Was writing about this tonight on Face Book with Mike Walker (photographer-camera maker) and thought I would expand on it a bit in the blog.
Over the last several years of shooting a thought occurs to me now again. I owe a debt to my film! Yes to my film!
Film of course is not alive, not really but somehow I feel it it. It is the stock that makes great negatives. Without film nothing happens for an analogue photog. I have started to feel ever more stronger as my shooting years pass that I owe my film a chance to become a great and important negative. A negative that will be fondled, coddled and protected ever so gently because of its enormous importance to making that great print, the great photograph it holds inside itself.
My film conviction will go to rather weird lengths. Sometimes I will even talk to my film or at least "think talk" to my film. Saying stuff like, "Lets do something good together.", "Now is your time, lets get it done!" I feel I owe my film, it is putting out for me, I need to put out for it and make that important picture. I need to give it a chance to potentially last forever.
Not sure where this kinda crazy notion came from maybe it is an extension of what I feel for all my social documentary photography subjects. I always feel I owe the people in my pictures, that I have to make photos that matter and tell their stories strongly. Giving your film the chance to become an important coddled negative fits that same train of thought. I wonder if painters in history ever talk to their brushes or paint? Do sculptures talk to their marble or chisels? Doubt I am unique in this type of worship.
Anyway, just thought I would write about my somewhat unique feelings on this. Thanks for reading, now I need to get back to the in depth conversation I am having with a roll of Tri-x.
Over the last several years of shooting a thought occurs to me now again. I owe a debt to my film! Yes to my film!
Film of course is not alive, not really but somehow I feel it it. It is the stock that makes great negatives. Without film nothing happens for an analogue photog. I have started to feel ever more stronger as my shooting years pass that I owe my film a chance to become a great and important negative. A negative that will be fondled, coddled and protected ever so gently because of its enormous importance to making that great print, the great photograph it holds inside itself.
My film conviction will go to rather weird lengths. Sometimes I will even talk to my film or at least "think talk" to my film. Saying stuff like, "Lets do something good together.", "Now is your time, lets get it done!" I feel I owe my film, it is putting out for me, I need to put out for it and make that important picture. I need to give it a chance to potentially last forever.
Not sure where this kinda crazy notion came from maybe it is an extension of what I feel for all my social documentary photography subjects. I always feel I owe the people in my pictures, that I have to make photos that matter and tell their stories strongly. Giving your film the chance to become an important coddled negative fits that same train of thought. I wonder if painters in history ever talk to their brushes or paint? Do sculptures talk to their marble or chisels? Doubt I am unique in this type of worship.
Anyway, just thought I would write about my somewhat unique feelings on this. Thanks for reading, now I need to get back to the in depth conversation I am having with a roll of Tri-x.
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| Coddled Yosuf Karsh negative of Winston Churchill |
