Fotographia
// December 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // Art, Photography
A year ago I had my first camera CLA’d (Cleaned, Lubed, and Adjusted). That Canon EF continues to serve me well. Today, one year later, I have 6 cameras, a deli drawer in our fridge full of film, and an unabashed love of photography. I would never say that I am actually a photographer, but I’ll always say that I have had a great amount of fun taking pictures or snapshots of my life over the last year. I have found myself becoming increasingly frustrated though. Frustrated with my lack of creativity, my lack of vision, my lack of…something. While this sometimes is apparent to me in when I have a vision of how a photograph should look but I can’t get it just right, most of the time it’s more apparent when I can’t get a vision of how the photograph should be at all. I told my wife one time that I was frustrated because I felt like all my pictures looked like snapshots. She replied, “but they are snapshots” and she’s exactly right. Maybe, for now, that’s my photographic “style.” The problem is that I don’t necessarily like that style, it’s just easier for me than to carefully plan out every picture on every roll of film or memory card. My goal for the next year is to plan more carefully when I shoot pictures. My wife will love this idea because it means I’ll take fewer pictures and develop less film. I think it will be more effective for me than the “spray and pray” technique practiced by so many, including myself. My other goal is to develop a real “vision” or “style” for my photography over the next year.
Here two photographers that, IMO, have an incredible photographic vision or style (is it a coincidence they both shoot mostly film?):
Zeb Andrews: This guy takes great shots using all (or mostly?) film cameras. Beyond his amazing photos, I think he also has a great philosophy on photography in general.
Wallace Billingham: Incredible long exposure Holga nature photography mostly taken in northwestern PA close to my hometown.
One of my resolutions this year was to blog more. Yes I know – that’s a lot of people’s resolution and so in the month of January the internet gets clogged with extra resolution posts. Part of this blogging resolution was also to take more photographs. Recently, I re-found my dad’s old 
I also didn’t realize there are such differences in film. Obviously there’s the speed differences, but even from one company to the next, people love or hate these different films. I can’t really throw my hat into this ring yet since I haven’t shot enough to really say one way or the other on anything.