Over the course of this summer program I feel I am growing exponentially as a photographer. However, I felt like this past week in particular was the height of my technical development (literally). I am no virgin to shooting with my Minolta 7000 film camera, but with that being said I have never had the luxury or even accessibility to be able to develop and enlarge my negatives into tangible prints. Although I was not aware of the meticulous and sometimes tedious nature of this process, I felt that end result all that much more rewarding. When you have that final print in your hands and the exposure is perfect, it all becomes worth it. All those overexposed and blurry misprints that your classmates are complaining are consuming the dryer have all paid off because they are what lead you to the piece of artwork that sits right under your nose. The piece of artwork that you shot, nurtured, developed and processed ever since it was just a strip of gelatin silver in a roll of 400x film. No form of digital printing can ever amount to the rewards of getting that first evenly exposed film print. Earlier this week our photography class also had the luxury of meeting with an alumnus of the Tisch photography program, Sara Macel. Given our last two guest photographers who were polar opposites in both artistic style and persona I really did not know what to expect from her. I was however pleasantly surprised to see how down to earth she was. Not to mention how beautiful and flamboyant (I had almost forgotten what color looks like) her 20 by 27 color film prints were. I was so impressed with the nature of her projects that I plan to follow her progress to see when she is releasing her next book Kiss & Tell. Not only was Sara a talented and photographically interesting person, but she also was very personable and helpful to talk to. I actually made the effort to talk to her about her brand because I found it so different to my own. The reason I was so curious about what kind of aesthetic she associated she with was because even though I did not think they would be the typical images that grab my attention, I was still captivated by them. I also am looking forward to getting into the meat of my final project as this program comes to a close. It is by far the most ambitious photography I have ever attempted to achieve but I know it will all be worth it in the end. Thank you for taking an interest in my lengthy and unnecessarily wordy blog post.
