Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Approach the new year with resolve to find the opportunities hidden in each new day.” – Michael Josephson.
It’s the time of year when people like to make New Year’s Resolutions, most of which they never keep beyond a day or so but as Alexander Pope once said, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always To be Blest.”
For many years I resolved to buy a (used) grand piano but never seemed to be able afford even a used one but after I had surgery on my right hand that resolution flew out the window but recently I have been looking at some of the new Casio electric pianos with interest. That’s why this year, I’m not planning on making any personal resolutions but will be making some about my photography. So here goes:
Let’s Hear it for 2026
Shoot More Film I spent some of my time early in 2025 shooting film, mostly in order to test my new, old film cameras, different and expired films and the labs that processed and scanned that film. Although the blog will continue to feature posts about digital photography during 2026, I want to spend more time shooting images for the joy of film photography while at the same time testing the cornucopia of film emulsions I accumulated during this year.
Make More Videos. After making my “Buying Cameras from Japan” video I felt like I was getting more comfortable in front of the video camera but some of the technical aspects for creating a video remain a challenge for me. In 2026, I hope that Barry Staver and I will continue to make some new Pixels, Grain and Cookies podcasts for my YouTube channel. I also want to restart my movie reviews as part of Joe;s Movie Club. This was inspired by my viewing of some really bad (and some good) films during this year.
The aforementioned “cameras from Japan” video was shot using a Canon EOS M6 Mark II mostly because it has pretty good auto-focus and has an APS-C sensor. I may shoot future videos with a different camera, which is part of my resolution to keep exploring new, different and hopefully better ways to improve how these videos look and sound. But like everything else in this blog, its all subject to change.
As I write this the viewer consensus on that last statement is quite small; not many people have watched that particular video; it’s had less than 400 views. I could blame that on YouTube algorithms but maybe people just weren’t interested in hearing what I had to say on the subject or maybe any subject for that mattert. But that seems to be slowly changing with the addition of a few more subscribers. In the new year, I’m going to try to make more videos for the same reason that I write each day’s post for this blog: I not only enjoy doing it but also recognize that as I grow older I need to keep my mind active because I have seen what happens to other men my age when they don’t.
How I Didn’t Make this photograph: It was made by Mary’s sister! This photograph of Mary at Disney World is my favorite photograph of her, although she doesn’t like it all that much. I like the spirit of the image and a print of it has been sitting in a silver picture frame I got in Japan for all these years. The image was made more than 20 years ago and was shot on Kodak color negative film busing one of Mary’s film SLRs, probably a Nikon FE2. The exposure was unrecorded. The scan was from Kodak’s Photo CD process, in fact it was on the very first Photo CD disc made in Colorado at Robert Waxman Camera. The image file was opened using Lemke Software’s GraphicConverter that produces fairly good quality files from a Photo CD disc.
Medium Format? I may not be shooting as many digital images in 2026 than I did in previous years but I really want to shoot more 120 film. I received my Seagull anniversary edition TLR back from being repaired and during my first shoot with it things didn’t go so well. You might want to check out my video Medium Format, Schmedium Format for some of my thoughts on the subject. In the meantime, I am hoping to get another medium format camera and have been considering a Bronica S2A or maybe a Pentax 6×7, like I used to own. But who knows?
When I told my friend Barry Staver about my plans for shooting more film, he asked, “What about infrared?” Part of the answer is that I plan to shoot some infrared film and a recent (used) lens purchase for my Micro Four-thirds system translates into more digital IR capture. As I said, its all subject to change.