(I’m quite late with my retrospective posts this year!)

2023 was mostly about getting reacquainted with black and white film photography. It took most of the year to just regain a level of comfort with the process. I went through several different film stocks and developers before settling on Kodak Double-X as the right film at the right price. I still haven’t completely settled on a developer, for now T-Max seems to be working. Black and white film photography, then, is what you can expect from me in 2024. I also acquired and shot with a new camera and several new lenses. Oh, and there is a gorgeous Beseler enlarger in my basement just waiting for when I can organize a darkroom. Then look out! There’s something one of my favorite photography bloggers, Mike Johnson of The Online Photographer, calls Photo 101 style (Johnson’s definition: “35mm B&W photographs of “found life,” printed full frame—a style popularized by Henri Cartier-Bresson and adopted by innumerable other photographers as their own over many years.”) I appear to be doggedly in pursuit of it, except with the addition of some medium format. These days my digital camera really only sees use for product and lifestyle photography related to our business.

Why bother with film? That’s a very fair question. I can say that after having shot digitally for roughly 20 years, I am enjoying approaching photography differently. Like most people, I spend a lot of time with computers and screens. I am enjoying reclaiming photography as an analog process. This tendency is pretty widespread and it makes a lot of sense to me. Once I have a darkroom set up, perhaps I can reset the clock entirely. I’d like that.

It’s also been important to me to introduce my kids to these processes and the rich heritage of photography’s past. The only way for them to appreciate it is for them to do it. So this has been the year that I’ve furnished both my kids with Nikons and given them as much bulk-rolled black and white film as they want. They seem to be having fun.

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Some Favorites from ’23

Not having had any defined projects, my photography this past year reflects my own general photographic tendencies. The photos collected here were made with the Nikon FE, Kodak Retina 1b, Leica IIIc (with Leitz 50mm Elmar f3.5 and Canon 35mm f2), Agfa Isolette L, and Rolleiflex 3.5e2. They were shot on either Kentmere 400 or Kodak Double-X.

(Click on the first image of each of these sections for an improved viewing experience).

Parking Lot Studies

If you refer to my 2022 photographic recap, you’ll see that I was feeling pretty ruminative. “Street photography”—the photographic genre on which I hung my hat—had begun to feel like a dead end. To do it well requires things I don’t have enough of any more.

So what to photograph? I decided that I should be finding photographic interest in my daily environment. Well, I am in parking lots quite often, I thought to myself. It felt like an exercise.

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(Ab)Nature Photography

What do I mean by this? It sounds a bit pretentious even to me… In the Anthropocene, ‘nature’ is there to be questioned. From the top of Mt. Everest to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, the planet’s been impacted by the activity of people. Trying to represent something as being ‘natural’ is to romanticize it. I wouldn’t want to impose, I’d like to present the abnatural world on its own terms. I’m still working on this. I don’t think I’m quite succeeding yet.

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Built Environment

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People

People are an abiding interest, of course.

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