Oomska’s ‘Future of Photography’ Series continues…
We presented our interviewees with a set list of questions, and left the matter of in what format and at what length they should answer entirely up to them. Here are Philip Greenspun’s responses.
1. How and when did you first become interested in photography? What was the trigger which led you to take a serious interest? How different would that trigger be now, with all the changes – technological and otherwise – in photography during the intervening years?
My mother let me use a Kodak Brownie camera starting around 1970. I started out documenting boring family scenes. Probably with digital I would have started much earlier and experimented a lot more since the cost of film and processing was not affordable to me as a child.
2. Photography is often described as a mixture of art and science. It’s also a medium. How has digital technology altered the way these elements combine to produce what we think of as ‘photography’? Has technology altered that balance?
There should be a lot more great young photographers than ever before, since photography is now almost a free activity whereas before just a handful of photos would have used up a child’s allowance.