Sunday, November 24, 2013

12 photos… Just 12 photos… now in Black and White...




I like to take photographs…  I have for some time… back in the days of silver chloride and silver bromide and dark rooms and such… I own two enlargers… trays… tanks and reels and such… all mostly obsolete…mostly in the attic...

I was lucky to go to a high school, and later colleges with photography programs… In high school we had darkrooms and studios and two full time photo teachers… we learned the technology, the chemistry, the rules of lighting and composition…

I have thousands of black and white negatives… many still waiting their turn to be printed… Some just record events… but some, even many are images… taken as art…    (not my father Art… art as art… )

Black and white turned to color slides… and eventually to digital… trading silver for silicon chips…

Changing technology has challenged my understanding of the technology… of control of the medium… but not my understanding of what makes a good image…  good composition, interesting lighting…  but the changing technology makes capturing the image more difficult… I have more to learn…  a new challenge…

If I learned anything, it was go out, take photos, look at the photos you have taken… be critical, and learn from what you see…

Now, with more time, I am revisiting the older images… liking what I have found… Some just family photos, but some more… I am scanning the good prints… I will be moving to either scanning negatives, or alternately printing and scanning prints of negatives.  Currently my slide scanner doesn’t like my operating system, so I will likely be buying third party softwear…

I have for several years had a rule (or at least a personal challenge)  to limit my albums to 12 photos… 12 photos are a good measure… 12 good photos… no more than 12 good photos…  These are not the hours long slide shows of National Lampoon’s Summer Vacation… they are 12 photos that speak to a place or time…   the first of the B&W images (B&W images is a link... just saying) is up…   A collection of photos of LA, and trips north… 

Randy

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