No Bangers Here

I’ve been taking, developing, and printing a LOT of photos lately — between the photography course I am enrolled in and the summer project I am working on. And despite having put maybe a dozen rolls of film or more through the dev tanks this past 2-3 weeks, there is hardly a single image I have produced that I really love or am genuinely excited about. I’ve been trying to understand why that is.

I think the pressure is on in my photography class to take pictures that meet assignment requirements and that are technically perfect. I don’t tend to be a technically perfect photographer. I prefer cameras of the lo-fi variety and film that is cheap and/or expired. I have some nice cameras and good film. I just don’t push myself to make ideal images. Usually, my favorite shots are happy accidents.

In seeking out themed subjects or specified lighting conditions or controlling for depth of field or shutter speed or whatever, I get so focused on getting that singular aspect of things right that I stop enjoying what I am doing. The resulting photos just don’t sing.

Mind you, I’m learning a lot from my class, especially about darkroom work, but the images I am printing, I do not care about one whit. Yes, they have nice contrast and are well exposed and are in focus and may even be nicely composed, but they are a boring. I’m not doing my best work by any stretch.

So I’m just going to get through the next three weeks of this course, learn all that I can, keep shooting and developing and printing. At the end of it, I have to believe I will be a better photographer for having done so, at least in terms of my knowledge of how to use my gear and how to navigate in the darkroom. Better images will probably come after the end of this course, once I feel freer to make my own creative and technical choices and feel less pressure to produce work against a particular deadline. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.