I hope this first day of 2024 finds you well and ready for the new year!
I had planned to spend the last few weeks of December taking care of some admin work, rearranging things in the office and updating my workflow. However opportunity knocked and I had to answer. This is something I have been trying to be more aware of, how often does opportunity present itself and I am missing it. More on this in a minute.
A pain point for me has always been my workflow, it has never quite worked how I needed and just been too cumbersome to maintain. When you photograph a lot, and have many subjects you end up a ton of files. I don’t have as many as other photographers but I do have a large catalog that only grows with each passing day. Organizing these have always been a bit of a problem for me, I have tried various methods over the years but I always end up with one big catalog sorted by date. As the years go on remembering when things were shot when I go looking for them is getting harder and harder. It was time to change my system.
So this fall I jumped down a rabbit hole and really dug into what I needed out of a workflow. I won’t go into the details of it here, it is quite boring but having completed the migration of all 25,000+ digital files I feel a sense of relief and excitement. I can now easily find any photograph and that is not only a time saver but an efficiency that will pay off going forward. One day the decades of film will make it into that catalog as well and there is already a place for them, this makes attempting that project seem more realistic.
One of the things that surprised me after updating my workflow was the number of photographs I had forgotten about, imported and never looked at or edited. Now with my new workflow I can go back and review, edit and share them. It’s a nice bonus to have editing to work on when stuck inside during the cold gray months that lie ahead.
Back to that opportunity
An email arrived in my inbox asking if I did commercial real estate photography. It is not something I advertise but I have done some home real estate photography in the past. While my initial reaction was “no, I don’t do that” I paused and said why don’t I do that? maybe I should. So after some discussion with the agency I booked the job and away I went.
While real estate photography is not something I have much interest in, it turns out the commercial side is a completely different story. In this case, it was a 100 year old, 70,000+ sq ft building in a downtown area. As I walked the floors, setting up the shots I learned the history of the building, seeing the remnants of days gone by, it was fascinating.
So after a chance opportunity presenting itself I have decided this will be something I am going to focus on (sorry for the pun) doing more of this coming year and will be likely add it to my offerings.
one last thing…
I mentioned a newsletter or two ago about getting a Mamiya C220 camera. Well the first roll of film has been shot and processed and while there is nothing outstanding about these photographs, I do like them.
The image of the daisies was a test to see how close focusing affects the image when using a twin lens camera, as you can see my focus had an issue. Overall my goal of slowing down and taking my time was achieved. I still have a few more rolls of various film stock to shoot and process, I look forward to sharing those images with you as I get them done.
Have a great new year!
-Karl