I’m done taking photos…

…for a time anyway. How long depends on how long it takes me to catch up on the backlog of images I need to post-process.

So what’s my story? What caused this?

I got in a bad habit of shooting a bunch of images and then bringing them into my workflow to select the best images and do any post-processing that needed to be done. Problem was I’d start on them and then life would get in the way and I wouldn’t finish up the set. When a new opportunity to shoot would come along, I’d go shoot away and the process would just repeat. This of course never happened with anything anyone was paying for but with work for my own purposes. That only makes it slightly better.

It’s like an episode of Hoarders, only with digital image files instead of trash, cats, and an inexplicable collection of broken mop handles. I need some shooting restraint and workflow discipline.

I’ve decided to put a stop to the ever increasing backlog by not adding to it any longer. Since I know I can’t stand to not make new images I know I’ll have an incentive to catch up so I can get back out shooting, especially since I’ve got a new film camera. I’ll discuss that one in a later post.

The parameters are simple. No new photos, except for some acceptable exceptions:

1. Anything my wife needs me to shoot. If you’ve been married more than two and a half days you know this is a no-brainer.
2. Anything I want to shoot with my iPhone. Since those get post-processed within the device, they don’t add to the problem.
3. Anything I need to shoot for demonstration or educational purposes. Not cool if I’m trying to demonstrate something to someone and I have to tell them that I’m not allowed to take photos. A little weird factor is OK, but that would probably be a bit much.
4. Any paying gig. The odds of that are about as high as #5 that follows, but if I’m going to have discipline, I need clear parameters.
5. Any opportunity to take a photo of any extraterrestrial activity or crypto-zoological type creature. I don’t believe in that stuff but it’d be flat goofy to miss a chance to get a capture for which the National Enquirer would pay $3.50.

I got a good start last night; I scanned eight rolls of 120 film, some just a few days old, some dating back to last April. I’ll deal with them first and start working backward in time from there.

So here’s one of the film images that I’m starting with. I think it still needs a little work – looks a little warm to me.