Oh hey there—long time no post! In this post, I want to share a few photos that I’ve recently printed and why. Once every few years, I go through my archives, flag a bunch of photos somewhat mindlessly, and send them all to get printed. It costs something like 30$ and we have over a hundred photos. Nothing fancy, just small 4x6 photographs that we keep in a box on the coffee table.
I fell in love with photography by taking photos of friends and family. Ever since I’ve started working as a photographer (now starting my 7th year of full time photography), those personal photographs have kinda gotten mixed up with all the photographs that I take for work. They essentially all end up in Adobe Lightroom, in folders that are organized chronologically. But the thing is that for every photo that I take for personal use, I might take… maybe 200 for work purposes? If not more? Printing them out is just a way for me to make sure I don’t lose track of them and that I keep them close.
That ratio of work:personal photos is something that I’m always trying to balance out. We’ve heard of the stories and warnings right? A person starts off passionate about a hobby, then they lose interest as they turn it into work because it gets overwhelming and stressful. I don’t think I’ve had to deal with that explcitly, but I think it affects me in that I carry my camera less often with me. I often think of the analogy of the artist working a side job in, say, a bar or a cafe. There’s a separation between what they’re passionate about or driven by (their art) and what brings them a more stable income (their side job). There’s a clear purpose for both. My situation is different in that what I’m passionate about and what brings me income are both within the medium of photography. Two different kinds of photography, but both require a camera, a computer, my studio space, etc. So it’s more difficult to create boundaries between the two, to make sure that I don’t solely work on work work.
Every few months I find myself needing reminders to carve some space out for personal projects. The current method that I’m using is to make sure to dedicate a full day in the studio per week where I get to work on personal projects. I schedule it officially in my calendar and resist the urge to book a last-minute client who is only available that day.
Every time I print some photos for fun, I re-fall in love with photography and get a boost of motivation. These days I’m playing around with medium format film cameras, I’m contacting people for photo collaborations, and I’m making sure that I always have a camera with me.
Go print some photos! Make sure they don’t just exist in the cloud.