Could you "Winogrand"?

MrFujicaman said:
Sometimes the reason for delaying processing is logistics. When I was processing film in the bathroom, I had to clear stuff out of the way,set up the water bath for keeping the chemicals at temp, etc. It was such a PITA that I waited until I had several rolls-ie a 5 roll Paterson and a 3 roll also.
Now that I have a darkroom I process more often and can now contact print the stuff I've been shooting the last few years.
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MFM,

My logistics are using a changing bag and a two liter tank.

My Madhattan "luxury" apartment is only 650 square feet, and know that my gal is a big time fashion blogger so everywear is clothes racks, shoes, coats and cases of make-up and cosmetics that get "gifted" to her.

The I have two large format printers. I call the Epson 7800 "The Jersey Barrier" because it is appropriately sized. Then there are all the cameras, paper, inks...

I could only develop film when my gal left dodge for the weekend. My darkroom was basically my kitchen, and the bathroom my drying room.

Also to me public darkrooms are like public restrooms: only use if you have too. LOL.

Cal
 
Calzone said:
Another is Peter Souza who shot extensively for eight years and in the ninth year edited a book that at this time might not have been released yet. The moral of the story here is that some bodies of work evolve over different timelines.
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I suspect Souza shot, edited, and processed his images every day. I also suspect he did not have a bucket of full SD cards waiting for him at the end of it. As White House photographer, he was responsible for the timely dissemination of images of the matters to which the President attended on a daily basis. It is not as if he shot two million images over eight years, and then in the ninth year decided to go back over them to see what he had, if anything.
 
ptpdprinter said:
I suspect Souza shot, edited, and processed his images every day. I also suspect he did not have a bucket of full SD cards waiting for him at the end of it. As White House photographer, he was responsible for the timely dissemination of images of the matters to which the President attended on a daily basis. It is not as if he shot two million images over eight years, and then in the ninth year decided to go back over them to see what he had.
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Granted that Peter had to do work in a timely manner, but do you think all 2 million images got processed and edited in the 2922 days (365 days of a year times eight plus two extra days for a leap year). Most images I suspect were never edited, processed and were simply saved.

I think we both could agree that only either very timely or most important images got processed, printed and distributed. If you do the math the average per day of shots was 684.46 shots per day.

I also suspect that Peter Souza had a staff of help like assistants, or had an editor who likely helped manage the work flow. I know at the interview I attended he spoke of a crew of people that he worked with. My impression is that as Whitehouse Photographer he was ultimately responsible, but he also had a reasonable amount of staff.

The archive that was created still remains daunting. Even with a "rough-cut" Peter expressed agony in selecting the images for his book.

I did do some editing in examining my negatives right after development for content, framing, composition, tonality, image quality, mood, tone, grain, context. I found contact sheets were not needed because of enough experience and a trained eye. Pretty much like Peter Souza I could do a "rough-cut" and knew what images I want to print. Granted not everyone has enough experience or the skill to do this.

The few images I had funds to have printed verified my editing skills from the negative. 7K rolls of film taught me something and trained my eye. It promoted skill and consistency also.

Cal
 
Peter Sousa's book has been released. I saw it at a Barnes & Noble on Friday.

So I'm I the only person here that takes full ownership of not completely have edited all of my shots and printing them?

Can I expect that you guys are all up to date and have completed all your editing and printing.

LOL. Just showing the other extreme POV. We all have a bit of not editing and printing I'm sure. I just don't see why the pressure and the stress.

How many here shoot digitally and don't print? Is shooting digitally and not printing really how you want to present your work, low IQ and all on a display? Are effectively by shooting this way can you be acussed of doing a Winnogrand? Do you take insult by the comparision?

All I know is many people do not own a printer or print. Many do not have a darkroom either. I understand the economics because I support two printers, but the fact is most people shoot and don't really fully edit their work or fully print their work, and effectively are displaying a bit of disregard like Winnogrand.

Nothing wrong with the phrase, "Work in progress." How little printing does one have to do to be accused of performing a "Winnogrand?"

Let the first photographer who has completed all his or her work throw the first stone.

Also know I do my best work when not pressured or rushed. Good work and a good job requires time, discipline and patience.

Cal
 
If your endpoint is displaying images on your website (or Flikr, etc.), if you have edited, processed, and posted them, you are done. Not everyone prints. I don't think an image is complete until it is printed, but I am not so dogmatic that I insist everyone do so.

I work on a project by project basis. I shoot, edit, process, print, mat, post. Not to say I won't revisit a project, but I am very focused. I am currently at the printing stage of my latest project. Then I'll need to go out a shoot a new series. The only real backlog, other than the current project I am working on, is my list of projects to shoot. I keep a list as ideas present themselves. In that way, I am rarely without something to do. It requires a certain amount of discipline, but I find it rewarding. I would be disappointed if at the end of the year I only had a binder full of negatives and nothing else to show for it.
 
When I shot a lot of film, I always had a bag of undeveloped film (maybe 30 – 40 rolls) on hand. I had my own reasons for this. I found that shooting and then rushing to process the film usually resulted in disappointment that the good pictures I thought I had gotten were not so good after all. Better to grab some rolls at random, develop them with no expectations and sometimes get a pleasant surprise.

I think Winogrand was always “behind” but this obviously escalated to the extreme towards the end. It’s annoying when people want to extrapolate his behavior during the later years to his entire career and say things like, he never looked at his pictures, or never edited them, etc.
 
gns said:
I think Winogrand was always “behind” but this obviously escalated to the extreme towards the end. It’s annoying when people want to extrapolate his behavior during the later years to his entire career and say things like, he never looked at his pictures, or never edited them, etc.
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GNS,

I realize that i am "behind" as you say, likely more than most.

I do not think amnesty is due to people who shoot digitally and then only look at their images on a monitor.

The fact remains that we all are "behind." I can't really think of anyone who is caught-up.

Cal
 
jsrockit said:
Unless it is your job, there would be nothing worse for me than being caught up in photography... IMO.
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John,

I agree with you there. I always want to have an abundance of work that requires editing, processing and printing. I'm cool with having a backlog.

Mine is so vast though that I can remain really busy even if I stop shooting for a while.

Also are you not glad that you shot so intensively those years you were in NYC. I doubt that you have regret for shooting so much.

In my case it allows me to move on.

I'm learning right now that up to this point I more or less only have made work prints and "viewing prints" that are kinda disposable. The work prints are for development and optimizing; and the viewing prints are meant to be handled and replaced when worn. Along the ways I have evolved into a better printer and developed some serious skill.

The gallery workshop I participated in suggested printing small limited editions all at once so the prints are on hand. These prints have to be pristine. So even if you have a show of say 20 shots and you have an edition of 6 with an artist proof you are talking about a pretty big body of prints and a lot of work.

Then there is all the record keeping required and tracking. Pretty much I created one big headache. LOL. For sure the shooting requires skill, but the real work remains ahead.

Cal
 
I find it interesting that I process my digital images slowly now.
Often I don't look at them until the card is full (32gb).
Sometimes I load a in camera jpeg to my mobile and share it... the RAWs not so much.
Even with a 24mp camera 32GB's is a lot of images and, fatigue viewing them seems to really lose a lot of interest in finding keepers outside of the top 5%.

The film backs up too although I have an easier time finding my keepers there. (behind 27rolls atm down from 45 recently 135&120 combined)
Scanning one roll at a time, nearly all carrying an in roll "theme" helps keep the mind on track.

Assignments are a different story. I get those done asap.
I don't take (get) many of those anymore.
 
f16sunshine said:
I find it interesting that I process my digital images slowly now.
Often I don't look at them until the card is full (32gb).
Sometimes I load a in camera jpeg to my mobile and share it... the RAWs not so much.
Even with a 24mp camera 32GB's is a lot of images and, fatigue viewing them seems to really lose a lot of interest in finding keepers outside of the top 5%.

The film backs up too although I have an easier time finding my keepers there. (behind 27rolls atm down from 45 recently 135&120 combined)
Scanning one roll at a time, nearly all carrying an in roll "theme" helps keep the mind on track.

Assignments are a different story. I get those done asap.
I don't take (get) many of those anymore.
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Andy,

I appreciate what you say about the concentration required and the fatigue. There seems to be a bit of a bottleneck in what we can handle.

In my SL I use 32 GB cards, and I have it set up for redundancy, meaning the second card is just a backup. 675 images from my 24 MP camera with a full card. That's like almost 19 rolls of film.

Cal
 
I have about 15 120 Trix and another 35mm 10 films Tri-X and they are about 1and half years old. They are all in the fridge and no worries about image fading or any other changes. there are some colour films too uncounted and dating up to 6 months I guess. Evry film is labelled and recorded data in sheets to trace all the photography shooting. I am not in any hurry but I am sure about my photography and i used to work this way for many years.
 
Calzone said:
In my SL I use 32 GB cards, and I have it set up for redundancy, meaning the second card is just a backup. 675 images from my 24 MP camera with a full card. That's like almost 19 rolls of film.
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I use 16GB cards. I'm not sure I've ever filled one up in a single session. I know I have never used the continuous shooting feature of my camera. One shot at a time. Everybody works differently though.
 
I've read a lot about Winogrand and have concluded that he suffered burn-out years before he ceased shooting, this I believe due to his terminal illness more than any other reason. But being somewhat compulsive-obsessive he couldn't stop shooting or change his style and just went on going on. Hoarding unprocessed film was one symptom of his malaise. The bs comment expressed by a poster has its adherents but it must be said that Winogrand did create many (okay, some) superb images rich in complex psychological meaning and he truly deserves his place in American photographic history as a true original.

Does anyone here have any updated info as to whether his stash of films left behind have finally been processed? 2.5K or more rolls left unsouped are an impressive lot but surely this backlog could and should have been cleared by now. If anyone cared. Two five-roll processing tanks or a couple of Jobos and a bulk order of chemicals, also a lot of time involved, the latter would be impressively high, tho, which may well be the main stumbling block in this plan, if there was ever one.

Winogrand's work rather fails to impress me for the most part but I do acknowledge the genius behind his legacy. As one who has shot and processed film to a quite low (at times) and careful budget throughout my life, I have a small stash of a dozen or so color negative films refrigerated and awaiting to be processed, and I do worry about these images. A part explanation for the delay in sending them out are (1) the ridiculously high cost of C41 processing in Australia (this in itself isn't really a valid excuse) and (2) my awareness that my film images were taken during shoots with my Nikon D700 and I have the digital images downloaded, post-processed and catalogued in my files, so the need for analogue versions of same is quite limited. I could also add (3) the subject matter (old buildings and winter landscapes in Victoria and Tasmania, Australia) generally fails to greatly excite my senses in the first place.

So I dither. But then I am no Winogrand, and not many people will express any angst over my legacy of unseen imagery after I've shuffled off this mortal coil with these films undeveloped, as I am well aware.

So reasons and reasons. Do we know why Winogrand dithered so long in processing his backlog?

Having now expressed these perhaps overly pessimistic (or dare I say it, "negative"?) thoughts, I hope all those unprocessed and unseen images by Winogrand will eventually see the light, so to say, and become part of his huge archive, if only to close a door for the last time on his career and work. As we all deserve to have.
 
ozmoose said:
... Do we know why Winogrand dithered so long in processing his backlog?
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I read the bulk of the undeveloped rolls are from GW's last years in LA. In 1982 he bought a 6 frame/sec motor drive for his Leica. At that point, GW took most of his photos from the passenger seat of a car. Even GW's closest friends state during this period his work was deeply flawed in every conceivable way.

However, for about twenty years GW was clearly more interested in using his camera than developing, editing and sequencing his work.
 
ptpdprinter said:
I use 16GB cards. I'm not sure I've ever filled one up in a single session. I know I have never used the continuous shooting feature of my camera. One shot at a time. Everybody works differently though.
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PTP,

On my Monochrom I like you use 16GB cards. I carry extra cards but I have to think if I ever used them. Perhaps while traveling without a computer to download.

With the SL and using the 50 Lux SL with autofocus faster shooting happens and is exploited. While not so frantic as "spray and play" there is an element of movement often in the fashion photography I do for my gal's blog. I tend to shoot in three round bursts like a hit man except I slightly change my position with each shot and reframe.

Last night on www.cosmopolitan.com they released a video of my gal that is an interview. In the B-roll there is a cameo of me and two cameo's of us chimping my SL. In one clip I'm flipping through some shots using the touch screen.

Last night my gal started with 268K followers and this morning 12 hours later that number got bumped to 271K.

Cal
 
willie_901 said:
I read the bulk of the undeveloped rolls are from GW's last years in LA. In 1982 he bought a 6 frame/sec motor drive for his Leica. At that point, GW took most of his photos from the passenger seat of a car. Even GW's closest friends state during this period his work was deeply flawed in every conceivable way.

However, for about twenty years GW was clearly more interested in using his camera than developing, editing and sequencing his work.
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Crazy, isn't it? The accounts I've read say his daughter drove him around L.A. while Winogrand, with two 10-roll packs of Tri-X, shot out the window with a motor-driver SLR. He then threw the exposed film into plastic bags and forgot about it.

That's not normal.

@ozmoose: This should answer your question about what became of the unprocessed rolls: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/arts/design/when-images-come-to-life-after-death.html

John
 
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