Printed a higher percentage of my earliest photographs.

Bill Burk · Sep 16, 2018

Got the idea that I would look through my negatives to find negatives I might have overlooked over the years that would be worth seeing as a print now.

When I got to the first book of negatives I noticed something striking and surprising (though it makes a lot of sense)...

I used to print a much higher percentage of my negatives than I do now.

Ian Grant · Sep 16, 2018

I used to be the same Bill, I print far fewer of my negatives these days. I have been going back to when I changed and have found images worth re-visiting, As I tend to produce project based work some quite long running the way you think about using older work changes,

Ian

Eric Rose · Sep 16, 2018

I am finding some of my negs have gotten a new life through scanning and using PS to do things I either could never do in the darkroom or couldn't be bothered to.

Andrew O'Neill · Sep 16, 2018

I'm with Eric. I'm also finding interesting compositions within these negatives.

Sirius Glass · Sep 16, 2018

While the quality of the compositions and negatives improve, I too am making fewer enlargements. I make contact prints or small prints of most of the negatives, but only a small set gets enlarged.

removed account4 · Sep 16, 2018

Andrew O'Neill said:
I'm with Eric. I'm also finding interesting compositions within these negatives.

+2

Arklatexian · Sep 16, 2018

Sirius Glass said:
While the quality of the compositions and negatives improve, I too am making fewer enlargements. I make contact prints or small prints of most of the negatives, but only a small set gets enlarged.

Maybe lately, you have been showing your work to one who is more super-critical of your work: YOU!.........Regards!

jim10219 · Sep 16, 2018

That doesn’t surprise me one bit. The more you do something, the better you get at it. And that includes developing an eye for composition, and recognizing a good shot when take one.

I come from a background of painting, so I print about the same number of shots per year as I did when I began. But as I’ve gotten better with a camera, I take less shots in general. I’ve learned that sometimes just because a scene would make a great painting, it won’t necessarily make a great photograph.

Alan Edward Klein · Sep 16, 2018

I've run out of wall space. Well, my wife says we have.

David Brown · Sep 17, 2018

Fewer, but better prints.

Sirius Glass · Sep 17, 2018

Arklatexian said:
Maybe lately, you have been showing your work to one who is more super-critical of your work: YOU!.........Regards!

Bill Burk · Sep 17, 2018

I was hoping maybe there would be an undiscovered treasure in my first few years... But all those have been mined.

There are some potentially interesting prints to be discovered in the years in-between.

But the really vintage negs have been covered.

Ian Grant · Sep 18, 2018

Bill Burk said:
I was hoping maybe there would be an undiscovered treasure in my first few years... But all those have been mined.

There are some potentially interesting prints to be discovered in the years in-between.

But the really vintage begs have been covered.

Pre my conversion and revelation of what I really wanted to shoot and why (which was 1986/7) I flogged my negatives to death for good images/prints.

I guess what I've found is from 1986/7 I've a treasure trove of negatives that didn't fit my then criteria, but by the early 2000's I've quietened down and that's less important, I shoot less, but have higher success rate in terms of no of images that'll be exhibited.

Ian

jtk · Sep 21, 2018

My B&W has gone through phases..always printed according to my taste at the time, as pre-visualized. With a few exceptions I'm not re-printing.

Seriously compelling is a hundred slide project, shot early 70s and processed by the E4 lab I managed (Media Generalists). Except for a few, I never printed these. Now I am starting to scan all of them (Nikon) to Canon pigment printing on Epson Legacy Baryta. They'd be better served at 11X17 but money will limit to 8.5X11. For now.

removed account4 · Sep 21, 2018

bill

im also finding that a lot of the views i overlooked as not being the ones i printed
are actually better than the ones i printed as i get further from the time the images were made
its almost like a light bulb went off and i say, yeah now i get why i exposed that frame !

Bill Burk · Sep 21, 2018

jnanian said:
further from the time the images were made
its almost like a light bulb went off and i say, yeah now i get why i exposed that frame !

That's what I was hoping for... but nope... I seriously printed every old good negative I had.

Well that's my first impression from this quick survey. Now that I know where they are, I might find something new.

Vaughn · Sep 22, 2018

I'm just about getting old enough to print vintage negs as if for the first time. I take my latest camera (usually larger) and find myself occasionally re-photographing the same place/scene in the redwoods many years later...I suppose rephotographing an old scene is sort of like reprinting an old negative. How do I approach this scene, this challange this time?

But the reality is that I far too many negatives that call to me to be printed, and too great of a desire to make new ones.

Bill Burk · Oct 7, 2018

Finished the look-through of all my negatives, noted down what's on every sheet, every roll.

Now I should be able to find any negative I can remember I wanted to print, without having to touch them all to find specific ones.

Looking forward to a winter of printing.

RalphLambrecht · Oct 7, 2018

Bill Burk said:
Got the idea that I would look through my negatives to find negatives I might have overlooked over the years that would be worth seeing as a print now.

When I got to the first book of negatives I noticed something striking and surprising (though it makes a lot of sense)...

I used to print a much higher percentage of my negatives than I do now.

I don't know if it is typical but, I've noticed the same.

Printed a higher percentage of my earliest photographs.

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