I take photos and then...nothing!

[Sid836]

Sharing your photos with others helps a lot. At least for me, even a "I like that" makes me feel great.
Also, I print them. Sometimes I stare the strongest of them, and other times I go back to printing the one that I feel could come out better and do that in a different way.

Of course you cannot be happy with everything and forever. You spend some time off of it and then you come back to that.

 

[rbsinto]

Does anyone else take photos, sometimes lot's of them, and then do nothing with them?

I got to a point around 2009 or 10 where I started to wonder if there was any point in what I was doing. I rarely ever did anything with any of my pictures beyond look at them for a moment, I always intended to go back and edit, print, but never did. I posted a few on here from time to time, started a blog momentarily, flickr, but lost interest, so I stopped taking photos.

Then a few months ago I was going through stuff I had stored, and there's my big box of negatives, thousands and thousands of them. So I decided to start going through them and scanning some (found my scanner too), I found I liked more of them now than when I took them (or at least noticed more of them).

Pretty soon I lost interest, and decided instead to just start taking photos again (and started thinking digital is what I need).

Now I'm wondering, what??

I started a blog, I'm trying to include some old and new and be disciplined that if I'm going to continue producing them, I should start doing something with them.

Has anyone else got the same problem? It seems crazy but when I take them I feel like I'm going to make them into something, but lose interest.

If anyone would like to see some of the pictures (if you've been here a while, you may have seen a few already): http://richardelangley.tumblr.com

Any thoughts, encouragement, derision welcome.

edit: if you go to my "about" section, please excuse it. "specialising in long form documentary" was intended as an in joke.

I've had a similar mindset for the last few years. I go out, shoot and when I get my slides back, can barely take the time to run them through the projector.
Then the boxes pile up on the table and the slides may not be viewed, seriously culled or the ones I like scanned and posted for months or years.
Its as if it is the act of finding the subject and taking the shot is enough, and displaying the end result is immaterial.
When I take a good shot, I know its inside the camera, and that seems to be sufficient.
I don't have any clever solution for you other than to say that you'll have to push yourself to get out of the rut, by having a compelling reason to do so.
In my case, I belong to an Evaluation group that meets once a month to view each others' work and comment. This is one of the vehicles that compels me to scan some slides which, if well received by the group, will be posted on line.
I'm currently still about 35 or 40 boxes behind, but without the Evaluation Group to force me, I'd probably have at least twice as many to go through.

 

[Rikard]

I think a lot of people who do photography for a while find themselves in the same situation as you are in now. I think the problem is that you have become proficient enough in capturing your vision, so that you now know more or less how the photos will come out. Looking at the images is not enough because there is no longer the element of wonder and surprise you may have felt in the beginning. As I see it there are two different solutions;

1. Change/Develop your vision and introduce chance in the mix. Start experimenting with really slow shutter speeds on moving objects or do double exposures. I do this and most of the time I can't wait to get the roll developed so I can see how things worked out. I'm once again a beginner who explores the medium and I'm loving it 🙂

2. Find a project. Does not have to be grand or original, but it should be personal and mean something to you. For instance, If you have family/kids or someone else you care about. Allocate one year and give yourself the task of creating the most beautiful/interesting/creative photo book you possible can. Don't sell yourself short or give up. These are probably the most important photos you will ever make.

But, maybe just taking photographs is enough? I mean, a pleasurable activity does not necessarily have to result in anything more than the joy you get from performing it.

 

[ABrosig]

I have one very loyal collector who happily takes all of my images, any and everything I shoot.

Sadly, it's me.

Kind of in the same boat. Fortunately, a good bit of what I shoot is for the newspaper. Just about everything else I'm shooting, particularly with my film cameras, is going toward my ongoing Analog Project, including through Flickr, and on my blog with the eventual goal of a book which I hope will be coming out soon.

 

[itf]

Hi, wow, thanks everyone for the interesting discussion. It seems I'm not alone in the habit. I should add that I'm not disturbed by this tendency I've noticed, just that I noticed it and I thought it funny.

Photography isn't essential to me, but I definitely enjoy it. It's more that I've always been a watcher, and a listener and taking photos goes with that. A sort of a game I guess. In the past I've just done very little with the results, even though I do enjoy seeing the pictures come out (some of them anyway).

The only real problem I have with it is in using film, the time in processing, proofing/scanning, and the cost although relatively cheap is still significant for my income. These two factors make me question each frame and take away the spontaneous action of photographing.

As far as doing anything with the results, I guess my few abortive attempts at doing something with them have reminded me of the overflow of information of all sorts everywhere, and why add to it. The other part is that I go through a cycle of wanting everything to be complete, cohesive and perfect and for that I need time to sort everything, but then I decide I should just start little at a time (as I am now).

Add to that the endless technical stuff involving computers, colorspaces, profiles, formats, exif, and I tend towards giving up. I've spent quite a bit of time in darkrooms in the last 15 years and it seems so simple and tangible, but my recent dabbling with a digital camera makes me realise that's the way I'm going very soon.

Thanks all for the discussion.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

Well, I guess I could go one better and save money and snap away and not bother to have film in the camera, since it seems redundant to many people...

But it ain't photography as I know it but then I sometimes wonder if I live in a little world of my own and have got it all wrong. The internet is what makes me wonder that most of the time.

Regards, David

PS (Edit) even more money could be saved by selling all the lenses as they won't be needed... ;-)

 

[benlees]

A nice thread. Lots of good advice. Your blog is a great outlet for the what photography is great at: communication. Keep at 'er!

 

[Georgiy Romanov]

Try to give something to people, not only take from them. Photography is not only about "take" it also about "give". When I give photographs for those who i photographed on last week and see a big smile on their face that gives me strength and recharges my batteries.

My 2 cents.