Resolutions For The New Year and Failed Self-Promises

Fishing Shack, Deal Island, Eastern Shore of Maryland (click to enlarge)
Nikon D800E, 24-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 38mm; 1/500th sec. @ f/6.3; ISO 100

Each year in the United States, this culture has developed a tradition for most people to resolve to do something, stop doing something and/or to change something about themselves or their lives.  Typically, and I think the most common self-commitments are, for people to resolve to start exercising and lose weight. We call them New Year's Resolutions.  I don't know if this phenomenon is something that is also common in other countries around the world.  Most people seem to make tepid attempts at keeping their resolutions but fail miserably.  Most efforts are very short term.  That included me.

Years ago, I gave up making any sort of resolution at the new year or any other time.  No promises either.  I figured I would do what I would do.  I came to the conclusion that I am who I am.  I used to have a philosophy that if you want to be happy in life, "be true to yourself", whatever that may mean.  I felt you couldn't be happy trying to be something you are fundamentally not or be someone you are not.  Being true to yourself, depending upon what type of person you are, could be good or could be a bad thing!  But you would be happy with yourself.

All that being said, each year, it seems, I make a commitment to myself to change the direction of my photography.  Why?  Well, for a several reasons.  If one does the same thing over and over again, year in and year out, one can become stale.  There is little growth.  There is little improvement.  There can a lack of energy.  Laziness can creep in. How does the saying go? "If you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got." Sometimes we need to stretch.

Another aspect of change sometimes takes one back to his or her roots.  Returning to where we "grew up" or "came from," so to speak, can give us pause and provide us with time to reflect on where we started, where we have been and where we may want to go in the future.  

I grew up photographically with black and white film.  Black and white photography is still my first photographic love.  Not much call for black and white photography today and it is not very popular compared to years ago.  Everyone and everything in the real world is color.  Color is how we live our lives.  Color is the norm.  But there is just something about black and white that still attracts me.

Skipjack bowsprit, Deal Island, Eastern Shore of Maryland (click to enlarge)
Nikon D800E, 24-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 24mm; 1/500th sec. @ f/5.6; ISO 100

Black and white was hard as we normally developed and printed it ourselves.  Color was easier as someone else did it for you.  Most people couldn't develop and print color at home.  Digital color is even easier with the editing tools to which we all have access. 

"Seeing" or visualizing in black and white is not easy and is a learned skill.  Don't be confused and think that because something is red and something else is blue that they may be differentiated in a black and white image.  The two different colors may look exactly the same.  That's the rub.  Color is "what you see is what you get.: Black and white takes effort to visualize the juxtapositions and differences in luminance levels and not necessarily hues.  But I still miss those black and white roots and when I see some outstanding black and white photography on the web, I yearn to just shoot black and white.

I spent years studying the slow, measured, methodical Zone System and I enjoyed every minute of it.  I learned the real craft of photography using a large format camera (4" X 5" or 5" X 4", if you are from outside the US), tray developed my film one sheet at a time and made enlargements up to 16" X 20" in my home darkroom. Every step of the process was thoroughly considered, given much thought and was deliberate.  There was no "running and gunning" as there sometimes was with 35mm film cameras with a motor drive attached or as it is with today's digital marvels.  No firing off multiple exposures looking to catch that one right moment.  Set up the tripod, carefully compose, one exposure at a time, each press of the remote release carefully controlled, all developing of film and processing of prints following archival methodology—all with great pride and dedication. 

One had to consider which film developer to use, how long to develop each sheet depending upon the exposure and contrast of the scene, which paper texture to choose and which paper contrast level to choose.  Quite complicated compared to today's digital world.  But the result was a beautiful black and white print with many beautiful and subtle shades of gray in between.  And... watching that print slowly emerge in the developer tray was special.  Many photographers fell in love with photography after watching a print appear in the tray.

Winter beach, Cape Charles, Eastern Shore of Virginia (click to enlarge)
Nikon D700, 24-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 36mm; 1/250th sec. @ f/11; ISO 400

This is not to say my photographs were any good, most were not.  However, as with most of us, I did make a few that have stood the test of time.  Back then it was the idea of learning a complex craft in the best possible manner to try to achieve results that, one day just might—but most likely not—mimic the photographs of some of the greats of the past and of the time.  Today, with the computers with lenses we call cameras (or phones), almost anyone can point them in a direction and make a pretty decent image.  Once in a while a really good one, with no photographic background or training. Two thoughts about that—that's good as more people are making images to record memories and their lives and not fair as photographers my age really had to struggle to learn everything the hard way—no computers, no internet, no You Tube videos, no automation, very few photographic schools and almost no workshops, etc.  One bought books, read and studied and experimented.  It was a lot different, but a lot better now, even though I wish I had the benefit of all we have today when I was learning.

All of this nostalgic diatribe comes back to the self-promise to change the fundamental way I have been photographing and move to black and white (almost) exclusively.  Why? Nostalgia.  Recreate my past?  Get back to my roots?  Get color out of the way and see the subject unadorned by multiple hues which distract the viewer?  Enjoy the subtle whites and light grays of highlight detail and the deep black and strength of shadow detail while enjoying an infinite number of grays in between.  All of those and more, I guess.

So, even though I want to practice a lot more black and white photography in 2017, I refuse to promise myself to do so as every other year I've broken that promise and have continued as I had been doing.  Self-disappointment?

I'll let others make, keep and/or break their new year's resolutions.  I'll just keep pushing forward the best I can.  But, I really do want to get back seeing and editing black and white and enjoy those deep blacks, those bright highlights with just a tad bit of beautiful detail coming through....  Let's see if I actually do!  LOL

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

All content on this blog is © 2013-2017 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.