I guess I’ve been here off and on for about 20 years, although I did quit for a long spell as I got tired of being attacked. But now I’m back and I think social media has no place like this and never will. There is too much emphasis on having to ‘like’ people, photos, and projects. I know it’s rude to tell somebody their photos suck, but we are not all created equally talented. Some shooters without a doubt produce simplistic boring work and no amount of teaching or course work at RIT or an intensive workshop will ever change that. I think it takes a near photographic memory, patience, reading a lot of books (1,000 is a good start) to at least look at the pictures, and shooting and reviewing more images than many of us can imagine. A curator at the Smithsonian says I am among the most prolific photographers in their collections, but compared to some digital shooters on this list, my numbers are reasonably small. I recently got to the 500k mark in images on film and while I can’t recall all of them, I am amazed that I have gotten to that milestone. I’m sure as many of mine as anybody’s are crap, and if you want to come look, they’re down in the basement vault. For the past 30 years or so, I have concentrated on medium format, but I also have about 5,000 rolls of 35mm both in color and b/w and I do not review them all that often. My assistant is on my case at the moment to begin scanning my 35mm color work from before 1990, so I guess it will begin appearing somewhere. Sometimes I just wish I had a normal job so I could retire and go on lengthy vacations without feeling the need to go shoot odd things like this week’s entry in the PF gallery. I wish I had shot about another 30 rolls at AMARC with another day of work I didn’t have, although I have a client who wants me to go back even though the B-52’s are apparently all sliced up. Happy Holidays! And you too Tina.
Art Faul The Artist Formerly Known as Prints ------ Art for Cars: art4carz.com Stills That Move: http://www.artfaul.com Greens: http://www.inkjetprince.com Camera Works - The Washington Post . |
