January Meeting Review

This post, and the next few that follow, are out of sequence with when they were first generated. I have gone back into the emails I've sent out to the SL7 group to post on the blog. If you want to follow any threads these may kindle, please feel free.

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14 January 2009

Hi Everyone,

We had a good meeting last night, and a good start to the new year. This is just a brief review of our discussion:

1. No matter what our wishes are for traditional silver photography, the medium has always been the child of the marketplace. If film is being sold, then manufacturers will put money into research, development, marketing and supply of product. The current reality is that the market is moving toward digital. I have made very few silver prints over the last year. In part this is due to reduced market demand for traditional materials, so manufacturers have trimmed back their product lines or gone out of business. In part it is due to the rapid improvement of papers, inks and digital printing. I can make very, very good B&W ink prints that are at least as image stable as silver prints, and that are aesthetically satisfying. Yes, they are different than silver prints, just as silver is different than platinum/palladium prints. They are different but good, and much more practical to produce. So get used to it. Learn the new technology, and if you want to slog through making old technology prints, that is fine. Just know what you are getting into, and understand that the marketplace has changed.

2. Similarly with cameras. As much as I prefer shooting film, digital has advantages and is the area in which most new advances will take place. Learn to use the tools. You will need to eventually, unless you have a thousand rolls of film in your freezer and are prepared, sooner or later, to process your own film and make your own prints. I will continue to shoot film and scan the negatives. But I am also going to learn to use digital equipment. And the only way to learn to use it is to use it - the same process I went through in learning to use my film cameras.

3. Most people take pictures for fun or pleasure. That is how professionals start. But soon they take pictures for money. Or for Art (with a capital A). And then, often times that becomes the only time they take pictures. Fun is there on the fringes, but it is less and less of the motivating factor. When this happens, the kinds of photographs that are made are less adventurous, less risky, less fun, less good. It is important to periodically evaluate one's work. Is it only done as a job. Is one only making the same pictures over and over again, because that is the kind of work that you have become known for doing? You may not be in a rut, but you might be in a deep valley.

If this is the case, then it is time to have fun again. Make a point of taking pictures for the pleasure of it. Try things you haven't done before, or haven't done for years. Get out of the rut, out of the valley, and climb a peak and check out the view. One of our former regulars - Ben Jones - has made a commitment to himself (at least) to shoot something every day, to pay attention to the beautiful possibilities that are always around us if only we take the time to look. His Daybooks email postings are wonderful, and they inspire many of us who receive them to get back to our roots and make pictures for fun and pleasure, and for the sheer delight that comes with paying attention to life.

See you next month.

Kent Miles
Photographer
Great Portraits in a Classic Documentary Style

Photograph: Pierre's Stairs, Paris ©1983 Kent Miles