Almost everyone agrees that having one shot of scotch can be a pleasure, but ten shots will be a disaster. The same can be said of taking photographs.

I am not talking about photographers who are on assignment.. they have many demands that have nothing to do with wonderful photographs and yet they very often they produce wonderful photographs.

I am talking about serious photography, either amateur or professional. I am talking about a serious connection with your subject and serious understanding of when the elements are in place for your photograph.

Digital diahhrea is a disease for which there is a simple cure. Take one frame of a scene. It is exquisite training for your eye and your brain. Try it for a month. Then try it for another month…then try it for another month…..

I have always wondered why Garry Winogrand left this world with a filing cabinet full of undeveloped rolls of film. (That’s him with his hands up.) I told John Szarkowski that he would not have wanted them developed, but I was overruled. That’s ok.

In the early days we hung out together. He always wanted to see what a day’s shooting looked like. In the fifties, we just used a magnifier to look at the negatives as soon as they were dry…contact sheets were a pain and we could read negatives.

Now I think I know why he left those films. I won’t be presumptuous and say I do know, but will offer this explanation because I am experiencing it myself.

After more than 60 years of shooting it is difficult to rationally add another roll of negatives to the binders in my fireproof safe. I print my own work and am ten years behind. You could suggest that I get a printer but that is not my style. I believe that Garry had a printer, but at one point even that doesn’t matter. It’s the old fashioned equivalent of the massive amount of information you get on your computer. You just can’t process it.

I still see photographs, but I don’t necessarily shoot them. Garry kept on shooting. Maybe he was more of an optimist than me.

I have enough chosen negatives to keep me busy for years to come…I hope!
I wish that he was here to have the same option.

george
montreal 2008

ps: Don’t believe everything you read. [I was shooting this afternoon.]