Grain: Analog Renaissance
By having digital technology and by jumping into it so hard like we did, we've come to appreciate the things that are not digital even more.
There is a natural desire to make something with your hands.
When you see something that's made by hand where there risks involved. Not you can go back and fix it later. You could rotate it. You could colorize it. And you do it. And it has something to do with what you care about. That's incredibly attractive.
I learned to not know so much. It's better even when I photograph to put myself in a situation and see what happens. I don't wanna know the outcome.
In the darkroom, there is a respect for materials. There is a connection between the photographer and the paper. There are so many human factors that work together to make the final piece, the final photograph.
Living in the analog space, it's not just about the final result. It's about the whole process.
The way I shoot can only be like that because I don't see what I'm actually shooting on the back of the camera. If I saw something on the back of the screen, either I would say, "Oh yes, I've got it." or I would say, "I'll continue." but the next photograph will be affected by the previous one.
When I go out there, I don't have any expectations.
I'm not like "Oh, I need to get. I need to see. I need to get." cuz I know it's going to take a while to get to it anyway. And so when I go out there, it's just like I'm out here and this is what I'm doing.
I'm not worried about what the image is gonna look like. All of that thinking, all of that thinking about composition, what are you trying to say in your images? Where do you wanna go? All that stuff is super important. But I don't really do that in the field. I do that when I'm in my darkroom, when I'm looking through negatives and contact sheets or if I'm talking to friends."
When you use a digital camera, you live in the screen. You like take your shot, you look like, "Oh this could be a little bit better if I lined it up right." You're constantly editing yourself. You're thinking about photos. You're thinking about photography.
With the film camera, you think about what's in front of you.
There was this like psychological trick where it really like forced the divide between Jekyll and Hyde brain.
So there's one guy who goes out and does the work who like walks all day, exhausts himself, kind of embarrasses himself. And there's the other guy who receives that guy's work and looks through it almost as if it's like the discovery, discovered work of a stranger.
It's 1:00 in the morning. I get a file of scans like 150 new photos. I'm like, "Okay, what this guy do this time? What's worthwhile in this work? What connects to the full body of work?". And that just never happens for me with digital.
There is a certain state of mind, I think, that comes with using a digital SLR. The emphasis is on precision and technique. For me, it always was more about the camera than it was about the world.
And with a disposable camera, although you obviously sacrifice some quality and some reliability, it's just the kind of thing that you just pick up and point in the direction and hit the button and hope for best because no matter what you do, it's gonna look a certain way and maybe if you're lucky, it'll be in focus. Usually not.
The camera was there for those split seconds where I had that like flash of light. I was like, "Oh, there's a picture" or like "This is a thing worth remembering" or "That makes me feel really weird. This is hilarious".
It was just like this sort of almost an afterthought thing where I just had to have it in case instead of I have to have this complicated machine that can make a thousand documents of everything I look at.
Going to the lab still I was excited. I've been doing that for almost 15, 20 years. You can ask her like a little kid, do you have the photo? Do you have the photo? You don't have that digital. In digital, you've got a digital operator with a big screen and you're looking at the photo like that and you see them like "No. Yeah. Okay."
I do think film definitely influences my work. There is a different type of a connection you have with your subject. They know it's just something between you and the camera and the rule of film. They know like, "Oh, you got 36 shots and do the best you can with these 36 moments."
Analog process, it just slows me down. When I make my own work, I just put myself into it. I really have to see what I photograph, that makes me think about what I was looking at, what I want to photograph.
That slowness affords me to time to spend with my subjects, time to do other things, and it's brought my whole expectation level way down.
If you're shooting digital, maybe you expect a 100 pictures. If I'm shooting wet plate, maybe I expect one picture. That's a good day.