New images from Harris, shot in November last year, on Fuji Velvia 50 120 medium format film. Processed and scanned at home.

I was unable to see any of my new work this past year due to giving up sending the work out to 3rd party labs for processing. It was a dry time for me - creating work I could not see, nor complete. As a result, I was starting to question why I was using film whilst watching all of my workshop participant’s images immediately appear on the preview screen of their digital cameras.

But as always, when my films are processed, and I’m able to work on them, and complete new work, I always feel very satisfied with the look of medium format film. It is different from digital, and I am sure it is a component of part of my ‘look’ that folks notice about my work.

click to enlarge

View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize
View fullsize

click to enlarge

I think this hiatus away from working on new images has given me time to do a ‘reset’. I feel my work over the past five years or so had become more and more minimal, and colour wise, more and more muted. I had been feeling I’d like to return to some of the darker and stronger tones of my earlier work, but was also acutely aware that ‘you can never go back’, or ‘recreate what you were doing’. I did try to work on stronger colours for a while but always found my taste would take me to more muted work. Somehow, this isn’t happening now - there is now a return of stronger colour to my work, but perhaps it’s more considered (well, that is something I’d like to think anyway for sure ;-)

Everything has an ebb and a flow, and everything is on a pendulum swing. I am sure I am going to fluctuate in my desire for stronger colour or darker tones. To me I feel I’ve been learning to work with the higher registers this past few years, and now it’s time to start incorporating darker tones back in. Let’s see where this goes….