If your YouTube feed is anything like mine, you saw a lot of photographers hopping on the indoor photography bandwagon. Now I know for many of you this was incredibly helpful, but others may not want to shoot indoors, and would rather not pick up the camera at all, and that is totally fine. I have a solution for you as well.
Hi everyone Azriel Knight here and today I want to give you three alternatives to Quarantine Photography.
I have a theory that no one really has their photo collection in order, unless they don’t shoot enough or have hired an assistant. At least that’s what I’m hoping because my collection is pure chaos. But I also don’t think we look back at our old photos very often, or often enough. What a perfect time to get your photo collection in order. I mentioned this already in my 2020 goals but I have started the process of going through my film collection and throwing out some of my less than stellar negatives. I want to trim the fat and make it easier to get to the images I’m proud of. Easiest way to do that is dump the ones that were for test purposes, weren’t fixed properly or are just plain dull. I expect there won’t be much left at the end.
I am also going to brush up on my Lightroom skills and get to work on my catalogue. I plan to be quite liberal with the delete button.
This is also a good time to get your backups in order. I have been using a Drobo for the past 10 years. I currently have a 5 bay system utilizing dual redundancy. 3 hard drives would have to fail at the same time to lose data. I also have an offsite backup in case of fire. Remember the mantra. 2 is 1, and 1 is none.
Once you start getting everything organized, some patterns are bound to come up. Everyone’s got a shtick, like for me its bridges.
Perhaps there’s a time in your life you want to turn into a collection, or maybe you found a few gems along the way. Sometimes things just present themselves as you go. Chances are if you’ve been shooting for years and haven’t gone back yet, there’s enough there to design and publish your own photo zine or book, and that’s my plan. At the very least I want to make a top ten for each year.
The last on my list here is to invest your time and money into the works of others. Now is a great time to fill your head with new information and your home with amazing photo. The sky is the limit, but here are a few examples of what I mean.
Invest in other people’s artwork. Photos, zines, books, projects, Kickstarters, whatever. Use the money you would normally spend on film, and support other photographers.
Invest in abandoned film and prints. eBay has a massive catalogue of abandoned negatives & photos. Over the past couple years I have collected several celebrity negatives for example. This is a great way to practice in the darkroom and adds something unique to your collection. Many of these are individually cut from a massive lot, usually an estate sale. They don’t go for very much either considering what you get, probably because so few of us can utilize it.
This is great if you want to own a little piece of history from your favourite movie or television series.
Invest in old books. Don’t let the old knowledge die. Places like thrift books dot com, and Amazon have a bunch of old photography books and much of the information is still relevant. Many of the chemicals and films referenced are discontinued but the principals remain the same. Sometimes you’ll only pay a few pennies for the book, plus shipping because Amazon sellers just want it out of there.
Anyway, those are my ideas, I hope you found the list inspiring. Be sure and let me know your ideas in the comments.
And if you like what I do around here, maybe you’ll consider becoming my patron on Patreon. You can also follow me on Instagram and Twitter, and until next time, stay classic.