Happy Green Day!

In my first job out of college, as a newspaper reporter/photographer, the world of photography was a different place. The standard was 35 mm film, although the new APS film had recently been released and was a mild flop. I used my grandmother's old Olympus OM-1 camera ... I set the shutter speed, aperture and focus, and advanced the film with my thumb. The mechanical cur-thunk of the shutter was satisfying, for sure.

At the paper, we reused old film canisters and wound our own film. Then we developed it and printed photos ourselves in a closet-turned-darkroom. We reused film developer for as long as we could stand, mainly as a way to save green rather than be green. Once the developer didn't work anymore, it was sent off to be processed appropriately. We cut 8.5x11 sheets of photo paper in half to save money, too. And we were told to use rechargeable batteries whenever possible.

Fast forward to today, and it's easier than ever to be a green photographer. Digital SLR cameras take more juice to operate, but standard power supplies are rechargeable. The rechargeable batteries of all shapes and sizes, including for powering accessory flash units and the like, have improved in performance and reliability. There's no need for nasty chemicals to develop film anymore ... merely some electricity to process the X's and O's that comprise the image. We can print out a photo if we want without having to use another series of nasty chemicals, and we can adjust images on our computers without the trial and error that was often required years ago.

Instead of using paper to proof photos for clients, they can now be uploaded to Web galleries and viewed at leisure. This saves paper and also gasoline that an in-person proofing session requires. Memory cards on which images are stored in the camera can be reused many, many times.

The struggle is to maintain personal relationships with clients in this electronic, e-mail age. There is always the actual photography session or wedding, but is it enough? Or is this kind of service what everyone expects nowadays?