08/17/2026
I read something this morning that stayed with me.
It was written by a photographer who began with film, lived through the transition to digital, and now watches the photography world move almost entirely toward mirrorless cameras.
He wrote about still wanting to look through an optical viewfinder and see the actual world in front of him. About liking the mechanical sound of a mirror moving when he presses the shutter. About knowing, in that small physical moment, that he has made a photograph.
I understood him.
Perhaps more than I would have a few years ago.
I've spent much of my life in photography watching one thing replace another. Film gave way to digital. Darkrooms gave way to Lightroom. Cameras became increasingly sophisticated, and now much of the industry seems consumed with whatever comes next.
There is nothing wrong with any of that.
But I'm beginning to understand that I don't have to follow every movement of the industry to remain relevant to the craft.
There comes a time when you stop asking what is newest and begin asking what matters.
I still love looking through an optical viewfinder at a real scene.
I love the sound of a mechanical shutter.
I love loading film into an old Nikon and knowing I have 36 opportunities to pay attention.
I love looking down into the ground glass of a Hasselblad and waiting until everything inside that little square feels right.
And I love making photographs of ordinary things that remind me there are some things worth carrying forward.
Like this barber chair.
Interestingly, this chair isn't old at all. It's brand new. It was made by a company that still builds barber chairs in the style of those from another time.
Someone decided that newer didn't necessarily have to mean abandoning everything that came before.
So they kept what mattered.
The weight. The craftsmanship. The beautiful mechanical details. The character.
They didn't preserve it because the world hadn't changed.
They preserved it because some things were still worth preserving.
Maybe that's what I've been trying to understand about my own place in photography.
I don't have to become something else simply because something else has become fashionable.
I will continue learning. I will continue growing. And I'll use whatever tools allow me to make the work I believe in.
But I am becoming less interested in keeping up and much more interested in going deeper.
Because photography, for me, was never really about cameras.
It was about noticing.
Remembering.
Preserving evidence that someone was here, that something mattered, that an ordinary moment belonged to a life.
Technology will continue moving forward.
That's what technology does.
But I'm becoming increasingly comfortable standing exactly where I am.
Not because I'm stubborn.
Because after all these years, I finally understand why I'm standing here.
And that matters.
David Wilson
Photographic Artist
