This bright winter’s day image of Jim should surely be titled ‘me and my shadow’. Anyhow it’s a rather nice reminder that the February days ahead will be longer and lighter. I too have a long winter shadow but one that can overcast my mood, so this end of the season always feels propitious.
Today starts a new month which is always a good time to begin something new or renew/freshen something. Cheers!
To that end I’m taking up the first part of an assignment from Ted Forbes @ The art of Photography to begin a Photo Journal. I’ve never thought to do one or even thought there might be a need for one but having a visual record (with notes where applicable) of printed photos is one way of really ‘seeing’ our photography rather than viewing images on screen.
Oftentimes, we rarely sense the progress we make in any given subject, as we are “in” it, doing and learning. A photo journal is the perfect way to make your progress a lot more visible to yourself,
Why you need a photo journal ~ Pursue Light
As Alex Kilbee @ The Photographic Eye emphasises, this record over time of ‘photographic work’ also allows us to keep track of what kind of photographer we are, what seems to attract us the most, as well as showing us our strengths and weaknesses, consistency/inconsistency etc.
Thinking about it now, this all seems fairly obvious but in this digital age of multiple ‘virtual’ imagery it has somehow got a little lost. But see for example Stephen McLaren’s “Photographer’s Sketchbooks” which shows the journaling of nearly 50 photographers.
A photo album? In the past we kept family photo albums as historical mementos, when film was expensive and shots had to be few and far between. The only film I’ve ever used has been on my now defunct Polaroid Spectra – nothing wrong with the camera but the film is no longer being manufactured because there were too many problems with prints not exiting readily – see Jamming with a Polaroid Spectra.
I had kept back the last 8 shot film I had and a milestone birthday back in July at the seaside seemed like the right occasion. The day was scorching, the light too bright, the photographer two parts cut, and the Polaroid jammed. But those prints I do have will be the start of my photo journal – their imperfection is appealing but so too the spontaneity. These two aspects I would want to keep in my digital photography.
PoetryPix 
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