Good to hear from you. I hope things, air quality wise are improving on your side of the planet. Seattle is just wet and more or less normal here.
I have attached a contact sheet from my Il de France project. It is a look back at my time in France from 1997 to 2003. All black and white, all film. I will be curious as to what you think. It is very typical of what I was doing then. In many ways the work is so much better than what I am doing now. Or maybe it is just different. I have my theories about now and then, but essentially I have a strong fondness for my old works as it was so much for difficult to make strong work back then. The process was so much more mysterious back then. Imagine traveling around for 4 or 6 weeks, shooting film every day, not knowing what you were getting, but hoping you captured some nice moments. You shoot a roll a film, make a few notes as to it contents and throw it in a bag. You get home and send the film off to the lab in small batches (to avoid a disaster when the lab has a melt down, and yes it has happened to me) and about 2 months after you left for your trip, you begin to see your results. Some cool things, some not so cool things, things you forgot about and other things you forget where you shot it and have to refer to you notes. But mostly you get to re-experience your trip and the things you saw. It is better than the instantaneous experience we have now? Part of me thinks so. Perhaps it is the leap of faith aspect that was most exciting. It’s hard to say, I just know that my older works seem more unique somehow and feel more precious to me. Anyway, I welcome your thoughts.
