Disney land as it would be put into a slide projector

If you are old enough to remember Kodachrome slide film, you might remember how vivid and saturated the colors were. Kodachrome was a complicated and expensive process, but the results of a well exposed slide could be quite spectacular. Kodachrome was introduced in 1935 and Kodak stopped manufacturing it in 2009, and ended processing in 2010.

There is talk in these times of digital photography about whether photographers who shoot raw files and then process them in Photoshop or other image processor are cheating. I say processing raw files is not cheating because it's really no different from processing and printing negatives. If you shoot JPEGs, then your camera is making the adjustments for you. So which is cheating? Having the camera make the adjustments to the raw file or the photographer making the adjustments to a raw file? I prefer to make my own adjustments to raw files.

Since some people have the idea that making adjustments to digital images is cheating, they must believe there is some form of "pure" photography or "pure" images that somehow define the perfect photograph. In the world of digital photography I can't imagine what a "pure" image would be or what a perfect photograph might be. There are so many options available for making an image fit a mood, and look the way the photographer would like it to look, that I believe all manipulation is fair in digital photography. The only cheaters are people who steal other photographers' images and claim them as their own.

Using slide film is probably as close to "pure" photography as anyone can get — the composition in the slide is what it is (cropping is done with the camera), the color is determined by the exposure, and the quality of the exposure is in the quality of the slide, no "ifs", "ands" or "buts" about it. The image could be cropped and enhanced by having a print made from the slide, but the slide is the "raw" image and as close to a "pure" photographic image as anyone is going to get. All the images in this post are photographs of slides I had taken in the early 1980's (only the first two photos show the full cardboard holder the slides are mounted in).

Disneyland upright, but still reversed left to right

Spike

Woman in Red (Laurie's sister)

Kid, our first Manx

Notice how vivid the red and black in the dress is

Scorpion in a shower

A sassy gander up close and personal

My Saint Bernard, Pepper

Soft focus effect using a sheer piece of cloth

The Sandias from Rio Rancho. This area is completely built up now.