_valerian

Since January of 2005, I’ve been shooting a couple rolls of color film a month. Each roll gets dropped off at my local Fuji-color DPE shop. I go there because the owner still uses an analog system to print pictures. Most places that do film will develop the film but print the pictures out digitally, resulting in nasty little off-color digital prints. Oh no thank you.

The owner also knows how I like the white borders around my pictures. As a service for his customers he always prints a few 5×7s of the pictures that he likes from each roll he processes. I don’t always agree with the selection, but won’t complain.
I keep everything filed in little albums with 240 pockets each.

Maybe by this point some folks might want to say LOL BUTt Jhon U should go digital andU can have all your pictures for FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

And I would say No. That is a stupid argument. Please, someone show me a camera that gives you pictures (prints) for free.

It would be better worded like this:

LOL BUTt Jhon if U shot all these digital and had all of teh pictures printed out digital U would save about 400 yen per roll on the actual development of the film!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

And I could instead use that money to buy DVDs to back the files up on!

or:

LOL BUTt Jhon if U shot all these digitally U could keep buying DVDs to store them on and then l@@k at them on UR computer when U want!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Exactly. And then you are stuck with a stack of DVDs that need a computer to be seen instead of handy small albums to flip through.

The nice thing about having actual prints in physical albums is that I have a wicked-fast application to enjoy them. It works in real time and is called “My Hands and My Eyes”. It also works great for other things like eating and knowing which bottle is the fixer and which is my tea. Provided the hardware does not break or wear out, I can use this platform for a long time to look at my pictures and, nightly, brush my teeth (not at the same time though).

The tactile enjoyment of looking at little prints in a book on your lap is quite a different sensation than what you can get out of going through applications on a computer monitor. I understand that this is what you are doing at the moment though. I’m not arguing that photo albums are more convenient than computer-based photographic sharing opportunities, just more personal and maybe pleasant to enjoy.
I’d sure rather flip through someone’s albums instead of reading their blog or (shudder) suffer through Flickr to see their pictures.

I wonder how many kids today are going to have albums of photographs of their lives to look through as they get older. My grandparent’s house had a long shelf with some really great photo albums that I looked through all the time as a kid. Whenever I am invited to someone’s house for dinner, I often ask if they have any old photo albums to look through. Vernacular photographs can be so mind-blowingly awesome.

LOL FWIW Jhon with a digital camera U can just keep the ones U want to Keep and U can save $$$$$$$$ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 That is what is so kewl about digital U can just delete teh ones U don’t want right away!!!

This argument assumes that no one wants the bulk of their own photographs. But what if someone does? Do I put absolutely every shot  from a roll in one of these albums? No. Maybe 1 or two do not make the cut. But part of the reason that I make a photograph in the first place is because I am interested in seeing that photograph. You can learn from any picture. Or at the very least, enjoy it as it is.

A weekend or two ago I visited Kogei Daigaku’s culture festival and in addition to watching students ride on a camel, I was also able to sit down with a bunch of Mai Tanaka’s photo albums.

It was interesting to flip through so much raw material, and stumble across the images that she exhibited in her Nikon Salon show. It was great to see what came before and after her portfolio pictures. It was like having a chance to see a director’s dailies. You know how the film came out, but man it sure is fun to see what else was/is there.

All this is not simply about getting good at making “Great Captures!” to share with friends and family, but instead, about creating a photographic collective of images that build upon and inform one another.

It is key to approach someone’s photo albums as an ongoing diary.