[Chris Saper]

Hi, Beth,

I now shoot slides of all my work, but didn't very often for the first few years. I have an old (this means OLD) Nikkormat, given me by my graduate school professor (who taught me how to use a darkroom, as well as a few things about organizational theory) when he moved into the 20th century with his own equipment. (Actually, I think this was already an old camera when I was in grad school which was in 1975 - yikes!) I bought a good quality macro lens for it, and use it only for shooting artwork. It's often kept loaded with slide film, although more recently I am using tungsten film which needs temperature control, so I'll generally shoot a whole roll at a sitting.

I gave up my even OLDER dinosaur Pentax, after I could no longer buy batteries for it in the US, since mercury batteries were banned some number of years ago. For my every-day and source photos I use a Minolta that actually auto focuses. Gosh, I sound like a dinosaur!

I think it is SO important to have a slide record of your work - I'm sure that competitions/shows, etc., will continue to request slides for many years to come.