Happy New Year!!!!
While I am ambivalent about many things … remember 2024? … I am very positive about my photography and my photographic life in general! And why not? I am just coming off a very productive photographic year and I have no reason to think things will change very much in 2025. Why? Because I don’t want it too and more importantly, I don’t intend to let that happen! So there!
I really think that’s what it comes down to, don’t you? Don’t letting it happen. And how to accomplish that? Making the time to get out there and photograph. Then making sure the exposed film doesn’t gather dust waiting to be developed. And finally printing the keepers. Look, what’s the point of getting out there if the final result doesn’t take place?
I know some people wait to the end of the year to print, and that’s fine if that’s really part of your planned workflow. Not a good idea if you’re sitting around and it finally dawns upon you that you have a bunch of film canisters sitting on the counter somewhere and it’s the end of December. Now you need to develop them, make proof sheets and finally/hopefully make some prints … oops, it’s February.
#$@%^&*(!
That’s one icky scenario, but there are plenty more I could think of. Please don’t let this happen to you this year!
So let’s all together make a resolution to make 2025 a banner year … to think about the positive and make and print meaningful photographs … and for good measure to do all those other things that enable us to have a fulfilling photographic life! I for one am planning on getting the new year off to a rollicking start by heading down to Washington DC during the coming week to see some very exciting shows at the National Gallery of Art.
Yeah baby!
Stay well and have a happy, healthy, and photographically wonderful New Year,
Michael
Well, Michael, it sounds like a good idea. But at the moment, I am on the road with just a C330 and two rolls of B&W and a few shots left in the camera, as I never got back to where I left more film and my developing gear (Thailand); and now. I am in a country where there is no film regularly for sale. . This was kind of an accident. Time was short. But I snapped my lady dentist yesterday and took some shots of a man walking down St. 172 in Phnom Penh,, a dapper Chinese man with a suit and a cigar who is named Dr. Cole. Maybe a decent shot when developed and maybe the Dr. Lina (dentist) too. But when I will develop these I don’t know, a again my developing gear is in Thailand. I am not quite sure that quantity matters as much as quality. But yes, one has to snap. The next stop could be Vietnam and maybe there’s some 120 B&W film there. And in Siem Reap (near Angkor Wat, where I will go in about a week, there is a second hand camera shop – so MAYBE some film. Plans change quickly. I will shoot sparingly. Maybe one shot per subject. (OK, I just read there is 120 HP5 in Saigon. And speaking of Saigon or rather Vietnam, you got something related to that in an email sent about 30 minutes ago). Hey, is this thing of yours like a blog? Also, I think VN is going to be better for film than Phnom Penh. Even though there’s a Film Cambodia FB page. And by the way and lucky for me, the C330 garners much attention.
Paul,
Great to hear from you and Happy New Year. Keep making photographs and find some more film. You never know when or if you will get back to all these fascinating places and time is short.
Best,
Michael