Deon
Member
Since settling in New Mexico four years ago, I have been scanning and organizing the decades of film that had accumulated. At first, I thought this part of the project was going to take less than a year to accomplish. Reality had other ideas though… I finished the majority of the scans 28 months after start (6,480 HiRes scans completed). Back in 2005 Trish and I moved to Eureka, Nevada with the intent of creating art, which we did way more than thought. During those 13 years exploring the Great Basin Desert I shot on average 100 rolls of film every year (not to mention digital). My darkroom in Eureka was the most pathetic and basic of darkrooms I have ever known. Film only, I never set up the enlargers. So, what that created was a massive amount of imagery that I had only taken a cursory look at and filed away, until now!
Great Basin National Park (1991) - Hasselblad 500C/M w/ 350mm CF lens - Fuji Velvia film - (from my book "NEVADA" published by Graphic Art Center 2001)
I’ve been in my studio having been scanning film for over two years and making silver prints again for the first time in 15 years. I’m seeing so many unexpected collections emerge, which has turned this daunting process into something really fun! Revelations creating new ones. My photographs had been sorted and filed in ways incompatible with my vision. Stupid me, I sorted all my images by the camera that created it, then date. I upended this idea and have been organizing my entire photographic collection by location. This has revealed even more ideas for collections and nuanced existing ones. I have removed every image from “date created” and ended discrimination by camera. I’ve organizing every image regardless of camera, format, digital or analog into “place”. I aways tried putting these ideas together in my head, but now with these collections together it visually makes so much more sense to navigate and discover ideas.
Great Basin National Park - Me at camp creating the above image - Nikon 135AF - Agfa Optima film
At the last moment I decided to incorporate all of our point and shoot camera images (film to digital) as well as polaroids. A far more difficult process as we shot so many different brands and kinds/speeds of films that became a scanning nightmare trying to get good colors throughout all those variations. The last couple of months have been spent integrating all of my digital photographs into the collection. A much quicker process as I had already edited and organized the images into place/date format, it’s just a matter of going through over 65,000 images (edited from 160,000) and sorting them into place. To be honest, I was super stressed out and completely overwhelmed when I saw what I was up against, organizing a true mountain of images. Two years later I’m feeling so much better, since seeing so many unexpected collections show up. 27 collection so far, some will end up being self created art books (Trish and I have printed and bound four books so far), plus a new website, coming soon…
Great Basin National Park - Trish and I were the first "Artist's in Residence" in the park (2007). - Canon 5D MkII w/ 24-105 lens.
I learned something Today... Keep up with filing and organization as it gets out of hand way too fast!
Great Basin National Park (1991) - Hasselblad 500C/M w/ 350mm CF lens - Fuji Velvia film - (from my book "NEVADA" published by Graphic Art Center 2001)
I’ve been in my studio having been scanning film for over two years and making silver prints again for the first time in 15 years. I’m seeing so many unexpected collections emerge, which has turned this daunting process into something really fun! Revelations creating new ones. My photographs had been sorted and filed in ways incompatible with my vision. Stupid me, I sorted all my images by the camera that created it, then date. I upended this idea and have been organizing my entire photographic collection by location. This has revealed even more ideas for collections and nuanced existing ones. I have removed every image from “date created” and ended discrimination by camera. I’ve organizing every image regardless of camera, format, digital or analog into “place”. I aways tried putting these ideas together in my head, but now with these collections together it visually makes so much more sense to navigate and discover ideas.
Great Basin National Park - Me at camp creating the above image - Nikon 135AF - Agfa Optima film
At the last moment I decided to incorporate all of our point and shoot camera images (film to digital) as well as polaroids. A far more difficult process as we shot so many different brands and kinds/speeds of films that became a scanning nightmare trying to get good colors throughout all those variations. The last couple of months have been spent integrating all of my digital photographs into the collection. A much quicker process as I had already edited and organized the images into place/date format, it’s just a matter of going through over 65,000 images (edited from 160,000) and sorting them into place. To be honest, I was super stressed out and completely overwhelmed when I saw what I was up against, organizing a true mountain of images. Two years later I’m feeling so much better, since seeing so many unexpected collections show up. 27 collection so far, some will end up being self created art books (Trish and I have printed and bound four books so far), plus a new website, coming soon…
Great Basin National Park - Trish and I were the first "Artist's in Residence" in the park (2007). - Canon 5D MkII w/ 24-105 lens.
I learned something Today... Keep up with filing and organization as it gets out of hand way too fast!