I purchased a new scanner: an Epson Perfection 4990 Pro flatbed scanner with an 8x10 transparency adaptor. For the past several years I have been looking for a good quality, affordable scanner for my 4x5 transparencies. I've not been using my 4x5 outfit as much lately, mainly because of the difficulty in digitizing the large-format film.

The reviews of the Epson 4990 were quite good. I wanted the Pro version which came with the full version of SilverFast Ai 6 and MonacoEZColor for calibration, but I was a bit put off by the price tag of $850 CA. However, this scanner is a long term investment, so I decided to go with the Pro option.

I wasn't expecting much in terms of image quality, having used several professional flatbed transparency scanners in the past (back in the 90s mind you). Wow, has scanning come a long way in the past couple of years! The detail and colour fidelity of this scanner are top-notch. And the one-time dream of a colour-managed workflow is now a reality thanks to MonacoEZColor. The Epson Scan software is okay, but nothing compared to LaserSoft's SilverFast Ai 6. After several days of use, I continue to be amazed at the rich features, ease of use, and quality reproduction of SilverFast.

I have been doing tests with images I shot in 2001 for my American Southwest exhibition. At the the time, I paid for professional prints from inter-negs. I was happy with the results, but knew that I could do so much better, given the necessary equipment. For the first time, I am able to fully realize, digitally, the vision of those earlier images. I look forward to doing more large format photography, next week at the Mountain Manics Summer Camp 2005, and in the coming months.

I am starting to get very frustrated with both the local "professional" photography retailers. Several things need improving:

• website: retailer "A" purports to have an on-line store. What a joke! No information. Perhaps 5% of the in-store product selection is listed. In the past store "A" was my favorite, but when I am on-line I look at store "B" for product info and pricing (which used to be higher, but now is consistently better than store "A").
• staff knowledge: the owners and long-time staff at store "A" are top notch. Helpful, knowledgeable. But busy. The new staff at both stores are a waist of time. They rarely have answers to anything but the most basic technical questions, and seem disinterested in helping customers. I am not a full-time Professional Photographer, however, my money should be as equally valuable as Joe Pro. I may not be in the market for a Canon 1DS MarkII, but in the past 5 years I have probably spent about 30,000 dollars on photography related products. Keep alienating those long-term customers.
• hours: I work full-time. Getting to the camera shop between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday is difficult. Both stores are open Saturday, but weekends are the time when I need to be out shooting, not shopping. Weekends are precious. It would be nice if retailers realized this and had extended evening hours one or two nights a week.

Aaron Springer has always been fascinated by language and communication technology. In Wolf Translations he built ready-made poems with the help of text translation software.

I've been shooting a lot of panoramas lately (even shot a 360 degree anaglyph, i.e., 3D, view of my back yard).

I've been used a wide range of equipment, including handheld panning, basic tripod panning, the simple and cheap Panomatic rotating base, and the heavy!! and expensive Manfrotto 302Plus.

The Manfrotto is the ultimate in precision, but I need something that I can carry in the field (without requiring a sherpa to haul my gear). To that end, I ordered the Pano Elements Package from reallyrightstuff.com. RRS has a great site (they don't sell through resellers) that provided tonnes of information and great product shots. I don't order a lot on-line, but I had a great experience with RRS. They are known for quality gear that has a fairly hefty price tag, but hopefully it is worth it. I will know when the shipment arrives next week.

I plan to carry a tripod and the pano-head with me when I hike in Arches National Park the first week of May. (The nice thing about the RRS Panning clamp is that it replaces the quick-release clamp already on my tripod head for less weight.) Look forward to the shots.

Sky Panoramas is an ongoing series of photographs that record wide panoramas of the open sky. The images have also been output and displayed as 44" x 13" prints.

Another series, with the working title Gestalt Geology, explores the aesthetic visual patterns and processes of Western Canadian geology. This series also uses the panoramic format to capture a wide slice of the land around us.

Photography has always been closely tied to technology. The reliance of the medium on relatively complicated mechanical devices and physical laws is both blessing and a curse. Through photo technology the artist achieves results not traditionally possible with more direct creative methods or simpler tools. Yet, freedom is not complete. The result is constrained by the limitations of the box, a hole through which light is focused, and the recording surface. The possibilities, though vast, are nonetheless finite. There are no purely conceptual photographs or photographers.

We are living in an exciting and turbulent time in which the technology of photography is in rapid transition. Digital image making has all but eclipsed 180 year-old analog processes. How we make photographs, even what we define as a photograph, has changed. Our conception of what photography means to our daily lives, and to our future, is in flux.

The obvious diametric comparisons of digital versus film are inconsequential. Questions which we can pose about the nature of photography Now are much more exciting. Rarely is a society afforded the opportunity to see change coming and to analyze its affect as it happens.

The sheer number of images produced each day by digital means is staggering to some. Consider the countless frames of video and surveillance also recorded each day and the awesome quantity of produced images becomes almost unfathomable. Photographs have ceased to be objects and have become information.

Concerns of quality versus quantity obviously arise. Has the proliferation of digital photography resulted in an overall reduction of aesthetic quality? Unequivocally, the answer is yes. Yet, consider the heated debates about the quality of 35 mm photography at the time of its introduction. A new kind of accessible and portable photography was born. Digital imaging continues to democratize photography. So, is this (temporary) loss of quality bad for the art? I say no. Quantity is the new quality. More is the new aesthetic.

More than one photographer, on contemplating the transition from analog to digital, has remarked that with a sparse number of frames loaded in a film camera they tend to work slower. They think more before they release the shutter. Along with ideas and concepts, the act of taking the photo, and then later painstakingly crafting a print, drives the process. The work is in the front end.

Working with a digital camera is a different experience. Not from a technical or mechanical perspective (though this may be true too) but from the point-pf-view of the process. Look, shoot, review, delete, repeat. Working digitally does not have to be like this, but inevitably it is. Likely more time is spent correcting, editing, cataloguing, and publishing than is spent shooting. With digital the work is in the back end.

Once create, the digital image leads a much more dynamic life. In the wild it will be copied and transmitted electronically, and be viewed by numerous individuals across the globe. The result of the digital image's ubiquity is that we as individuals and as a society are becoming more visually literate. With digital photography, being able to read the image is more important (and more challenging) than being able to create the image.

Direct comparisons between analog and digital should be avoided lest we widen the gap between the two camps. Yet change is upon us and the aforementioned differences between analog and digital are exactly the reason for that change. In the past—in the analog world—visual literacy meant being able to read one image, being able to decipher its signs and symbols in order to derive meaning from various dyes and crystals on paper. In today's digital world, with the multitude of images continuously created, transmitted, and then all but forgotten, visual literacy is about seeing patterns in the pixels, dots and bytes of many images at once or over time. Meaning and quality lie in understanding the effect of seeing tens of thousands of images each day and in decipher the mass of information.

Analog will never completely disappear. The analog aesthetic will go in and out of style. Photography historians will analyze the evolution of the medium ad naseum. Photographers will meditate over their art, film camera in hand, finger hovering over the shutter button, waiting.

And digital will be the future—at least until the next revolution. Soon the prevalence of the digital image will make the medium so common place that it will cease to impress. Innovation will falter. Photography will degenerate into a baroque display of surface and illusion. The next revolution won't be flat. It will be about space—not the frontiers of the heavens, but the dwindling gaps between you and I. The next revolution will be multi-dimensional—architectural. Digital photography's current popularity is a signal that it will inevitably be in decline—perhaps soon. But that is another discussion.

I am involved with a new group on Calgary called the After Thought Art Society.

The Society is hosting its first exhibition of member work at the Little Gallery, U of C, February 7 to 11, 2005. Opening reception February 7 from 4 to 7pm. For more information visit at-arts.ca

Palimpsest Image is the latest installment in the Solstice Essays series. Artist Aaron springer brings together ideas and technology in an exploration of image and communication.

I fired up my silkscreen studio a few weeks ago. I've completed one print so far and have another couple in the works.

I've also photographed some older prints and will get those posted soon as well.

Spent a week (Jun 29-July 4) sea kayaking in the Broken Group Islands in Barkley Sound, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Have some scans in progress that I will post when I have time.

I will be in Yoho National Park next week on the Mountain Manics Summer Camp. I think I will mostly be shooting black and white on this trip.