Digital Old School - but now Digital!

OK, well it's 2006 (news to anyone out there? No, good) and I am still working on a tonne of projects back home. I've got photos to get online and wedding videos to finish. But on the point of the former, the first stage of that process was to create a "DVD Scrapbook" of all the images that I knew would look good on a TV (NTSC resolution). This set would be organized in the same manner as the online version will be, but includes images that are not as conducive to being displayed at high res or without some manner of narration. So Friday I was out at a friend's place with my wife and we popped in the disc, and they were all blown away with how amazing it looked (summarily asking if I could do the same with pictures that they had just taken on trips over the holidays). They asked how long it took and and if it was hard. I told them not really hard - iPhoto and iDVD do most of it, you just have to organize photos and music. Still very impressed we got talking about digital scrapbooking. My wife is making a traditional book for our trip, and it's coming along famously. I'm providing the images - some of them "straight up" others "'shopped" to some degree. But what I noticed (not being the first time mind you), how adding "digital" to the front of something has all of the sudden made it "better". To me, digital only means that I can store it and manipulate it before creating a final product. To others it seems that it means so much more. So I think I've been volunteered to help the hostess with her digital scrapbook after the class that she's taking on it is finished (Intro Photoshop/Intro Digital Photography/Digital Scrapbooking I guess). I don't know how easy it is for her, but I'm thinking that the biggest thing that I hear from people is that computers, and the way that they deal with files... and just about everything else is such a massive paint to them, that even though they can do some cool things, it's not worth the time. I'm sure that many of us have noticed that as well. The other "digtal" event that I've noticed is "digital storytelling". I've signed up for the workshop at SITE 2006, just to know more "from the inside" but it strikes me that what digital means there is that creators now have more control over their product and have access to more types of media. Over the weekend I was also looking again at dSLRs - tossing up between the Nikon D70s and the Canon 20D again. The Canon is a bit heavier and this time around (especially after taking 1300+ photos in Florida) I was thinking... this may be a heavy little beasty after a while. The Nikon D70s is certainly a great camera, but seems to be more akin the Canon Rebel XT (had the choice been between the D70s and the XT, I would have gone Nikon). But the 20D and the 17-85 lens still are holding their sway over me. As an aside, while at MGM Studios, I met a guy from Nova Scotia who was shooting the same parade that I was with the setup that I wanted. We both noticed each other's cameras and commented that we wished that we had the others - he wanted video, I wanted SLR. I don't know how he wound up in SLR country, but he joked that if his wife would let him, he would trade in an instant. After a decent chuckle, we got back to shooting the parade. BTW - I also found this little gem from Ken Rockwell on why you should not wait for cameras. It's the same for any other electronic item that you may want to think of, because in the end - you really only rent technology. So after looking at this... what are we to think that digital means to us and the "rest of the people"? File management horror? Control over workflow? Cheap and easy content creation? All of the above? To me, it means that content creation is within my control, that I can mix and match media quickly and with some easy and create a finished product that can be displayed in a myriad of ways. How about you? Technorati Tags: Canon 20D, Nikon D70s, Digital, SITE 2006