When I thought I was cool!!!

I was asked an interesting question yesterday. If I could make everything go back to film rather than digital, would I? Thats a tricky one really and I find it hard to answer. On one hand in my days of film I did feel more of an artist than I do now. I also used to feel like I was kind of cool developing and printing my own photo's. My room had negatives hanging from curtain rails, prints being flattened by heavy books were scattered everywhere. It was all a bit messy, but I loved it. The quality of the prints even when I look at them now have so much depth to them. It took more skill and time to make your photographs look amazing, but the rewards were so much more than what I am used to now.
However, for weddings I would not go back to those days at all. I used 3 to 4 different camera's all with different film types in. If something happened quickly that I wanted to capture, I had to use the camera that was currently round my neck. Photo's in very low light had grain the size of golf balls.
These days I use one camera and carry 2 spares. The low light capabilities of my current camera exceed what film was capable of by a long way.
The thing is, I am a much better photographer than I ever was back in the days of using film, but it is harder now to set yourself apart from the many photographers that are out there.
Its a bit like when I used to play Mario Kart with my friends on the Nintendo 64. At that time I felt that I was the greatest mario kart player there was. There were only 4 of us and our skills were pretty similar. Much later came along Mario Kart on the Nintendo Wii. Here I would play not just against my friends but against 11 other people at a time from all over the world online.
Suddenly I dont feel like such a master on it!! But its only by playing with these players that I would get better and even beat them.
So there are a lot more photographers now due to digital making it all more accessable. The world wide web has also shown me that there are many other skilled Wedding Photographers out there. Once again I suddenly didnt feel such a master.
Like with my Mario Kart example, I had to rise up to the fact and better myself to set myself apart from the competition. It keeps me on my toes and makes me keep improving myself.
So I may not feel like a cool artist any longer with the clean cut way that digital has brought to photography.
I am however better for it, and the photography that my clients get is of a much higher standard than it ever was.
I've come to far to go back!