Fleeting Memories

"You don't take a photograph, you make it."  Ansel Adams

News of Kodak preparing for bankruptcy made me rather nostalgic.  It is indeed is bittersweet to see such an icon stumble especially since they helped pioneer the marketing of consumer technology products.  This is not so much an article on the business strategy, but rather a reflection of photography on my life and how something is lost for me as film fades away.

Christmas -- 1980s

One year I got a Kodak Disc camera for Christmas and I loved taking pictures with it.  On every family trip, I would take pictures documenting the experience.  As the camera got older, the pop out flash broke and stayed popped out.  As a result, I rigged it with tape so it wouldn't stick out and flash for all pictures.  There was one time I recall taking pictures with my cousin Wes with each of us shooting one another with our respective camera and saying "Gotcha with my Kodak Flash."  I don't recall if that was the marketing tag line, but it made for an enjoyable time.

High school -- early 1990s

Given my interest in photography as a kid, I decided to take a photography class in high school.  My first few pictures were pretty pedestrian, but with the help of a great teacher, I started to get a feel for composition and the art of film.  I loved spending time in the darkroom developing the film, making prints, and perfecting my technique.  Pretty soon, I was that guy with the camera in high school shooting for the yearbook.

College -- mid to late 1990s

One summer I worked for a photographer who had his own photo lab.  The place was not so OSHA friendly but I loved being in the darkroom.  I didn't like the spiders or the equipment failures, but it was still a memorable experience that I appreciate today.  I also managed to continue working with photos in college, where I shot for the publications office and school paper.  As a result, I even managed to get some things published in random journals and local newspapers.  I enjoyed that experience so much that I tried to pursue journalism as a career path after school (more on that later).

Chicago -- 1999-2001

After college, I hit the pavement looking for work in journalism -- photography or otherwise.  Fortunately with the aid of my network, I landed a gig working with MSNBC.  Granted, it wasn't photography, but it was a related aspect of the business.  It gave me a taste of film in a different light, but already it was clear digital was the way to go.  Despite the huge battery packs with early digital cameras, and the relatively low resolution by today's standard, it was only a matter of time before the technology improved and digital would dominate photography.

Seattle -- 2001 to current

Since moving to Seattle, I haven't really gotten back into photography as I once knew it.  Part of it was not finding a darkroom to rent like I did in Chicago, and part of it was the pace of change with digital cameras.  In the span of a few years we've gone from 3.x megapixels being the top of the line for a point and shoot to an 8 megapixel in my phone.  

Reflections

While I love the instant nature and always present nature of digital photography, I do miss those darkroom days.  I miss the feel of the paper between my fingers after it's been fixed.  I miss the trial and error aspect of Polaroid transfers.  I miss the physicalness of dodging and burning.  I miss the sound of the water, washing the prints.  I miss the smell of the chemicals with film and photo processing.  

Filters, auto-correct software, and now incredibly awesome multi-focus cameras like Lytro -- while they make photography easy, and accessible -- for me they lose that special quality of something I made.  Yes, the memories are captured and the image looks great but the tangible aspect for me is gone.  They say memories are reinforced when multiple senses factor into its creation -- smell, sound, touch, etc.  With the old school way of film and photo processing I engaged many of those other senses; with digital, not so much.  As camera technology improves, do we run the risk of losing our memories by making them so easy to capture?

a look back at Participate

Recently, I ran across a re-post by social business analyst, Jerimiah Owyang, about his experiences at a "dot-bomb" company in the 1990s. This post resonated for me on many levels because there are some that think we are in a similar bubble in the industry today, in addition to my own experiences as a dot com survivor. Below are my reflections on that era.

Fresh out of college, I entered the job market in 1999. Armed with my liberal arts degree from Carleton College, I wanted to go into journalism. After pounding the proverbial pavement I eventually landed a gig at MSNBC as a part-time producer. Because of the lack of hours, I also took up a job at a startup called Participate.com.

Participate.com basically built and ran online communities for businesses back in the day. Some of our clients included AT&T Worldnet, Ace Hardware Corp., Cisco Systems, SAP AG and Microsoft. My first role at Participate was that of a chat host for AT&T. Basically this meant I was there to answer questions (like a support desk) and make sure people weren't doing things they weren't supposed to do. In many ways, I thought my experience as a college dormitory resident assistant was the perfect training for the job. Anyway, I did this for a few months, and eventually started managing the community for another account (Careerpath, now CareerBuilder), and then MSN Games. But enough about the job, and let's explore the environement and culture at the time.

Being situated next to the El in a Chicago loft, the environment was interesting. There were rooms where you would not hold meetings for when the train passed, you couldn't hear a thing. Being a loft, the heating and cooling was always a challenge. There were days where it was so cold (hot air rises in a loft) that I would wear gloves to type. Also, the ceiling leaked. There's something to be said about affordable rent, I suppose. For the most part, the office was an open floor plan with desks grouped together in pods, and offices around the edges with no ceilings. As the company grew in size, we added folding tables like you see at picnics, and folks moved downstairs to the basement. We affectionately called these co-workers the "mole people." We eventually outgrew our space in Lincoln Park and moved to the western loop. For reasons beyond me, we also had our name on the building -- but that was what you did back then, I suppose.

As for the culture, I could not have asked for a better group of co-workers and friends. Everyone there was incredibly warm and passionate about life in their own way. Aside from working together, we drank, hung out, and generally had good times together. In many respects, my life at PDC set the bar (no pun intended) for what a work environment should be.

A few times stand out in my head for life at PDC. One was St. Patrick's Day. Being in Chicago, this was a big deal. I remember that we pretty much wrapped up the day after lunch and headed over to the local pub (conveniently, less than a block away.) We spent many an hour there, only to go on to a different bar when it got dark. Another time that sticks out in my mind was the first company holiday where we shut down the bar/restaurant/pool hall. Our VP at the time was passing our $50 bills to people leaving so they could take a cab. Bear in mind, we were next to the El, so taking a cab seemed rather silly. Who was I to argue with the VP though -- I took the money and then got on the El. When we moved downtown, the culture did indeed change, but the people were still great. When it was time for me to move on (literally, to Seattle), Participate offered to move me out to Seattle. It helped that I worked on the MSN Games account and would be in the Redmond, WA region. Still liking the work, how could I say no?

While the company lived on for several more years before being acquired by another company called Outstart, for all intents and purposes my life at a dot com in that era ended when I left for Seattle. Looking back, I am certainly one of the lucky ones. While I didn't become a paper millionaire overnight, I also didn't lose my job. Things were crazy at times, but I'm not sure how much of that was the industry as it was a certain time and place with the right people.

I cannot thank my colleagues from Participate enough. Not only was it a great place to work with wonderful people, it helped me find my passion for community -- online and offline