When I look at old contact sheets, going back 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years I see the same struggle, the same uncertainty. As contact sheets, they are undistinguished. And yet, every so often, a notable image appears, seemingly by accident.
You can only go so long without pressing the button. More often than not, at the very moment when you press, you know that this is nothing special. Hardly worth the film. So why bother? Because the alternative is freezing up. You have to keep moving, keep shooting.
Gary Winogrand left over 100,000 negatives. They weren't all great!
Yesterday, I used up a roll of Tri-X and came away with two images I liked:
Just two of the many, myriad ways you can represent the human world without merely reporting on it. I could write a a few paragraphs explaining why I like these, but the purpose of this blog isn't to critique my own work — rather, to chart my progress and every so often hazard a guess where this might he heading.
Here, just for comparison, are two images from negatives exposed over 30 years ago. They could have been taken yesterday:
The second image would go well with the photographs I selected for my post on the The silver world. I wish I could find more of these.
No comments:
Post a Comment