 |
| Oregon Forest (click to enlarge) |
Back in the 'old days' when we only had film with which to photograph, it used to be that I would find that over a month or so of photography, I felt fortunate if I made one or maybe two photographs that I really liked and thought were worthy of display. Film, film developing, and printing were relatively expensive so frugality was the norm when out making photographs. In other words, exposures weren't wasted. One didn't 'fire off' tens of exposures of a scene. Once carefully assessed the composition, set up for the best photograph and made maybe two exposures; one as a backup in case during processing the other negative got scratched. Since I mainly used medium format cameras and film the costs were even higher than 35mm.
Today, as the phrase goes, 'photons are free' and most of us are pretty prolific with how many exposures we make in any given situation. We don't give it a second thought, at least when it comes to cost per picture. Once invested in a camera/lens system and computer/software setup, making images is relatively free—gear-wise. Those one or two really pleasing images I made per month came from making a relatively few exposures as compared with today.
In the film days, depending whether my photographs were black and white or color, I would either print mostly an 8 x 10” (or up to a 16x20") enlargement in my darkroom or have a similar color print made by a lab. I could then buy a mat, cut an appropriate window and with framing pieces I would also purchase, assemble the finished photograph for display. In general, I was happy I made a photo or two that was worthy of displaying. Since there were few of them, I seem to always have a place for them on a wall.
Why more images than in the past? Now, with the extraordinary technical aspects, minimal cost and ease of use of digital imaging, I find I make many more exposures during any individual photo outing. I don't feel constrained. I now find, depending upon how much time I've had to photograph, that during any given month I may have made several images I think are worthy of display. I make a greater number of variations of any given subject I may be photographing than I did in the past. Instead of picking the 'best' composition and making a couple of exposures, I'll now pick several different viewpoints, focal lengths and points of view and make several exposures of each, sometimes varying exposure, focus point, depth of field, etc. Travel is so much easier in today’s world. We go to more places more often which gives us more opportunities to photograph. Another reason is that storage of digital files is much easier than storage of negatives, slides and hundreds of small prints. Also, I'm probably a better photographer as the years have progressed. I hope so, anyway. But a problem has arisen.
My problem has become what to do with all the satisfying images I've made? I can’t print all of them. I can’t display all of them. I don’t think I can send all of the images I really like to my website. I can't post them on this blog. What typically happens is I code them in a specific manner in Lightroom and there they stay—generally unseen by anyone but me. As time passes, many are largely forgotten only to be rediscovered once more as I randomly look at images in my catalog.
I know this is a first world problem, but it is frustrating to make what I think are good images and have nowhere to show them—not even to family members. In my mind, photography is better when you can share your work with others. Not to impress, of course. But any artist or creative person derives satisfaction in showing other their creations. That is why most of us have websites, use Flikr, Smugmug, Zenfolio, Squarespace or other platforms to park our work. I also use this blog to share.
Unfortunately, I find myself making many more images than I can mat, frame and display in my home. There just isn't the room to do so. I've thought about a 'rotating' gallery. I've thought about a series of very small prints. I've thought about putting some sort of 'slide show' on my large flat screen television to be displayed as it goes into standby/sleep mode.
I don't know that there is a viable solution for making too many images except for not photographing as prolifically. I'm going to have to chew on this a while longer to see what solutions I can devise. In the meantime, I feel very fortunate that I have the ability, opportunity, gear and experience to have this problem at all. I'm complaining but I'm not really complaining, if you know what I mean.
Do any of you find that you have too many photographs you'd like to display but just can't? Let the rest of us know if you do and what solutions you've devised.
Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
All content on this blog is © 2013-2021 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.
Hi Dennis, hope you are well and continuing to feel better after your bout of Covid - we had it too (Delta - very rough!) and are only just starting to get back to normal now.
ReplyDeleteI sympathise completely with this post, I have exactly the same problem, and began reading it in the hope that you had come up with a solution!
Realistically, I'm not sure there is one, if the high volume we (both, apparently) shoot continues. I've considered transitioning back to film photography, partly for this reason...
I suppose another solution would be trying to apply the same discipline to digital photography as we did in the past with film - i.e., forcing ourselves to slow down and approach the scene as if each shot did cost us MF or LF film prices!
Hard to do, in practice, but I really must try it myself, as realistically I can't see myself returning to film photography in practice. For one thing, living in a major city these days space is at an absolute premium and I have trouble even storing my old negatives and slides - hard drives are considerably smaller. For another, the price of old, largely unrepairable, film cameras has gone through the roof and is, frankly, ridiculous to my mind!
All the best,
James
James, good to hear from you. Sounds like you are thriving. I’m not sure there is a satisfactory answer. Shoot less and be much more critical of one’s work, only showing portfolio grade images may work? As for film, I’ll never go back. I agree with you about the rising prices of film cameras. I’ve held on to about 15 film cameras of various qualities that I had used over the years, but I don’t suspect I’ll use any of them in the future. The best of them are 2 Pentax 6X7s, a Nikon FE2, a Leica M3, my first interchangeable lens camera—my Minolta SRT-101, Olympus XA, a 4X5 Speed Graphic and a bunch more. Even though I don’t plan to use them, they each mean something to me and I won’t sell them. I’ll let my kids figure out what to do with them after I’m gone.
DeleteYou've certainly tackled the elephant in the room with this question, Dennis! From my experience, most photographers share their work mainly as email attachments. When friends go on a trip or attend an event, I usually get an email with a selection of their favorite photos included with the write-up. I enjoy them but they're small, compressed files.
ReplyDeleteI know a lot of photographers but I'm about the only one who prints his files on a regular basis. I make 8.5x11 prints and display them in Itoya albums arranged by subject. This is a carryover from my darkroom days so the many albums are a mix of photo and digital prints. Anyone wanting to see work my can just pull an album of interest and page though it.
I, too, had the idea of swapping out a display print on the wall every few months, and even went so far as to buy a box of 17x22 paper. But I lost interest in the project and never got the mat or frame. So now I've got a hard-to-store box of prints that never get seen.
Nowadays, however, I mostly post my work on Flickr. It's easy to navigate and lets me group photos into unlimited albums just like my Itoyas. It also allows posting files at the native resolution of the camera, so quality is quite high.
Jon, thanks for your comment and your personal experience with this issue.
DeleteIn the hard copy era, there were prints, portfolios, books, calendars. I used to have space for roationg prints on all the walls of the largest room of my home. That ended with my marriage license. Currently I display recent work using the slide show app on a large tv. It runs all day, There is a different image each time I walk through the room. I find it a good way to evaluate the strength of the image. I am about to add another TV. I like the Galleries portion of your website. A title slide covering a series of themed images is about an efficient as I can imagine. I wonder where all the Carousel projectors and trays went. That was a considerable investment back when.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. Coincidentally, my wife and I moved a year ago. We built a new home in a small town. Knowing we couldn’t and didn’t want to take 45 years of accumulated possessions with us, we ruthlessly culled out about 1/2 of our stuff and gave it to charity, needy individuals or just discarded it. One of the things I divested myself of was my Kodak Carousel projector and about 5 round slide trays. I had already digitized the slides that had been in them so they were empty but it was a bit difficult getting rid of a projector I had for over 40 years. Yes, it still worked well.
DeleteWe did just such a cull just before our London move in the summer. In some ways it felt quite freeing to divest ourselves of a lot of ‘stuff’, most of which hadn’t actually been used for years. I must admit, I wasn’t quite ready to part with my Leica slide projector just yet. It has now taken up residence in the spare room cupboard. I’m sure I’ll let it go at some point when we do another round of divesting!
Delete