The following might sound completely silly – but how boring would life be if we are not allowed to be kind of silly from time to time.
Bridge, Heidelberg, Zero2000
When I work with my 8×10 pinhole camera, there is something special. I do not know exactly what it is, but I think it has to do with dealing with one negative only — or should I say one exposure only. That means, different from other formats, with 8×10 I only develop one exposure at a time compared to 4×5 where I develop 6 exposures at once in a tank or medium format, there it is 12 exposures or 35mm where it is up to 36 exposures, not to count multiple films in one tank. For me this means, when I expose a sheet of 8×10 it is pretty clear what I want to do with the negative, e.g. will it be a kallitype or a lith print etc. Yes, usually I also have my plans with my medium format images, but it is thought through in much more depth when I use that 8×10 camera. It is more of an I produce a photograph — one photograph — approach. It is more dense, also in time. Usually after having developed that one sheet of film I will be in the darkroom again the next evening or even the same day to print it. To print
that negative. It seems that I am much more connected to that particular negative.
Bridge, Dresden, Zero2000
This approach does not mean, that my 8×10 images are any better or worse than my images from other formats by definition, I also take the time I need for each of the exposures when using 4×5. But it means that I am more satisfied with the whole process. And that might influence also the quality of the print. It is the one print approach.
And that leads me to a question driving me for some time now: How many images are good for you?
Now in the age of digital, where an image costs only a push on the shutter release button, many people make or should I say create a lot of images. Go out to the internet, on flickr, pbase, or photosig to only mention a few and you see millons, billions or even more images. Some very good work, and some work which you probably do not like, who cares, we are flooded with images anyway. And it is not only a digital phenomenon. I see this when looking in the mirror, I make a lot of photographs. I make probably many more photographs than it is good for me. Probably there are still some good negatives in my files which wait to be printed and never will. Maybe because my printing is not able to follow my capturing (number-wise). And then new work is always more interesting than old work.
I usually do not store my negative files in the darkroom. But what I have in the darkroom is a drawer where I put in the negatives which I currently work on. And they will stay there for some time because I may come back to a negative after some time and have a look at it again. If you are a photographer yourself, you may have had the same situation, when you are in the darkroom, put a negative into the film carrier and once the image is projected to the base board you immediately realize: not today, maybe tomorrow.
Now a few days ago I was looking for a specific negative and had to browse through all the files in the drawer and found out that I had nearly 70 files in the drawer and by randomly putting them on the light table I found a lot of images which I have never thoroughly looked at and which are probably worth taking a closer look – two of them you can see in this post. And for each of these 70 files I had to make the decision — leave them in the drawer or take them out? How many images are good for me? Probably fewer images than I capture.
So, ask yourself, how many images are good for you?
