Over the past few years, I have moved further away from straight photography in my creative practice. Any follower of this blog will have known that I have taken various drastic departures in pursuit of image making. At the same time, I’ve struggled with the fact that a “photograph” by is intrinsically representational.
Regardless of whatever manipulation one does: with lens or camera choices, post exposure manipulation (both analog and digital) there are still the fingerprints of some direct representation of the world within the image. This continues to be a quandary for me to deal with creatively. I have been revolting against the stream of similarity of images on social media: the impermanence and banality of even the most technically proficient photographs. Interesting subject matter or interesting concepts represented in a straight photographic manner for one reason or another has lost its appeal to me.
And yet. As I wrestle with this paradox I am looking for a detente of sorts. One small step I have recently taken is to carry around a small point shoot some camera with me. Through my daily obligations and travels I’ve been snapping photos of anything that happens to catch my eye at a certain point. I try not overthink the relevance of the subject matter, nor the technical approach. At the same time I am creating straight still photographs of the world around me.
This week I developed two rolls of the film I shot and it is still curious to me that even the most throwaway images seem to possess some kind of extra power when locked forever in silver halide on a roll of film. What might become of these images? Nothing, most likely. However, spending an evening developing, then scanning and studying his images has served some form of emancipation from my internal struggles with the work I create. There is still something quite alluring about seeing 36 images lined up on a sheet of paper. This current practice of mine, resulting in a contact sheet to meditate upon, is well worth the time invested.
2022: 3
2021:6 ...... Contact Sheets
My love of the photographic process reaches far back, as it probably does for most of us who toil in this practice. I have distinct memories of so many aspects of image making, that have wormed into my brain. Memories of things I hardly remember from long ago. Memories of the smell of a darkroom, memories of a print coming to life in a tray of developer. The feel of a roll of film in my hand, in complete darkness, as I fumble with a metal reel and tank. The smell of the inside of a film container, the plastic and latent silver scent intoxicating my young mind.
Recently, I was recalling an early memory that I had forgotten about, from many years ago. A childhood memory that laid buried in my brain, almost completely forgotten. Growing up in 1970s New Jersey I lived in a suburban, middle class town. Our entire neighborhood was populated with families with kids. So many kids, ages from pre-K to teens. We all interacted with little regard for any age-inflicted stratification. There was one particular house at the far end of our street, that a group of the older kids (teens) lived in. They were also part of the most liberal, progressive family on the block (in the 70s they were the “hippie” family.) The teens were, to my eyes, a bit wild… long hair and wire framed glasses, like John Lennon. One of the boys was also a photographer. Well, he owned a Nikon camera, that much I recall. One day he arrived in our driveway, showing off to me and my sisters, a mysterious sheet of black and white paper, with little rectangles of images on it. I didn’t comprehend really what it was, and where it came from. But I do remember being intrigued by a series of images, that looked like they told a little story. I think they were from some road trip, in upstate New York, perhaps. There were a few rectangles showing our neighbor urinating on the side of a road. I remember reacting in a confused manner to those few frames. Why would you take a picture of that? Thirty six little pictures. Thirty six moments of magic.
Up until that point, photos were things I saw in frames on a living room table, or pressed in a photo album, behind a thin layer of static cling, plastic sheeting. Sometimes a snapshot or a Polaroid would be shuffled out of a shoebox. This was a new thing… now I know the reason for a contact sheet, and the inherent magic of it, too. The outtakes, the misfires, the hidden gems, the one or two “winners” of the roll… they’re all there. The photographer’s secret story. Often not seen by any audience besides themselves. Hunched over a table, with a magnifying loupe in one hand, a grease pencil in the other. Contact sheets are something that get lost in today’s digital photography world. You can replicate the experience with a simple setting in Lightroom, which I use as my own virtual version of the darkroom practice nowadays. But something is already lost, as these are usually curated sheets that I’ve culled the duds from. Those of you who have spent any time shooting film and exposing paper in a darkroom know there really is no substitution for a contact sheet. It’s as elemental to the photographic process as the sharp smell of stop bath, wafting from a red lit tray.
2020: 7 (Enter The Samurai)
If you’ve been reading this blog these past few months, you would know that I’ve been bitten by the half-frame camera bug. A cherished souvenir from a trip to Japan last year is the gorgeous Olympus Pen EE-S. As much as I love this camera (and I do love it) it does have some serious limitations. I have been able to adjust my shooting style to accommodate the zone focusing system. The biggest hurdle is that the ISO range only goes up to 200. Not really conducive to shooting in every condition. This was especially apparent when I popped off a roll of film on a snowy early morning in the bosque. The camera struggled in the low light. Since I’ve committed to a year long project shooting half-frame, I really wanted to have a solution that would let me shoot a faster film. Enter The Samurai.
The Samurai is a ridiculous looking camera, without a doubt. It looks like a 1980s camcorder. Though it will never win a beauty contest, it is a secret weapon that I immediately appreciated when it finally arrived via an Ebay seller in Japan. Buying it sight unseen was a bit of a risk, but after a quick test roll, I realized I scored a perfectly functioning model. It has tele / wide zoom capability. It has a DX code range that goes up to 3200. It has a clunky but functional auto focus. It has a flash (which I had to figure out how to turn off.) Though it might be hard for me to justify a camera purchase not being a symptom of G.A.S., this little oddball is satisfying a need in my process. If the contact sheet above is any indication, I will most likely be using this gem for more than just my current year-long project.
2019: 12 (Magnum: Contact Sheets)
I made two resolutions this past New Year’s Day. One was that I would write a blog entry on this website once a week. I have kept this up for 12 weeks, so I consider it a good start as we round the corner on the first quarter of 2019. The other resolution I made was to purchase at least one photo book every month. I was excited when the most recent purchase arrived in the mail. As you can see it is “Magnum: Contact Sheets.”
The book is a fantastic look “behind the curtain,” so to speak; to see the rolls of film that have yielded so many historic, incredibly memorable icons of 20th-century photography. Looking through this book triggered so many memories for me, recalling the days when I was strictly a film photographer. Exposing 36 exposure rolls of film, developing the film myself, and then finally making a contact sheet of each roll. Finally seeing all of the images I captured with my camera. There is still a feeling of magic for me when I look at contact sheets. Hence my joy of adding “Magnum: Contact Sheets” to my library. I love looking throughout the book and seeing the photographers’ markings… isolating the specific image that they chose to print, seeing that frame on the contact sheet marked in bold grease pencil.
Though shooting digital photographs has many advantages, there is something lost when there is not a tangible record of the photos that came before or after the ones we choose to show the world. I highly recommend this book. It should be part of any serious photographers personal library. It might even inspire you to grab a roll of film and shoot “old school.”
2019: 8 (Scanning Through The Past)
Digitizing my old contact sheets is like taking a walk through a life I don’t even recognize anymore. At the same time, deep down in the recesses of my mind I can remember being in those exact places, taking those exact photos.
What are we losing when we only shooting digital photographs? What will be left behind when that hard drive with our entire library of photos finally kicks the bucket? What happens when your phone breaks (or is stolen) and you never thought to back it up? What happens when that file format is no longer recognized by your desktop device 10 years from now?
I can honestly admit that most of the images I’m seeing on my old contact sheets leave a lot to be desired, but they are evidence of my creative development… for better or worse. And that alone imbues them with some value, probably only to me. It is good to be reminded where I’ve come from, and how far I’ve progressed.
To that end, the self-publishing bug that has bit me over the past few years has brought some sense of permanence to the fleeting stream of digital images I’ve been creating. And I hope I’ll pull one of my books off a shelf in ten or twenty years from now and see how much further I’ve gone.