A year has passed again and it is time for me to prepare for the annual JRP chapter exhibition, starting Tuesday next week. Last year I showed four landcape images, taken on 8×10. This time it is all 35mm, eight photographs taken this summer during my summer holiday in Europe. Actually I am rather surprised that after feeling to struggle with pictures from back home so much that I had anything presentable at all. Still, with some emotional distance and good efforts editing down the selected images seemed to improve the more I looked at them. Now I am quite pleased and the images appear to have taken on a life of their own.
I have spent the last three days wet printing them to 14×17″ size, something I have not done in many many years, could be over ten years. The first day I just spent figuring things out and wasted a lot of time and paper. I don’t have space for a set of large trays so I used my Jobo print drums. This caused some problems (heavy streaking and rapid developer exhaustion) but on day two I found that the remedy was a 3-4 minute presoaking in water. The paper is Fuji Bromide Rembrant V fiber paper in double weight. After that the processing was flawless and I needed to make the eight prints in half the time, which was a challenge, but now they’re done and just need another wash and then put into the frames.

Like last year, a senior JRP photographer will visit the exhibition and offer individual feedback on the work of everyone. This year it will be by Yasuo Otsuji. I was very nervous last year about this, but this time I am a little more confident about it, so I am looking forward to the day (and the obligatory Japanese style party afterwards with many speeches). I just need to think about how to better explain the images as the people who I talked about them so far did not fully understand.
I cannot overstate how satisfying it is again to work on a set of images from capture to seeing them on paper. This is something that seems to have been lost with the advent of digital and the web. You put your images on Flickr, and that’s it. For me this is a waste and will not contribute to your self-improvement as a photographer. Producing work is all about making serious commitments, and printing something even with a lot of effort really makes you think about your images. Seeing the work prints in the evening makes you think about your images. Putting them into the frames makes you think about your images, and so does hanging them on the wall. Sitting in front of the computer doesn’t seem to do this for me. First because I would rarely spend long enough time at my desk to get in the right frame of mind, and then I’d always think that it’s just an image on the screen — and the bar hangs low for these.
This is not criticism of ‘digital’, don’t get me wrong, but the web and digital publishing will, in my opinion, encourage laziness and casual attention to things and as humans we are susceptible to such temptations and it will get harder and harder to push yourself to the finish line. It is like trying to get yourself home cooking when cheap and instant fast foods or ready meals are available at all times. I have always maintained that digital does not add anything substantially new to image making, like a PC does not to the act of writing. The key is the increased means of distribution, and this is as much a blessing as it is a curse. The web has a lot of true value, but also an overwhelming power to just offer endless diversion, which we need to be conscious about. For every resource out there, there are 99 unproductive ways to spend your finite time dedicated to photography.
There are no shortcuts and not the photographer who has the best equipment or knows his darkroom or Lightroom the best will succeed, but the one with the self-discipline and vision taking a thought process from beginning to completion, going all the way over the many bumps and detours on the way. This even works when it is not your best potential output you are dedicating yourself to, as long as you are working on something you set as your goal. Commitment — to yourself, to your work and to the discipline of photography.
You are right, displaying prints gives images a tangibility that they don’t have as computer-viewed images, and that brings up interesting issues of confrontation and commitment that you don’t get just by posting them online.
The first year I had a gallery exhibit, just at the stage where I had finished the prints and was lining them up trying to decide on the hanging order, I suddenly became crushingly depressed about them. I was sure they were completely trivial, that no one would want to see them, and that it was a waste of time to go on with the exhibit.
However, I had to go on because I felt obligated to do the show. And once the prints were on the wall, I felt much better about them.
The next year, at exactly the same stage, I felt exactly the same crushing depression. And the year after that, and so on… eventually I realized it was going to happen at that stage EVERY time I did a show. I’m glad to know I’m not the only person who has this problem!
I too have difficulties taking pictures where I live but none at all when I travel. However my portraits are all done here where I live in South Australia. They can be found on Leica Boutique website.
Best wishes for your exhibition and many thanks for Japan Exposures which keeps me reading about photography in a country I just love visiting.
Regards,
Gary Haigh
Thank you Gary. I am pleased with the results and having my photos up. It was an important experience for me in many ways, I will try to elaborate in future posts.
I can only agree with you. It This post, especially the second half, could not come for me in better time. Thanks!
These are 14″ x 17″? The streaked photo example looks considerably smaller. Is there a link to the whole set? It’d be interesting to see the selection you went with.
I was able to make it to the show and can indeed vouch for the 14×17 size. The unattached clips in the left foreground make it look smaller- the ones attached to the print at the right are the right size for 14×17. It’s a kind of an odd print size, but suitable for exhibition. Dirk, were the mats 16×20?
I think 17×22 is closer.
Actually the photo above is rotated to its side, which may look a little strange. It is hanging from the pegs on the left.
I don’t have the pics online I’m afraid. I am finding it harder to justify the effort of putting work online, especially the quality stuff.
That was an interesting essay you wrote. Talking about camera its brought back a special memory long ago, I lost my camera case cover somewhere over the mountain. Not too long later I had a new one. Just never know something can bring your memory back thousand miles away. Now I am no longer own that camera, but I had brought a new digital canon camera. I always enjoy taking picture and never forget my old film canon camera.
Umm… As to the maxim” digital does not add anything substantially new to image making, you could not be further from the truth. Why not simply say 4×5″ photography does noting that a medium format camera cant. Come on
Digital sees light in a vastly different manner. Since recording light is based on a digital system not analogue silver (Chemical) system, lenses, Depths of field, parallax correction… even tonal ranges are completely different. Some digital can essentially see in the dark. Personally, I am a film guy but i could never say such an asinine statement as that.
Umm… As to the maxim “Digital sees light in a vastly different manner”
“lenses, Depths of field, parallax correction… even tonal ranges are completely different. ”
Cool – examples with commentary please… start with these for example.