Here's a general photographic question for the group, how do you
strike a balance between working with photos you've already taken vs.
shooting new photos?
Here's a good example, when I was away in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia
for 8 months I shot about 40 rolls of film, mostly during the last
month when I was travelling a lot. It was mostly colour neg with some
B&W as well (OM content, all shot with 2 OM-1n bodies, 35/2 and 85/2
lenses, I had taken the 24/2.8 with me too but I don't think I used
it). Just after I got back last May I started a colour photo
continuing education course. So I was able to produce some 8x10s from
that material that I'm quite happy with. I then took B&W photo (for
the 2nd time) in the fall and produced several 8x10s of my B&W work.
I'm now taking advanced photo for the 2nd time which gives me access
to both the BB&W and colour facilities at the art college (and they're
exceptional facilities). I'd like to produce some exhibition quality
prints of my SE Asia material (probably 11x14s) but at the same time
I'm also feeling like I've "milked" that for long enough and really
should be producing some new material. I've had the same instructor
for all 3 classes and he's trying to push me to shoot some new
material as well.
Since my return last May I've only shot 2 rolls of film and about 10
sheets of 4x5 (3 individual shots with a lot of bracketing since that
was my first time working with sheet film). So my shooting volume
could definitely stand to increase but it's winter and I don't have a
car so I'm somewhat inclined for this to be my "down season" and to
take advantage of the excellent photo facilities at the school.
There's the added pressure in that the school is starting to crack
down on people repeating the same courses several times just to get
access to the facilities so I will probably not be able to do any
continuing education photo courses at the art college after this
course (and arguably, I should really move on to something that will
stretch me more). I only have 7 weeks of course time left (with a
loosely-enforced 10 hour per week limit on using the darkrooms).
I am feeling a bit burnt out with the SE Asia material but then I'll
look through the proof prints I have from the lab and find other shots
that I haven't printed yet that I think are really good.
Any recommendations on how to hit a good balance? This really extends
beyond just this one course. I know every photographer has to find a
way to address this question. Continually shooting can be great but
then there's the question of what you do with the growing pile of
negs/slides/files that you never look at again. On the other extreme,
you end up essentially "resting on your laurels". Even if I take the
course out of the equation I'm still left with a very low shooting
volume at the moment but also the issue of having huge amounts of old
material that I should scan and add to my website (I think the most
recent material is 2004 and there's huge gaps in the earlier stuff as
well).
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