Mouthpiece 2: looking back to go forward
A hard drive crashing is never a good thing but, as an eternal optimist, I can see the good that is coming from it. I’ll get to that.
Don’t worry - it’s not as bad as it could’ve been – I have it all backed up in the cloud and this was a backup hard drive anyway. It has drawn my attention to just how full my main drive is. While the price of external memory is far cheaper than it was, I still don’t want to be buying new drives unnecessarily. It was clearly time for a good old-fashioned clear out.
As a street photographer, I’m very well used to that boom and bust cycle of returning on a high from a good day’s photowalk only to realise that a meagre three of the 600 images I took are worth a second glance. However, I only ever delete the very worst – completely missed images. Logically {and mathematically) this means that a good 95 to 98% of images on my hard drive images were there for no reason at all.
Piccadilly Grind. Oct 2014.
Now, I know that some of those are almost there, also-rans, and close enough. Some are images which have something about them; something which may become apparent one day – I really do think this. Maybe I took an image instinctively and I’m not yet fully skilled enough to appreciate it. Or an image, which processed or cropped the right way, will earn a place in my library.
That still leaves an awful lot of dead weight.
Paris, France. June 2014.
In the interest of sound financial management, it was time to kick out the junk and free up some space. It was therapeutic – keywording and organising as I went (like one huge sock drawer). It was time consuming (very). It was nostalgic - family no longer with us, kids when they were small, holidays enjoyed. It was also quite an eye-opener.
My first tentative street photography images from 2014 (before I even knew street photography was a thing) had far more about them than I had expected. Sure, there was a freshness and innocence which was, at times, jarring and embarrassing– some were literally just people on a street. But there was also a distinct voice in those images and the beginnings of a voice that I could definitely recognise as mine, if a little high pitched. I could still see why I had taken them and what I was trying to do.
Cambridge, England. Dec 2014.
At times, I was bowled over by how bold I had been to even take the image - am I backing off more these days? Have I become more cautious? Perhaps I was more prepared to experiment.
Some of these images have been processed. And boy had they been processed – within a hairsbreadth of their fledgling lives. Clarity crunched. Texture trashed. Saturation off the scale. Some of these could be reset and salvaged – and in a spare set of moments I intend to revisit them
Perhaps time spent looking at others work and teaching myself through YouTube had led to some kind of aggregation or a smoothing away of rough edges.
It’s not unusual to overdo all of these things when you first discover the processing toy box. What surprised me was the feeling that I actually preferred some of them to the more subtle, real life processing I’ve been aiming for in recent years. My recent images feel more like a clinical document instead of an expression of how it felt to be there at the time.
Deep down I always knew that my photography was not aiming to be a scientific record or historical testimony; but something more about mood, environment, character and art. What I hadn’t expected was that these faces from the past would cause me to pick up where I left off– pushing me to express more of my own vision through both the images I take and how I process them.
Looking back has taught me to see a truth that had been clouded and has enabled me to strive for something I now realise I had lost. I had lost sight of the expression, the art, in my records of the street.
Out with the old. In with the old.
Recently I had to undergo minor surgery and I am now fifty percent through a two week convalescence period. Unable to work or do little more than rest, it has been an opportunity to listen, watch and read. My mind has also turned to my photography (predictably) and I took the prudent step of closing my online store which just seemed to be an excuse to throw money away. Instead I bought a printer, thinking it would be a good project while I convalesce. Of course, it would be. However, having had it delivered, it is now languishing by the front door - as if unable to make up its mind as to whether to come and join us or scurry away from whence it came - because I am unable to lift anything heavy for 2-4 weeks. It’s very zen - teaching me patience.
Watch:
These videos from Nigel Danson and Thomas Heaton have whet my appetite for getting started with printing my images myself.
Thomas Heaton
My Printing Workflow from Start to Finish
How I Run & Operate My Photography Business
Nigel Danson
7 PHOTO PRINTING MISTAKES to AVOID
READ:
I’ve had lots of time to read - often in the middle of a three hour stretch of discomfort in the wee small hours. I am really enjoying getting stuck into “Comanche Moon” by Larry McMurtry and part of the Lonesome Dove westerns - if you like that sort of thing, I’d definitely recommend the whole series.
Photographically, and with my budding printer’s cap well and truly doffed, I found Robin Whalley’s short ebook Perfect Prints Every Time: How to achieve excellent photographic prints Kindle Edition to be a great walk through for what’s looking like being a bit of an inky minefield. Robin has several short and very practical ebooks available and also runs a YouTube channel of his own. It’s full of useful videos about various photo editing software programmes, printing and landscape photography. Plenty to support any kind of photographer.
Listening to….
A music headed colleague and kind soul, sent me a playlist which she called Recoup to help me during my convalescence. The first track seemed so evocative, lying wide awake in the middle of the night. Here it is: "Epilogue" by Olafur Arnalds
I hope you’ve enjoyed this edition of Mouthpiece - if you have any thoughts or similar experiences looking back on your earlier works I’d love to read them in the comments below. Similarly, if you have any tips, advice or things to avoid with home printing that would be great too.
Or if you just want to drop by and say hello it would be good to hear from you.
I will let you know how the whole printing thing shapes up!
All the best,
Southsea, England. July 2014.