It's winter, and here in Canada, that means snow. And to me, that means the wonderful photo opportunities that snow brings to the land. Snow transforms the familiar landscape, creating minimalist abstractions of texture and shape that are usually hidden by soil and foliage at other times of the year. In winter my fascination is with trees, lonely, solitary trees. I photograph too many of them, too often, but always I am drawn to their stoic stand against the elements. I photograph them with every tool at my disposal, 35mm to 8x10, but almost always in black and white. Though I probably have photographed hundreds of trees, I am still fascinated by the stark shapes they present against the winter skies.
Back, way back... on January 1, 2010, I began the 365 day photo challenge. It was definitely a challenge, though not the one I expected it to be. It was not difficult to pick up my camera every day or to find things to shoot. In fact, as the year passed, I found new ways to revisit old subjects and to get more out of each day's shooting. The real challenge was keeping up with film processing and printing. So, though my digital friends had images to post on a daily basis, I could only look at the mounting pile of unprocessed film in my darkroom. By the time December 31 rolled around, I had over 130 rolls of various format films to process. This was despite the fact that I tried to do at least a little processing every week as I went along. Despite the backlog, I knuckled down and whittled away nearly a third of that number in a week. Now, closing in on 400 consecutive days of photography, I have no desire to slow down. Just to cover myself, I did amend my mandate somewhat so that my challenge is to shoot, process, print or otherwise engage myself in something photographic every day, but so far I am still shooting. It gives me something to look forward to every day and something to do in the evenings when the tv is running in the other room.
Wish me luck! Tom |
Tom
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