The Punishment Chair

This portfolio is called "Digital Renaissance", but this will be the

end of that. This is my foray back into film photography. But this

time, using classic rangefinder cameras from the 1960s and 1970s. I

took this photo while testing a newly fixed Canonet GIII-QL17 camera.

It is difficult to go back to film after shooting digital for the

past two years. First the cost - almost $0.42 per printed exposure.

Second, the lack of feedback. That really kills me. Normally if I

shot this in digital, I would use my histogram to decide exposure.

With film, all I have is the click of the shutter and my imagination

to provide for thoughts about my image. Third, the depth of field is

not as before. With digital, I am used to have wide depth of field

due to the smaller sensor sizes. But with a "full-framed" 35mm

camera, and that too, a very small Canonet QL17 with a 40mm wide

angle lens shot wide open in low light really brings back my lessons

about depth of field. That is film. I am not sure if I love it

anymore liked I used to. Or maybe I need to reacquaint myself to this

old friend and lover.

About the photograph. I was in an old dusty warehouse that is

probably 40-50 years old. It is an old granite sawing and polishing

factory that has been decommissioned for those purposes. This

warehouse is open to the environment and over the years, all sorts of

human detritus has accumulated on the inside of it. These objects,

after being coverd with dust and dirt over time take on a different

type of look. One that is both sad, barren, cold, austere, and

elemental at the same time. So I was walking around testing my camera

and finishing off this roll of film when this chair next to some

cinder-blocks caught my eye. The chair is fairly small, so it looks

like that something a child would use, but a child in a factory? The

chair, the background, and the dirt floor all added to the sense of

punishment or loss. As if someone who once sat on that chair was

banished from society and human contact and would have to spend their

time on this uncomfortable and bleak chair as atonement for their

sins. Maybe it reminded me of all the chairs I have sat on as a child

when I was being punished in school for doing something. The chair in

the corner, the "time-out" chair, and the "dunce" chair. Looking at

that chair reminded me of how we impose our values of right and wrong

on something and other people, and we banish people to these

punishment chairs as they come and interact with our lives. But why

do we punish? What do we gain from that? What do we lose? Maybe this

punishment chair is just a testament to what we lose when we try to

punish others into our own world views and experiences. Maybe this

punishment chair is our chair. Maybe my chair. My punishment chair.