Recently I had a requirement that forced me to make a large number of prints in a somewhat quick amount of time. The reason … what else … I had put off getting the work done! I just had a lot of other things to do … thankfully, many of them photographic. Eventually, I had to place a self-imposed deadline on myself, lest the entire effort become irrelevant.

It reminded me a little of the action packed weekend I once spent assisting Michael A. Smith print some 100 photographs for a book and show on the city of Chicago. Now that was intense, but I did learn a lot. Nevertheless, I always wondered how Michael felt about doing such marathon efforts.

In any case, my situation was not about working with a Master. It was about catching up.

So here I was, printing for several days in a row, barely coming up for air, when I could have performed the same task at a much more leisurely pace over time. I don’t think that the final prints would have looked any different, as I always want to do the best I can, but it might have been a more enjoyable experience. Certainly much less stressful too!

All of this having been said, I’m glad I was able to do it, and that I did do it. So what’s the point? Well many of us are guilty of making images and never printing them. I’m sure there are also a lot of undeveloped rolls of film out there too. That’s even worse!

The issue is we all love to photograph, but we sometimes get lazy when it comes to bringing our vision to creative fruition with the final print! Yes, I didn’t enjoy that self-imposed experience so much, but I was still getting the satisfaction of seeing the work completed. And I was still a little happy that I was able to be in my darkroom that I love so much!

So don’t put off printing the images you thought important enough to photograph in the first place. There’s always a reason to not get into the darkroom. It’s cold down there. It’s football season. I don’t have the time.

Here’s a first step that will help. Assuming you at least get your film developed, make sure to do your proof sheets to determine whether there is anything worth printing! You don’t have to print right away. Some people wait a certain amount of time and then print only what they consider the very best of what they have accomplished. It doesn’t matter. Just make sure you do it.