I’m making it a point to get through some undeveloped film this week. Every so often I have to make it a point to put the camera away and focus my attention on what is probably the most critical step of photography, which is actually processing the image. I admit even I can lose sight of this sometimes. Picking up the camera and exposing frames of film always seems like the most glamorous part of making art but really the entire process is equally important; exposing an image, developing the film, scanning it, and ultimately printing from that negative either in a wet darkroom or digitally.
The fact that I have literally hundreds of rolls of film that have yet to be developed going back several years is proof that I probably put too much emphasis on the beginning of the process and not enough emphasis on the later parts. I don’t think I’m unique in this though. The other day I was speaking to a friend of mine who is a writer and he was complaining about how much he puts off the editing process when it comes to finishing a story or an essay. I couldn’t help but laugh a little as the struggle seemed familiar.
Anyway, just a little bit of an observation as I put the finishing touches on this image which was photographed near a large wetland marsh in central Oregon. This was a fun photograph to make with the Hasselblad in collaboration one of my favorite individuals to make images with. As I look at this negative my thoughts wander to the fact that less than twenty minutes after this frame was exposed we were eating a delicious breakfast at a nearby cafe and I was rambling about how much I like to visit antique stores.
Strange sometimes the details about a day that stick in the mind.