Anyone with a vague interest in photography will have heard the name Gary Winogrand, and anyone who has more of an interest will know about the greatness of this photographer.
When the ICP in New York held a retrospect of his work in 1995 (I have mentioned this on the B before I am sure) It was a revelation for me at the time (and also my first trip to NY). What intrigued me the most, and still does to this day, was the amount of work he left behind. Some 300,00 unedited images and countless rolls of film. It's a bit of a shame that nowadays when Winogrand is mentioned his accumulation of work is the main topic over actual content.. But lets not get side tracked here as this post is narcissistically about me.
Thankfully I do not have hundreds of thousands of images that will never see the light of day. But I do have hundreds, ok, about 150 at my last count including my 108 project and a fair few images I produced State side, and thats not including the un-processed batch of 50 sheets from my last trip. I should add that this new digital era has produced, and will continue to produce millions of images by photographers that will never leave the depths of the hard drive. But thats mostly down to people over shooting on crap budgets (less budget, but the client expects more images= Stupid!). But thats enough about digital and the ruin of fine photography.
So basically I (along with many others I am sure) go out with my camera. I make a few images, put them to one side, and then you go out again, and again, until I have amassed a pile of images waiting to be reborn. So it doesn't take long before you find yourself where I am now. As I always prefer to shoot (and accumulate) rather than edit and print (or scan for that matter) It will always be the way for me and thats fine for now. For the past few years I have had this situation arise but can never seem to get in the darkroom (or find myself willing to spend the funds) long enough to get myself up to date.
Having said all this, I do think, in fact I am pretty sure, the era of a photographer having one or two memorable images has past. We are so flooded my imagery (good and bad) these days, with special thanks to the tinternet of course, that we are almost blind to good photography. In fact we are so blind that we have to look at what has gone before to appreciate good photography, rather than what is going today..
As for me. Well when the day comes and I don't have anything left to print. Well, that my friends will be the end.
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