I switched to film a couple of years ago, and with it came a bad habit: sitting on photos. They’d wait on my hard drive for the perfect moment, whatever that means. Part of it was that I’d lost the joy of posting on socials, and that led me to print more often. I used to print only when I had an exhibition to run or a zine to make. Now I do it for no particular reason at all.
Holding a photo you took stays with you in a way that sharing it online never does. If you don’t believe me, look at Beyoncé’s latest i-D cover, which came out as a printed poster zine. None of this is new. Back in 1982 John Naisbitt called it “high tech, high touch”: the more technology advances, the more we look for things we can touch. I used to call this a counter trend. I now think it’s a parallel one, the other side of the same coin.
I could go on about this all day. So I don’t get preachy, I’ll keep it personal and show how my photos have lived with me over the past year.
Living with photos
For a long time I thought living with my own photos was cringe. It sounds like an artist who’s full of themselves, doesn’t it? Call me an egomaniac if you like, but it’s OK to live with photos you love, even if you took them.
Sometimes you’re lucky enough to have talented friends who recreate your photos in their own medium.
I believe in holding your own photos so much that I recently revived Show & Tell in our Porto photography community. With so much going on in my personal life it’s been hard to run it often, but I know it will pick up soon.
If your best frames are still sitting on a hard drive, print one.