The Importance of Being Printed
I guess it’s time for my quarterly blog posting. In this installment I am going to talk about printing and what you can learn from making a print from even a mediocre shot. Let’s face it - most of my shots are passable at best so printing gives me a little hope that I am creating something real and tangible.
A few weeks back I loaded some expired Kodak Gold in the Leica IIIf and took a walk in one of the better neighborhoods in town around midnight. I love the look you get with the combo of expired film, antique camera, and dead of night lighting. Kinda reminds me of a time when I sought out the poor places.
Mostly, all I ever had to do to find a poor place was step outside and walk a couple of blocks. I wasn’t ever rich, at least not rich in the kind of way that getting busted by the cops could be resolved by a call to the family lawyer, but I also wasn’t poor. I was rich in the “if you fuck up here, then you’re on your own. At least until tomorrow and that’s only if the person who might have bail isn’t sitting on the bench in tank beside you” kind of way. In other words, too rich to call family and not rich enough to buy my way out of a situation.
Not that any of this has anything to do with making prints. Or does it? You go to these places to experience something. Now, instead of alcohol I use camera and film to dull the senses (this metaphor might be a little too bleak). The point of taking the risk (or at least telling yourself that there was risk) was to have a good story or a raging hangover. Making prints is the proof of the deed done; a good story to share in preparation for the next time.
So get out there and tell a story of the night and when you get home make prints as proof that for that one moment in time you might have been in a little bit of danger.
