There is a famous baseball song titled "Willie, Mickey, and the Duke". I still hum to myself while in China. The song recalls a time when New York City had three baseball teams: the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers. The Willie in the song was Willie Mays who played for the New York Giants. Mickey was Mickey Mantle who played for the Yankees. The Duke was Duke Snider who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Now the era that Willie, Mickey, and the Duke dominated the New York baseball scene was before my time. It in ended in 1957 when the Giants and Dodgers moved to the West Coast. I believe Willie, Mickey, and the Duke were all probably still playing in the majors when I was born in 1964. And I recollect seeing Willie play for the Mets in the '73 World Series. I think it is quite something to observe that when I was Tony's age, the legendary Will Mays was still a great player.
But it is Duke Snider who I have the most and fondest recollections of from his time working with Dave Van Horne on broadcasts of Montreal Expos games. They will always be my favorite play-by-play and colour commentator pair to have ever worked a baseball game. I grew up with them and they turned me into a baseball fan. So, to read of Snider's passing away brings back memories of the time I cut out the major league standings and pasted them into scrapbooks -- I thought I was living through history. I don't need to use scrapbooks anymore, thanks to the Internet, and so I wonder if the kids of today, like Tony, will have the same fondness for things that were in such smaller supplies when I was growing up.
Although I use digital cameras (and appreciate them) for my work, I can't help but realize they are essentially disposable.
ReplyDeleteFew, if any, people really organize and archive their work...it lies on memory cards and hard drives until one day they fail and everything is lost in an instant.
Very few prints get made, and if they are they're stored poorly and are not likely to survive the years.
Edward Burtynsky has called this the "digital dark age", in that decades from now there will be relatively few images surviving from a time when, ironically, more images are being created than ever before.
I can't help but think it's an accurate prediction.
Interesting what you say, but being the amateur photographer, that I am, I love digital photography. I find it is alot easier to take a good photo.
ReplyDeleteOne problem I do have with digital photography is that sometimes one has so many photos to choose from. I find that I often overload my blog with photos because I can't decide on the one image to encapsulate the moment. So if anything this age won't be a dark age as an age not having few stark defining images.
Interesting you would bring this up in a post about an old baseball player. Are you a baseball fan? Or an old scrapbooker?
Well...I like photographing baseball. 8^) Beyond that, I'm not that great or knowledgeable a sports fan.
ReplyDeleteDigital photography is definitely more convenient, but I sometimes think it's that convenience that makes it so easy to overload oneself with images, and not print them out or back them up in any way.
No one uses floppy discs anymore, or can even read them. CD's probably won't be around much longer, and FireWire connections are gone.
In 10 years or less, most or all of the devices we use to look at our shots are going to be obsolete...hence, the 'dark age'.
I am sure that in the future, there will be a demand for people to transfer their digital photos to whatever the current viewing format is.
ReplyDeleteTechnology develops in ways we can't forsee.
Maybe so, but I'm a big believer in the capability of human beings to put things off!
ReplyDeleteI think when we have to work a little to get a photograph, it means a lot more to us. That's just human nature, too.
I'm as guilty of that as anyone -- I have images I really love from my iPhone4, but ask me how many I've printed out!