Today’s Post by Joe Farace
To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.–Elliott Erwitt
National Photography Month began in 1984 as part of what was originally called the American Photography Celebration but later was expanded to include the entire month of May. For several years May was also the home for Take Your Camera to Work Day, a website I funded out of my own pocket but faded after a few years because I couldn’t afford to produce a more user-friendly site for people to upload their photographs. If I could find a sponsor, I would like to try to restart Take Your Camera to Work Day in 2027. May also happens to be my birthday month; Look for a post about it on the 21’st.
Photography provides a with a way to touch time and while the tools we use for have changed since its inception some 170 years ago, the fascination it generates has not stopped. In fact, the more the tools we use advance in technology, the more we seem to cherish a quality photograph.
How will you spend the month?
How you choose to participate in National Photo Month is entirely up to you but I have an idea for film photographers that I also plan to participate in: Snap a Frame a Day. Here’s how it works:
To get started, load your favorite camera with a roll of 35mm film. If you;re shooting medium format this process could get expensive although not if you process your own film. Then go outside (or inside) and make one image. The next day, drag out the camera and make frame number 2; I think you can see where this is going. Since there are only 31 days in May and 36 frames on that roll of film, the more thrifty amongst you can use any extra frames to make “mystery” shots that you can make some extra shots on certain days, like my birthday!
Then have the film processed and scanned and post one of the images each day during June on your favorite social media. Since June is National Great Outdoors Month maybe that will give you a theme. June is supposed to remind us to explore our nation’s abundant wildlife refuges, parks, and natural beauty.
How I Made this Photograph: I shot this image while on the road to Mount Blue Sky on the way up from Idaho Springs, Colorado during a time when Mary and I used to like to have picnics up thataway. The camera used was a Nikon FM2 probably with a Nikkor 43-86mm f/3.5, which has been called by some Internet pundits as one of Nikon’s worst lenses but I found the last version of it that the company produced to be useful and sharp.
The film used was Kodak Ektachrome 100 and the exposure was unrecorded. The scan of the film was mode using Kodak’s now-defunct Photo CD process and the file was opened using Lemke Software’s Graphic Converter that produces relatively good quality files from a Photo CD disc but the software is not without its quirks. The digital image file was processed in Color Efex using the Vivenza filter.
I’d like to thank everyone for their support of this blog, my car photography blog and my YouTube channel over the years.
If you would like to send me a roll of film to review or any other stuff that could be used for these posts and my videos you can click on the CONTACT tab and I’ll email a shipping address to you tout de suite.