Well the holidays have come and gone, snow has found its way into almost every state in the country and hopefully we are all embracing the vast possibilities that 2011 may bring. I am new to being a blogger and given my approach to my chosen craft of photography, I may be a little slow to bring you breaking news. I am shooting film in a digital world, and not just any film! I shoot on a very old fashioned view camera whose basic design has hardly changed in the last 100 years. Each shot is so carefully set up and composed sometimes only to be put away back in the camera bag without even exposing one shot! That really is what it is about for me, that one shot. A person can shoot hundreds of pictures in a day with the latest digital cameras but at the end of the day they all so often just have a lot of pictures? I, on the other hand, seek to create that one perfect photograph that captures the essence of a place, tells a story, and is truly a work of art!
This latest release of mine was taken on Thanksgiving morning just down the road from my new home in Jackson, Wyoming. The Teton's are brilliantly lit in the morning alpenglow while the barn of Morman Row stands witness as it has for the last hundred plus years. The cold was incredible on this morning with temps in the -20° F range. I was wading through freshly fallen knee deep snow to get the perfect vantage point to frame my shot. The cold was persistently nipping at any exposed flesh which I was choosing to ignore as long as I could stand it! Finally, I came to the point where I needed at least one hand exposed for handling the fine tuning of my practice. It seemed like an instant and my hands were literally useless and the inside of my gloves had been flash frozen. Two exposures, no bracketing and the moment was gone. The cold had taken a toll on me as this was the first really cold day of the season and I was not used to it.
Well several weeks later I sent my film away to my lab, on of 30 left in the country processing this type of film. They had it for about a week and shipped the processed sheets back. By now it was Christmas time. Kids are out of school, the gallery is busy, and family is in town. When am I going to find the time to scan and process this image let alone look at all of the film? Did I nail the shot? Finally, it all aligned for me and yes, I did nail the shot! It was only seconds I had to capture what was the most brilliant sunrise of the entire winter so far and I got it! Finally the rest of you can see it too.
How can a film shooter stay current day to day on a Blog...I'm not sure I can? I am sure however that I will provide my reader's with QUALITY content, and that goes the same with my film photography. This is truly the real deal. You are witnessing a true artist at the top of his game using the essential and arguably the finest tools of my trade to create my vision of our natural world! I may not be taking you along on every click of the shutter, but you will know about the clicks that count!! Thanks for reading,
John Richter
