DownUnder
Vamoosed (for a while)
We all make them. Don't we??
Mine for '22 have to do with having reached a certain, well 'cross road' in my photography. At my age, I'm now starting to slow down ("finally!!" sighs my weary partner from across the room) and having to make some new resolutions and plans for the coming year. All to do with the passing of time.
The first "will do" is to use up the film I have left in my darkroom fridge and the house freezer - about 200-250 rolls, quite a lot of old 35mm but more 120. Far too much Panatomic-X I bought in the '80s after Kodak discontinued this wonderful film, also several dozen 120 rolls I bought earlier this year from the deceased estate of an old friend who like me was too much into hoarding. I don't want it to rot in the cold or eventually be thrown into the dumpster after I fall off my perch, so used it will be. My Rolleiflexes, Voigtlander Perkeo and Zeiss Nettar will be taken out of mothballs, dusted off and cleaned, and returned to a new life. So win-win.
The other is to use up my darkroom supplies. Far too much chemistry, mostly basics (I mix my own developers), several bottles of selenium toner I bought long ago but have never really made much use of, and of course all the paper I've religiously hoarded for the last 20 years - mostly FB and quality stuff, so still probably good, though a bit of testing will be in order to see if any fog has crept into those emulsions.
A few hundred old B&W negatives will be printed after decades of hiding in archival sheets. All the Ilford Galerie 8x10, 11x14 and 16x20 packs I lucked into, again from a late friend's estate, in 2000 or 2001 will be cut up and made use of.
Finally, when my film has been used up (or some of it given to friends who still "do analog" as the saying goes) I may sell off the film cameras. Reluctantly. I still love my Contax G1 kits. Ditto my Nikkormats. Or my first Rollei TLR which I bought in 1966, but many (or even most) of the others. Still too many gathering dust on their thrones as my shelf queens at home.
Then more photography, I hope in southeast Asia, when a few countries I've enjoyed visiting in the past have fully reopened and it's safer to travel again. This will be most likely from midyear. Indonesia was my old base for many decades, but its idiotic visa and quarantine (= expensive) new rules make it unlikely that I will be going back there in the near future. Singapore, Malaysia, maybe Laos and Cambodia, surely Vietnam. While I still can.
So what are your photography plans and resolutions for 2022? The way things are these days, planning has to be most if not all of the fun...
Mine for '22 have to do with having reached a certain, well 'cross road' in my photography. At my age, I'm now starting to slow down ("finally!!" sighs my weary partner from across the room) and having to make some new resolutions and plans for the coming year. All to do with the passing of time.
The first "will do" is to use up the film I have left in my darkroom fridge and the house freezer - about 200-250 rolls, quite a lot of old 35mm but more 120. Far too much Panatomic-X I bought in the '80s after Kodak discontinued this wonderful film, also several dozen 120 rolls I bought earlier this year from the deceased estate of an old friend who like me was too much into hoarding. I don't want it to rot in the cold or eventually be thrown into the dumpster after I fall off my perch, so used it will be. My Rolleiflexes, Voigtlander Perkeo and Zeiss Nettar will be taken out of mothballs, dusted off and cleaned, and returned to a new life. So win-win.
The other is to use up my darkroom supplies. Far too much chemistry, mostly basics (I mix my own developers), several bottles of selenium toner I bought long ago but have never really made much use of, and of course all the paper I've religiously hoarded for the last 20 years - mostly FB and quality stuff, so still probably good, though a bit of testing will be in order to see if any fog has crept into those emulsions.
A few hundred old B&W negatives will be printed after decades of hiding in archival sheets. All the Ilford Galerie 8x10, 11x14 and 16x20 packs I lucked into, again from a late friend's estate, in 2000 or 2001 will be cut up and made use of.
Finally, when my film has been used up (or some of it given to friends who still "do analog" as the saying goes) I may sell off the film cameras. Reluctantly. I still love my Contax G1 kits. Ditto my Nikkormats. Or my first Rollei TLR which I bought in 1966, but many (or even most) of the others. Still too many gathering dust on their thrones as my shelf queens at home.
Then more photography, I hope in southeast Asia, when a few countries I've enjoyed visiting in the past have fully reopened and it's safer to travel again. This will be most likely from midyear. Indonesia was my old base for many decades, but its idiotic visa and quarantine (= expensive) new rules make it unlikely that I will be going back there in the near future. Singapore, Malaysia, maybe Laos and Cambodia, surely Vietnam. While I still can.
So what are your photography plans and resolutions for 2022? The way things are these days, planning has to be most if not all of the fun...
