I'm sorry I've not used you at all for six months or so. I used to post here quite often - remember that? Ah, those were the days. So why did I abandon you? Well, truth be told, it's because three things happened at once: 1) Flickr, which was previously the host I used for all of my photos, got a massive redesign, and I hated it. 2) Pdexposures (www.pdexposures.com) got a lot more serious, and started to feel like a real thing - as opposed to just being three people swearing at each other. 3) I started to realise that the biggest problems I had with photography were the digital aspects; scanning, editing, digitally curating. Why, as a film photographer, was I tolerating a semi-digital workflow? The combination of those three elements got me thinking much more about photography, about what I was doing, and what it is I want to be doing - and one of those things involves being much more critical about what I upload and how I upload it. For too long, my Flickr and Tumblr accounts had been a massive wasteland where I dumped images constantly. Part of that was because I had no overall plan, but also because it felt like if I wasn't uploading a photograph every day, I was somehow not playing the game correctly. So what did I do instead? I still took photographs. That never stopped. But I started thinking about projects, about overarching themes, about a purpose. And rather than even deal with digital files, I started making contact sheets and printing images. I even bought a medium format enlarger last month so that I could move to a traditional workflow with my TLRs, too. And I feel much better for it. Don't take this as a judgemental, holier-than-thou post. It isn't. I'm not knocking the like-chasers, the constant uploaders, the film scanners and the photoshop jockeys; I've just come to realise that maybe that's not for me. With all that said, here's a quick recent photo, just to prove I still burn through the HP5+: See you on the other side, folks.
