My blog friend Prairie Jill and I are working through Steve Sonheim’s book each week this year.
This week Steve is talking about missing the part of the old days of film and waiting for the prints to arrive in the post or collect from the chemist before you saw the results of your endeavours.
I clearly remember being very aggravated by this wait.
Paul used to do a lot of portrait photography, I used to write the camera settings down in a note book and then, depending on how much it cost we would wait a couple of days or a week plus for the prints to be ready.
We would evaluate the photos then try different settings and off we went again.
The day digital came into the house was a wonderful day indeed and was the same day I took up photography.
Any way this exercise seemed to want to recreate the waiting experience.
Steve suggested that we cover up the screen on the camera and take a picture every five minutes for an hour or so without looking, evaluating or deleting pictures from the camera.
When your eyesight is a bad as mine, looking, evaluating (other than to see that there is actually something there} and deleting doesn’t happen until the pictures are downloaded to the computer, which could be a couple of days if I’m away. So for me it was a nudge to get out on a dry day between endless rainy days and take some pictures. My son was tasked with setting a timer on his phone.
This resulted in gales of laughter because he said that I take a picture every thirty seconds! A timer was definitely redundant today.
I have twelve here that I have processed in black & white and put into a collage for you to see.
I am looking forward to seeing what Jill did with Lab 6.
The rest I am keeping for Lab 7 next week.
The collage in colour
Which do you prefer?
Do you evaluate and delete as you go along or wait until you see the photo’s on your computer?
Wow! You got some great shots! I love the variety: long views, textures, graffiti, people. My absolute favourite is the blurry chain (bottom row, third shot in the b&w collage). I like both the colour and the b&w collages – they both work really well. I do like the pop of red/pink in the colour version!
Interesting story about your history with film photography. I didn’t realize Paul was a photographer, too.
I don’t usually delete photos from the memory card while I’m out shooting (the blurry vision thing!) unless I’m travelling. Then I sometimes need to do it so I don’t fill up my memory card!
Really enjoying this project, Miriam! So glad you suggested it.
What a great collage (I typed ‘coolage’ there, which I really liked but the autocorrect got in quick)! I love the far right middle – has the look of a polar bear about it :).
I never assess and delete as I go – I check I captured an image and leave everything else for the computer – even then I rarely delete – I just choose what I want for a given purpose. I was always aggravated by the wait too. Love the black and white collage and the idea of taking a photo at regular intervals on a walk
I like the second one for its subtle colour.
The wait I didn’t mind. In fact, opening that envelope used to be so exciting..but I don’t miss the price of the film. I used to save it up and take about two photos a day when we were on holiday. I’m glad those days have gone
This is a great project. I think I like the B&W better, and I never delete a photo while it’s on my memory card. I delete in Lightroom after I’ve seen them and when the memory card is full, I reformat it.
I love these, Miriam, especially the chain.
I never look until I get home.
Have a great weekend!