Retirement, film photography, and travel

[Kodachromeguy]

As for film, well - whatever is in my film fridge at home, and if it suits the lighting conditions I'll be out in, that's what I'll use. Have decided (finally!) to shoot some of my long-hoarded Kodak Panatomic-X next week, on the Ballarat Botanical Gardens, a superb location with a truly beautiful lake, oddly largely forgotten by the rest of the country. I'll then work thru the decade oldEfke (35mm and 120) and then start on the TMax 100. New experiences, new challenges. The way to go.

But there never seems to be enough time in the day to enjoy them all. So I'm trying to get focused on those things I really have a passion for. If there is time to add in some other things, then that's a bonus."

Panatomic-X: good for you! But by all means, go ahead and use it. Even frozen, eventually it will deteriorate. I am still using my stock of 120 Panatomic-X and no longer try to save rolls "just in case." But honestly, as nice as the Panatomic is, TMax 100 also works really
well. Below are some Panatomic examples from the 2018 spring flood in Vicksburg, Mississippi. These are from a Hasselblad (see what you did, Sirius?), tripod-mounted. As for not having enough time, the same here. I don't know how I had time to work at the office! I always consider what will take time out of my schedule and ask if it will it add enough reward to want to do it and thereby have less time for other activities.

The second picture is from my bargain 250mm Sonnar: https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-long-view-and-some-gas-250mm-sonnar.html

 

[Sirius Glass]

Panatomic-X: good for you! But by all means, go ahead and use it. Even frozen, eventually it will deteriorate. I am still using my stock of 120 Panatomic-X and no longer try to save rolls "just in case." But honestly, as nice as the Panatomic is, TMax 100 also works really
well. Below are some Panatomic examples from the 2018 spring flood in Vicksburg, Mississippi. These are from a Hasselblad (see what you did, Sirius?), tripod-mounted. As for not having enough time, the same here. I don't know how I had time to work at the office! I always consider what will take time out of my schedule and ask if it will it add enough reward to want to do it and thereby have less time for other activities.

The second picture is from my bargain 250mm Sonnar: https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-long-view-and-some-gas-250mm-sonnar.html


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I never shot Panatomic-X. I do not have any in my freezer. <<sniff>>

 

[jtk]

"Retirement" is a weird idea. If it means you worked for somebody, why did you do that? Self employment and gig jobs seem to be the main alternatives.

Why would anybody work for anybody else, then talk wistfully about "retirement?"

 

[Tim Stapp]

Wow... So many thoughts on retirement. At 61, I'm often asked when I am going to retire. I am at the top of my game and pay scale. I love what I do and the clients/customers that I work with. But, after a recent can cancer scare ( one year cancer free) I am really looking at what I have ahead of me. I am in good shape and healthy. My wife has just obtained a nice e administration position at a University. So, retirement may wait wait few years. We can finally afford some of things that we have desired (remodel of our paid for home) and some University paid for trips ( her training, I have to pay for me). So, given that I have no pension nor savings (thank you ex wife) I don't see me actually retiring anytime soon.

 

[jamesaz]

"Retirement" is a weird idea. If it means you worked for somebody, why did you do that? Self employment and gig jobs seem to be the main alternatives.

Why would anybody work for anybody else, then talk wistfully about "retirement?"

In my case, after having done both self employment and gigs in film and tv, I got a corporate job in film and tv. Think of it as like an actor going from auditioning for commercials to landing a role on a long running tv series.
Once a level of financial independence is achieved, the character can be written off and the actor can do experimental theater.
Most artists have to have a day job. Art and creativity are undervalued. Real jobs are in banking. Asi es la Vida.

 

[Arklatexian]

I never shot Panatomic-X. I do not have any in my freezer. <<sniff>>

And did everyone notice how well that nice SQUARE format did in the "flood" pictures? Hang in there Hasselblad and Rollei!.........Regards!

 

[scheimfluger_77]

Good advice I think.

I’ve done something similar for the last 12 years, purchasing camera and darkroom stuff while still working. For the most part It’s worked. I have everything I could ever need, except the ‘dark’. And my oh my, does GAS still rear it’s (strike)ugly(/strike) beautiful head.

I retired about a year ago still have a part time job doing what I did, that is design and develop online courses/training. Drove a school bus for most of last school year, that was fun actually.

Now I just need to get in-fat.

Shoot as much film as you can so you will have lots of negatives to keep you busy.

 

[jtk]

In my case, after having done both self employment and gigs in film and tv, I got a corporate job in film and tv. Think of it as like an actor going from auditioning for commercials to landing a role on a long running tv series.
Once a level of financial independence is achieved, the character can be written off and the actor can do experimental theater.
Most artists have to have a day job. Art and creativity are undervalued. Real jobs are in banking. Asi es la Vida.

Too true... although lots of banks can collapse and again again or merge and "restructure" at a moment's notice as they have done in the past. Footloose bankers are dime a dozen. I like your acting analogy: In my little city we have 40 theatre groups, plenty of former job working types, plenty of poorly paid day jobs, plenty of soul crushed chained-to-somebody-else's desk types, plenty of very mature "job" seekers .

 

[RalphLambrecht]

This topic has interested me for along time. I hope I have posted in the right forum for what I will be writing about.

Many of us are getting somewhat long in the tooth, and are thinking about and/or actively considering retirement, or like me you may have already retired. I bit the bullet on my career and work life four years ago after 25 years as a self-employed design architect and before this, 22 years as a photojournalist, newspaper and TV media promotion writer, and freelance editor-writer. Alas, for most of my career "happy, wise and poor" was the first line in my Business Plan and I ceased work four years ago in a financial state I could not ever describe as "wealthy" or "comfortable" or even "well to do".

I nowadays travel a lot. This means I often sit on sunny tropical beaches, hang out in small bars and at cafe in the seedier parts of Asian small towns, or looking at pleasant mountain scenes in Southeast Asia where life is easy and costs are low. Even then I check my bank balance on my laptop and wonder about the true meaning of the "wise" part in my life plan.

Still, I'm enjoying my life, am never bored, and I meet many nice people and do no end of unexpected fun things every day on the road. An adequate if not lavish Australian pension, a small overseas stipend and a little put away for a rainy day in the bank, see me through.

My retirement, fortunately blessed with excellent health and enough in the bank to fund a few years more of seat-of-the-pants budget travel, initially threw me a few left curves but I've now sorted all these out, and am finding many new opportunity are opening up in what I had long feared would be a boring old age on my rocking chair by an electric heater with a book and the cat on my lap. Not so. There is a cat, but it lives with my next door neighbors when I'm away from Australia. No electric heater is needed in Oz, and the rocking chair has yet to be priced and purchased. When I'm old, maybe...

I'm curious and interested to learn how those of you who are also now retired as I am, or nearing the big six-five (or whatever age you've decided to take the plunge), have dealt or are dealing with it. Especially so those who have uprooted themselves and moved to a new location, as I may do in 2017, for reasons I won't go into in this first post, but will be happy to elaborate on in one of my future word-essay posts.
How are you coping? Photography and travel are, I think, ideal topics to put under our collective word-microscope.

Some ideas to be explored. Please feel free to contribute more. How do we cope with our film photography on reduced incomes? How many of us still maintain a darkroom, or have we mostly drifted to those methods we don't really like to or discuss too much here, which can be defined as "an enlarger-free darkroom situation"?

In my case, I'll say for now (trying to be brief here) that I was born in Canada, grew up in New Brunswick (the province, not the city) and New Mexico, left North America in the '70s for Bangkok and Malaysia and finally Australia. So travel and photography are in my blood, my two lifelong passions. I spend as much time in Southeast Asia as I can, shooting black-and-white film of old European colonial architecture while I still can before money-mad property developers bulldoze the last colonial bungalow for yet another modern mini-mall, as if the world needs yet another shopping complex!

IN 2015 and this year I took the time and made the big effort to reassess and reevaluate my photography in all its aspects. In doing this I identified some new areas for exploring and made many changes in the ways I had done things in the past, from the subjects I shoot to my darkroom techniques to photo filing to how much gear I can safely carry with me on my knockabout journeys.

Please post your ideas and thoughts. I will add some more of my own in the next few days, about my cameras, buying and processing film, useful tips when traveling with film gear, and possibly more.

In posting this I hope I am not duplicating other posts already in APUG, if so, my apology and please let me know where the posts are, my searches did not turn up anything similar to this one. If someone has already posted along these lines, maybe Sean could just link the two, or put my post into the existing one.

Enough for now. Bon voyage to all of us on this.

failing health forced me to retire at 58 but fortunately, with government and company pensions, I don't have to fear poverty. My plan was to do more photography once I retire and I did that; mostly promoting image sales by doing exhibitions and gallery shows.So far, that's working out pretty well and adds to the spending money nicely. I got lucky I guess but, I'm glad I don't have to depend on it. I can only recommend to keep job and hobby separate and to create a rainy -day fund for yourself because, then push comes to shove, You can neither rely on the government or your pension.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

"Retirement" is a weird idea. If it means you worked for somebody, why did you do that? Self employment and gig jobs seem to be the main alternatives.

Why would anybody work for anybody else, then talk wistfully about "retirement?"

My profession and highly specific skills as an engineer would never get me hired as an independent contractor working for myself - for the specialized work I did, the research, design, equipment, processes, infrastructure, and team -- that all needed the resources of a company that could spend $500 million every few years on a project. Yes, I know what $500 million looks like and what it can produce.

Even if I could've been some sort of independent contractor, I'm still working for whoever hired me.

Even if I stood on the streetcorner and played my tenor sax, I'd still depend on people tossing coins into my case.

So, most jobs, you're always working for someone. You've always got a customer.

Anyway, for the last two years it ceased to be fun. I became very jaded, whereas in the past I actually looked forward to every day at work. I was highly paid for doing what I loved to do anyway. I would work till 9pm or later, weekends, holidays, and skip vacations. The industry and environment changed for me - no more fun. So, I waited two years to reach full retirement age.

Yeah, so I've been retired for three weeks now. I've travelled maybe five miles. But I have been making photos!

 

[Down Under]

Ralph, did you forget (or overlook) writing books? At least one truly excellent darkroom book, I have a copy and I plan to read it again soon.

At the age you retired (in 2005) I took a year off to travel from Australia to Canada and help out with pressing family matters, an elderly mother in need of having her finances (and life) put in order and an older aunt who had all but run out of money and had to sell property to survive. I was"off work" - in my case, a small architectural practice - and without any income other than savings for 15 months, which almost bankrupted me - it took lmost four years to rebuild my finances and shore up my private pension fund with contributions I hadn't made. .

Costly or not, that year was one of the best in my life - I explored British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island,drove myself across Canada (west to east) and back via the USA, and even went to remote islands in the Atlantic (Newfoundland, les Iles de la Madeleine and St Pierre et Miquelon) I first wanted to visit in the '60s, but never could then. I shot exclusively film, about 15,000 images, many of which I've not yet printed - I'll get to them in a few more years when I'm older (mid-70s) and my travel "itch" has lessened.

Like many others, I left retirement planning for the future and (as I have written elsewhere in this thread) when I finally sat down to examine it all in my early 60s, I was quite horrified at what I saw. I bit a box of bullets and put in more than two years of really hard slog until 2012 when I finally closed up shop and "took leave" for the last years of my life.

The Australian OAP (old age pension) is reasonably good to us oldies, and with a paid-up small house and my partner in full-time work, we live well if frugally and I can still go on an extended budget shooting trip to Asia every year, not to expensive tourist destinations but rather to the pleasant, quiet backwaters where the best photography is found. I shot architectural and travel images for a few years but sadly the proliferation of giveaway digicrap images on the internet has all but destroyed those once-lucrative stock markets. Such is life in the 21st century and I have to adapt and think laterally and look for other areas to visit and photograph. There are still many.

I've sold off two-thirds of my film cameras and am now casting a critical eye at unneeded darkroom items. Still to many of either. More can be flogged off. Extra money for jam, as they say.

At just over 70 I've gone more digital but I still enjoy visiting Asian places with my Rolleicord Vb, a 16 exposure kit, B&W film, a few filters and a Gossen meter. The astonished looks I get from digital shooters' when I take out this kit is worth the (small) extra effort of lugging it around.

 

[slackercrurster]

Travel?? I used to do a fair amount of travel when it was cheap in the 1980s / 90s, but money ran out and travel prices skyrocketed. Back then I could get an off-season ticket to Europe for $199 to $299.

I'm retirement age, but no retirement for me...no pension. Very expensive to live nowadays even on the cheap. I guess just keep working till the end unless the lotto cooperates. I've spent my life on social doc work and projects that interest me - but they generally don't have any commercial value.

I started traveling in the 1970s going to Mexico and So. America. The bulk of those photos were lost. I had a few small drug store snapshots that were at my mom's house that survived. This is a scan of one of them.

Nowadays I shoot a good amount in NYC. I camp out in Jersey City and take the PATH in each day. I can't afford staying in NYC. I moved as close as I could afford to NYC from the west coast, but it still put me a few hours away. I can't even afford to camp out in Jersey City very long. Last trip it was $800 for 6 days camping, gas, tolls, subway, etc. (no food)

Staten Is. Ferry, NYC (Candid) from 'Hijabs of NYC'

My mom had died a few years ago and left me some $. I was able to buy a couple of used $3,500 Leica's on eBay and took a short trip to the Netherlands. I shot for 5 days in the Red Light District (was rained out half a day) but still got enough material to make an artist's book on it. That was all my budget could afford or I would have preferred to shoot for 3 weeks. I had asked an institution that had a lot of my photos I had donated to their collection if they would chip in $200 so I could afford an extra day to shoot. But they would not even pay $50 towards the project. I'm glad my photos don't depend on my $ raising abilities.

Here is one from the Amsterdam project...just not with film. (Candid)

But, that has how it has been my entire life. Shooting under short deadlines, on a low budget. No contacts, no fixers, all off the cuff and no cooperation for anyone. My last big trip around the US was in Nov 2016. I boondocked and slept in my vehicle. I could not afford thousands in hotel bills on top of the gas bill. When you need a shower, they cost $12 at a truck stop. Gas bill was about $600 to $700.

I'd like to shoot in Russia, but am scared they would haul me in. You know how the Russians are if you shoot things they don't approve of. If the lotto ever comes through I will head for Japan and give them some infrared radiation. I shot a lot in Asia in the 1980s. Never in Japan though. Was making a book on the monsoons, but it all got lost in a flood except this one from 1982. Luckily I had left it at my mom's house.

Shot with a $99 Pentax K1000 and a used $25 50mm lens. My Nikon F had just been stolen before the trip.

They had thread here about shooting war artistically. Goddamn, if I shot war I would have brought back some artistic photos. BUT as I've told you before. I only know one way to shoot...in your face. Consequently I'd be killed or beheaded in short order.

 

[Down Under]

Some very thoughtful and perceptive new posts in this thread lately...

Some may think I'm posting entirely too much, but I believe the topic I raised in this thread so many moons ago, is a valuable one and the thread should be kept alive and ticking (like its OP, now headed to 71 but still floating along, if rather more slowly).

Two recent posters wrote points I would like to comment (briefly) on.

jtk (#133 et al) Your responses are greatly appreciated, I have read some of your other posts and I have time and attention for all you have to say. I believe by the time we hit the biblical 'threescoreandten' we have to step out of the mainstream of active in-your-face life and work from the periphery of the ongoing circus- which is not to say we mustn't be active or involved or sometimes controversial. It's just that we are now in a different avatar, a sort of winding down of much of what we did during our young and active years but no less significant and certainly no less important - just from a different position and a new perspective. We still have a lot to contribute and so much to share with those who are younger but also receptive to what we have to say. It's very important for us to allow ourselves to be self-indulgent, not in a hedonistic way, but creatively.To stretch the boundaries. I mean, what do we have to lose?

Theo Sulphate (#135), I hope you will allow from six months to at least a year to settle into your retirement. IN that time you will probably go through the entire gamut of emotions from despair to desperation to suicide contemplation to an eventual acceptance that having finished your work life isn't a death sentence, but moving into another avatar. I would suggest you start by drafting two lists, the first being all the things you HAVE to do now that you are no longer punching that time-lat work, and the second, the things you would enjoy doing in your dream of dreams. Next, put away the first list and work on the second list. So what if the lawn isn't mowed every week or the petunia patch parsed or those new cupboards in the spare bedroom, which you've thought about for the last 20 years but let's face it, you don't really need anyway, don't get done in the first month of your "free life"? Remember that the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France had an imperial policy of not replying to any of his correspondence for at least a month - by which time most of it no longer needed responding to anyway. In the summing up. way way (I hope way way way) down the track when you are no longer here, will you really be remembered for those new cupboards in the spare bedroom, or for your photographs.It's your call, but I know what my response would be,and also I reckon, yours...

Slackercrurster (#137), may I say most sincerely - you are a true Free Spirit, the photographer I have always wanted to be but never dared. What else can I say? You have been your own person and have lived your life the way you wanted to, truly the greatest freedom of all. Your posted images speak for themselves, and ask for "artistic"renditions of war, my only comment to this has to be,respectfully meant, "what the f*ck?" No such thing. War as landscapes? I can only suggest that you take whatever steps you can, to ensure your work survives you - but I also hope you will keep on shooting and archiving and printing and above all else commenting on this site, for a very long time to come.

Oops, I said "brief", didn't I? Well, brief for me, maybe. IF you could see my emails and letters to family and friends - so this is brief, indeed.

More, please. Of everything.

 

[Down Under]

Ahem... I will push my luck a bit and revive this thread.

Yes, it's almost three year old, but I believe many of us still have things to contribute to it, and surely some new potential posters have hit the Big Six Five since I wrote the initial post in 2016, when I still felt relatively young and the world seemed as if it was still my oyster, as the saying goes.

Now, two and a half years later, there have been a few changes in my life, some significant, many minor but all still important to me, in my photography and my life.

I will be writing more very soon, and I hope others will add their own posts as we go. I would be pleased to hear how things are in updates from the other posters who have already contributed. We have much to share and relating the events in our lives, I believe, will be valuable as well as interesting.

 

[Finny]

That sounds promising! I am looking forward to news. Could be a reason for me to check here in the forum more often

 

[Vaughn]

Just developed the first six 5x7s from my trip to southern Chile and Argentina. One of my boys was finishing up a semester abroad at a university in Chile, so my other son and I flew down and we all traveled for a month...mostly camping; picking a beautiful spot in the evening, setting up camp and cooking as it got dark (total darkness around 11pm). We rented a small 4-cyl, 4-seater van with a 4-person tent on top (just big enough for the three of us) and drove it north from the far south of Chile (Punta Arenas) and turned in the van three weeks and 4400 kilometes later in Puerto Varas. It was almost new when we got it, but there were some crazy roads in the middle of nowhere. No where in the western US is as nowhere as the Chile/Argentina nowhere.

Between being on the road a lot, high winds, rain, keeping up with two 21 year-olds and all that, I exposed 30 sheets of 5x7 of about 20 different images. The first 6 I just developed look good, except for the blank one. Photography was an important part of the trip, but being with my two sons in an incredible new place was of primary importance. Losing one of my triplets a little over a year ago pointed that out to me. And being older means this sort of opportunity may not come again -- though we tossed around an idea of a bicycle trip in Japan...might be a bit much.

Nice to be home. But I'll be off again too soon. I'll be in Yosemite Valley towards the end of April for the reception for a show I am in...might as well take the 8x10 and 11x14 on that trip. Fly across the country in May to see my son graduate from Cornell -- probably take the 5x7 with me. But right now I need to track down my Photo-flo so I can hang up some negatives to dry and get some sleep. I have a lot of printing to do these next two months!

.

 

[jvo]

I retired 3 years ago - that lasted about 6 months, until grandkids needed a home, (story for another time)! 2 1/2 years later just getting back into photography and in the darkroom. I think the hiatus has improved my photography. At least I'm having fun and getting better results. just signed up for the post card exchange again, but i've given up the idea of ever printing all those negatives i was gonna print once i retired!

 

[mshchem]

I retired April of 2018. I just turned 62 in December. I'm so glad I could . We had two 15 y.o. brother and sister tabby cats, one passed in November the other in January. I didn't know it when I retired, how grateful I would be, of being able to sleep in with those two little rascals.
I'm way behind in the darkroom. I can't imagine how I ever had time to do anything for the nearly 50 years of working . I didn't buy a retirement sports car. But there's another Hasselblad in my bag.

 

[Tony-S]

Just developed the first six 5x7s from my trip to southern Chile and Argentina. One of my boys was finishing up a semester abroad at a university in Chile, so my other son and I flew down and we all traveled for a month...mostly camping; picking a beautiful spot in the evening, setting up camp and cooking as it got dark (total darkness around 11pm). We rented a small 4-cyl, 4-seater van with a 4-person tent on top (just big enough for the three of us) and drove it north from the far south of Chile (Punta Arenas) and turned in the van three weeks and 4400 kilometes later in Puerto Varas.

Did you make it to Torres del Paines?

 

[Vaughn]

Did you make it to Torres del Paines?

Developed the rest of the Chile negatives. I'm printing some Zion negs tonight (5x7 Platinums), I have the last one of the night under the lights right now -- might get to a Chile neg or two this week!

 

[Tony-S]

Developed the rest of the Chile negatives. I'm printing some Zion negs tonight (5x7 Platinums), I have the last one of the night under the lights right now -- might get to a Chile neg or two this week!

Looks like you had a beautiful day. Was the wind blowing like mad up there?

 

[Vaughn]

Looks like you had a beautiful day. Was the wind blowing like mad up there?

Oh yeah -- we hit Patagonia at the start of the windy season! Very challenging for a 5x7! The Agentina side of the Andes has large lakes in dry county that all have the glacier blue to them. A lot of nothing and the wind blows! Over to the west side of the Andes they get up to 4 meters of rain a year and waterfalls galore. Quite the variety of landscapes!

What is strange is that we drove on roads through countryside that make US Hwy 50 seem like an urban street. We had maps, but it felt like quite the exploration. When I got back home I looked on Google Maps and one can 'drive' on those same roads (images from 2012, so some changes). But I am so glad I did not do that before the trip. I enjoy the sense of discovery more when I do not know what is around the bend.

 

[jtk]

Strongly recommend Bruce Chatwin's "In Patagonia" (and anything else Chatwin writes).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Patagonia

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...me-in-patagonia-by-bruce-chatwin-7873053.html

 

[Vaughn]

Sounds like quite the character!

 

[jtk]

Strongly recommend Bruce Chatwin's "In Patagonia" (and anything else Chatwin writes).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Patagonia

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...me-in-patagonia-by-bruce-chatwin-7873053.html

Songlines is, I think Chatwin's most important book. It was repeatedly discussed in my University of California anthropology classes and fifty years remains significant for white people who find themselves mystified by Native people.

https://www.amazon.com/Songlines-Pe...M006WYR6KM9&psc=1&refRID=XHDE498MFM006WYR6KM9

Thinking Chatwin, I'm reminded of Anthony Bourdain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bourdain