its that time of year

I want to get back to making cliché verre images. My darkroom has been out of commission since late May due to a flood, and the need to have my darkroom floor jackhammered for a sump pump installation. It also requires the replacement of the exterior door which, with my 2020 luck, isn't a standard size and had to be custom made. The door has been delayed by the virus, but is scheduled to be installed in mid-February. As I've been home since late March (I'm in the restaurant biz) a functioning darkroom would have been wonderful. Still, things could have been worse...

Sirius Glass said:

Other than photographing my latest grandson, I stopped photographic during the pandemic. This is not a time that I want to look back on.

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I'd kinda like to show the differences between semi-rural areas and cities. But mostly, I just like street shooting sometimes. I want to be able to move on, but I want to leave a record for those who come along in 30 years and wonder why older people just go "whew" when 2020 is mentioned. Overall, I've been shooting most of the same things I do anyway. My life consists of a fair amount of social distancing - I hike, I use the darkroom, I avoid people. My munchkin and I went looking for cool ice at Ohiopyle today. No film ruined, but some pixels contorted. Pretty much what we'd have done no matter the year.

sounds like some interesting and fun things to do in the upcoming year!
I hope you all get a chance to use your cameras or enlargers or glass and paper and
allow yourselves to escape from our present reality in the year to come. I've realized ( at least for me )
when I am living through a time of stress and unknowing sometimes I make the best photographs.

as for me? ... I've been working on a project collaborating with an island near where I live, sometimes with a camera sometimes not. the island is small and secluded and a nice place to be alone and think and commune with the natural surroundings. its a nice place to escape the last IDK 3-4 years.

Andrew O'Neill said:

Don't feel bad. You are not alone. Many Canadians spend way too much time travelling outside the country rather than inside. Still many places I need to see. The Yukon is on my bucket list. Maybe August, 2021! I would just have to drive straight up!

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Exactly this! Although to be fair, when I lived in Canada I never had much money to travel (except for a couple of years, was always a student). Now, whenever I go home I make it a point of visiting a new place, even within my own province (Manitoba). Assuming I can go home this summer as planned (!), I will also be doing a trip through the Northwest passage (from Resolute to Greenland). Originally I was planning some time in Newfoundland and the Maritimes, but that'll be the next trip. I think. In researching my Arctic trip I really wanted to extend it to the NWT and Yukon, but I won't have time for that this time around, since really, I need to go home and spend time with my family. . However, looking at flights, I'll probably fly into Montreal (instead of Vancouver) so it'll be nice to revisit it after more than 20 years, and also get to Quebec City, which I've yet to visit.

winger said:

I'm hoping to come up with a good idea of a project and actually finish it. Not a clue right now what it'll be though. If I can do some street shooting, that may figure into it, but I don't know. I'm at that point where I'm fairly sure I know what I'm doing when I have a camera in my hand, but I'm not completely sure what I want to say with it.

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This is the key! I have several projects that are floating around in my mind (and have been for years), I just need to sit down and come up with a solid plan for finishing them, or at least one of them (that would be a good start). I also have some limited stocks of film (ex. Fuji peel-apart film) that I would like to dedicate to a specific project, just need to figure out what that'll be.

James Bleifus said:

Hopefully, I can start traveling again. I've been dying to get back to Thailand. I've just finished my second digital project, and I'm returning to 4x5 film. Viet Nam has been VERY lucky with the pandemic, but we're not expecting a vaccine to arrive until May, and then there's the delay of getting everyone vaccinated. Yet I'm fortunate because there's so much to photograph here. But now I'd like to transition from photographing the street to photographing more of the sacred scenes in Asia.

Cheers, James

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Looking forward to seeing your work James! I'm dying to go back to Vietnam to focus solely on photography - but that probably won't happen until next winter - either during the Xmas/NY holiday, or possibly in Feb/Mar 2022. I'm surprised at how long it'll take for you to get the vaccine (I thought Japan was quite delayed), but I think some of the countries that have been doing well with Covid haven't had the same urgency to vaccinate as other countries (although I'm sure being able to source enough doses is another issue as well).

I've sorted out a whole bunch of work for the postcard exchange and I'm looking forward to editing a couple of projects so I can bring them to a point where I can go and knock on a few doors. Doing some workshops IRL rather than via Zoom would be great as well!