No more prints?

There seems to be no more room for film photographers today. At least not for those who cannot afford to have a personal lab where to stay put in a dim light for hours, developing and printing negatives. I've had the opportunity to use an old German camera from the 50's last summer and took some 120mm rolls while walking through Milan and Tivoli. Then, having sent Franka to the 591 Blog member next in the queue (see more about Franka Journey on its dedicated blog), I decided to test different labs by giving one roll per photo shop available in town (Saronno). I figured out it would have taken some time in order to have them developed and scanned (as I couldn't imagine what would be the results, I decided it was better giving a look to the negatives, before). To my surprise I discovered it actually takes more than two weeks to have the digital scans back.

This happens as none of these shops is anymore able to make their own B&W film processing. In one case only I was told that I would have been different if I had used color films.

In the past time I've used several times B&W films that could be processed with the same machinery commonly used for color films. The results, indeed, where not really exciting - for what I remember mainly for contrast and a little but disturbing color drift - but I can't tell today if it was due to my little experience or to the physical medium limitations. I'd better make new attempts and see if the years have changed the way I shoot.

Well, more surprisingly I learned that scanning the negatives will cost something like one euro per frame. That in the end will constitute a considerable amount of money, provided that I won't have the printed copies in my hands yet. So, I started thinking about how the latest technology changes have modified the way we consume pictures today. In the last  fifteen years the easiness of taking and storing pictures has dramatically grown, whereas the printing services offer has only slightly improved. As a matter of fact our PCs are filled up with images that we never will be able to see printed. If we're lucky and far-sighted they will be recorded and ordered in a smart way on a backed-up hard-disk for ... just better days. ... yep.

I'd better stop myself here. The stone is thrown.

Globen

There and back again

I proposed myself not to wait too much before writing a second photo-book, after my first experience. I thought one year before putting the hands back to a page-maker tool would have been necessary, after all. As a matter of fact, if I started now with good pace I would not be able to have a printed copy in my hands before two or three months, that is two years after I received Klippan. Considering how easy is editing a book today, two years are a quite a long time. I could have carried on this work before, of course. To my justification I can mention having spent a lot of time abroad, which also gave me the opportunity to widen the number of samples I'll be able to consider into my next effort.

Now I feel it's about time to move on. I have made a good hard-disks clean up and tiding up work in the last three weekends that will allow me to move on a unique database of picture and select my preferred without wasting time and memory. It's a matter of IT  self-hygiene: something our parents couldn't figure out with they shoes-boxes filled up with negatives. So, what remains now it the hard task: taking a final decision about a theme to get stick to, devising a good editorial strategy, selecting and organizing the content, processing the still virgin pictures and so on.

I thought a good theme could, again, be based on my travels. The latest cost reduction programs that telecom companies like mine are waging to safely pass through these years of crisis are strongly affecting the old habits to travel and meet whenever possible. In their help the latest technology offers good reasons to minimize expensive travels. From my point of view, unfortunately, this is starting to limit my presence out of office and thus my chances to explore new grounds and meet new faces. On the other hand this is driving me to critically review my recent work and start with the second photo-book of my life.

I thought it could be entitled "There and back again", just like Tolkien's bestseller. Being a personal work, I don't think anyone will blame me for using it. In the end it's going to be the visual chronicle of seven years spent travelling abroad, to North. Yes, of course! "To North and back again", this could be another good option.

Landmarks - III

Maybe it's better putting down two lines to explain these pictures. Ulf, AKA Mr Urbano, 591 founder, asked us to start a new advertising campaign by printing 591 logo and sticking it  wherever possible (and allowed, of course ...). So I made my print and gave two samples to my kids. They inevitably found the best use of these stripes of paper: something that I could only barely imagine. I'm wondering who's the real creative ...

Landmarks - II

Landmarks

What remains of the hot days

The herbs of my little roof-garden prepares for the cold season. The memory of the just gone glorious summer still flutters through the leaves that survived the storms of the last days. Do they ever wonder if it was all worth?

The shop is momentary closed

I'm short of pictures to show. It's almost incredible to say. I just took another hard-disk where to store all the pictures I've shot in the last twelve years. I think I counted something like thirty thousands or more files! ... and I strive to find some pictures to show.

The are some good reasons for this to happen. Above all, I just started a new activity, in my workplace, joining a so called cross-functional team (XFT), attempting to work in a way that's called "Lean", or "Agile", or both names at the same time. It's something inherited from the software development world, which is not so distant from mine. It takes time, rather it grabs all the time you have while you're in office (and outside), minimizing "waste". That's the main concern: wasted time. Did I really waste my time before? I never thought to be wasting time, sitting at my desk or traveling around the world: not even in those unlucky periods when the workload was minimal. The result is that, now, with this new way of working I nearly feel embarrassed to take a day off and I'm pretty sure the team does the same.

Today the new school year started and I opted not to take my son into his classroom and run to the railway station, as I wanted to be in office before 9.00. That's not good.

It's not good that among 30.000 and more files I can't find the time to pick some to show on my blog. All this "agility" is driving to immobility after all.

Tivoli - VI

Tivoli - V