Like a lot of people, I’m at home rather than commuting to work at present. I’m lucky in that I can do a lot of my job from home, so I’ve been spending more time than I’m used to sat in my study. Yep, I call it that. We must maintain standards.
Just to the side of my desk is an old PC that runs my scanners. I didn’t take long for me to realise that I could poke a negative carrier along by one notch and hit scan, with no interruption to the day job.
I have rather a backlog of scanning. There were times past when I didn’t have the kit, the free time or the inclination to sit and feed a scanner. But now I have to sit next to one for eight hours a day.
It turns out there is some joy from discovering photos I knew I’d taken but lost track of. There is also some learning to be had in reviewing what I used to take pictures of. I have noticed that in the early days I used to take two shots of the same scene, from the same viewpoint, with the same exposure: basically two identical shots. I was so unsure of my technique that I was giving myself an extra frame in case of scratches, holes or other disasters. Totally unnecessary – I had quickly got past the stage of physically damaging the film by accident. I wish I had used the second frame to vary the exposure instead. How could I be so worried about damaging the film and yet so sure that I had nailed the exposure?
I can also see my photographic history through scanning. There is the black and white when I first started. It was cheaper to buy and I very quickly learned to develop it myself. Then I got a bit up myself and went all quality. There is a long period of slide film with just a few mono negs. I think these must have been the days when slide film was reasonably affordable. Of course, Real Photographers only shot colour slides, never colour negatives, and I so wanted to be good. It did leave me with an abiding love for Agfachrome 50s though. Then I probably realised just how far I had walked away from sociability and started shooting only colour print. I basically became a best friend of TruPrint. Does anyone remember them? You sent them a film in a plastic envelope, they developed and printed it and sent it back with a new film and envelope. It’s like the scene in Brazil with Sam Lowry and the message transport tubes.
Then we go through a digital period with hundreds, probably thousands, of pictures that only exist in my computer, with a few having made it onto the walls. Then the black and white reappears, but edgy and experimental. Or shite and forgotten how to work it. I never really left film photography, but it dropped back to a minor sideline for a while. One thing I do remember is asking for Agfachrome in a photo shop, to be told that it was no longer made (not since 1984 – eek!). I suppose I should be glad that they had even heard of it. A bit of a Fly Fishing moment. [And I have just realised that all the references here are to the 1980s. Not deliberate and certainly not nostalgic.]
But, unlike some, I don’t think I have ever thrown a set of negatives away. Well, not that had any sort of visible image on them. So I am working my way through boxes of badly-labelled slides and negatives. I can only think that, at the time, it was so obvious to me where and when the pictures were taken that I thought labels were superfluous. I admit to having completely forgotten some of the places I have been. Tunisia was one. I recognised the pictures, but the label on the slide box was a puzzle until it came drifting back. Yugoslavia? I definitely remember going, but I had no idea what it looked like or where I had been. And things keep turning up in the pictures that I thought were in completely different countries. A large stately home turns out to be in Ireland and not Northumbria. A decorated column is in Leningrad, not Rome. The camel was not in a zoo.
But this is not about my focus being much more on the present than the past (a polite phrase for dodgy old memory), or on my former globetrotting (well, stumbling). The pleasure here is looking at the old photos and being mostly very glad I took them. The interesting thing though is how the importance of pictures changes with time. Scenery that was spectacular to be in results in (usually) meaningless pictures with nothing in them. Snapshots of people and places become fascinating. Friends grow old, children grow up, cars become classic. If only hair grew longer and waistlines slimmer.
Fun though. Plus I have discovered some excellent pictures of people that I will use again, especially one of my sister which awaits her next major birthday. The things I shoot have altered a little, probably for the better. There is less of the dull landscape in recent times and more interesting stuff. In the early years I seemed to hose the world with my camera. Since then I have learned (and occasionally practice) that a picture of everything contains nothing, so there is more of the detail or single item that stands for the whole.
The other thing I noticed is that, despite what people say about the archival permanence of film, some of my old colour stuff is not holding up very well. It’s probably a good idea to get some of these old negatives and slides scanned as they are showing some odd colour shifts. The slides seem to be in better shape than some of the old colour negatives, although even some recent (2005) colour negative is showing some strong colour casts. All the better to get them scanned then. And what a good time to be doing it, when I’m locked in and getting distinctly Oscar with the wallpaper.
So here I am, like all of us, making a benefit out of a necessity.
Stay safe.
Fup Duck Photography 