory for you? |
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