Roll 500 (05000031)
Somewhere in the last couple of weeks, my film-o-meter clicked over 500. That would be 500 rolls of mostly b&w since I came back to photography a couple of years (4-5?) ago. The website was born shortly thereafter. You can check out the bones of the original site in the wayback machine.
I’d been an avid photographer as a teenager, to the extent that I finagled three hours of class room time a day in the darkroom during high school, only in part as a means of hiding out. I lost the photography itch somewhere in college (poverty and illness . . . bleh), but I picked it up again when Kate and I got together (yes, the two are inextricably linked). Since then, apart from a few very short breaks, I’ve photographed almost everyday. It’s become a habit that would be nearly impossible to break.
After 500 rolls, I think I actually know less about what I want to do with photography, but I enjoy it more. Part of this is just improved technical skills - I spent 18 months fighting water spots on my negs - but the larger portion of the enjoyment comes from letting go of the fear, the fear of sucking, the fear of looking like a fool, the fear of being that guy that carries a camera everywhere, the fear of smelling like fixer, the fear of being obsessive, and the fear of spending nearly all your money on something that will likely only ever result in the slightest of monetary gains. Did I mention the fear?
Anyway, the first 500 have been fun, and the next 500 look to be even more so. Soon, I promise, I’ll cut out all this reflection and get back to the photography. Stay tuned.
i’m glad i recently found your analog photography site.
did you get rid of the water spots with wetting agent?
are these all single rolls you’ve purchased or do you buy bulk?
Thanks for the eloquent passage. Jim.
Jim, thanks.
Dooser, wetting agent and distilled water. Search the archives for the details or just click on the B&W technique category.
I gave up on bulk loading somewhere around roll 50. The loaders have a tendency to leave minute scratches on film that aren’t visible when wet printing but are certainly visible when scanning.
Congrats. I always look forward to seeing new posts.
So, what do you do for a living?
‘So, what do you do for a living?’
IT
Photography has always struck me as a very technical field of art. Earlier in life, I was a lighting designer on Broadway, which, while certainly technical, is also most certainly related to photography in an obvious way. Then, I got into game design through a fellow photographer who studied at Pratt in Brooklyn.
Now I am a Creative Director at a video game company, which most people perceive as very technical. A number of my colleagues are amateur photographers. Dave Beckerman (http://www.davebeckerman.com/blog/) was a programmer. Thom Hogan (http://www.bythom.com/) was a software developer. The move of photography to “almost’ all digital has brought the two fields together.
The relationship between f-stops and shutter speeds is daunting to many people (it certainly is to my wife, who I believe has a better ‘eye’ than mine but limits her photographic possibilities because manual photo-taking and the need to manipulate the light through those choices stops her cold.
It’s interesting to me how people’s minds work.
I think you would have also found many technical minded people involved in photography back in its early days. Making your own glass plates or mixing your own developers takes the ability to follow directions, think abstractly, etc etc etc, all those things you find in technical people. I imagine the same goes for many arts, but photography does seem particularly technical.
One thing I’ve noticed about IT people (programmers too) is that they often need something technical to do in the real world, something that involves manipulating physical things. A close friend is an obsessive brewer of beer, but I’ve known people who were really into building wood fired pizza ovens and making their own swords.
I recently met a composer who had first worked as a chef (another technical field believe it or not) but now is tester for a gaming company. It sounded like interesting work.
So yes, it is interesting how people’s minds work.
Congrats for the first 500 and best wishes for the next half of the (first) thousand :-)
Be sure that you’re not the only one enjoying YOUR photography practice :-) Although I keep on using nearly exclusively tri-x and D76, I find your thoughts about film and developers always interesting to read, and most of all, your photography very inspiring.
Thanks, Clement.
The links in the playback site do not seem to work - too bad. I have looking at your stuff since before you went to Korea. Anything earlier would also be nice.
You have a really good eye - which I suppose means that you make the kind of photo I like. Functionally speaking.