Sunday 22 February 2009

ah, que preguiça

as can be seen, i am still having trouble trying to get into some sort of working rhythm since the magnificent meanderings around copenhagen.

part of it has to do with everything being out of sync. had to wait for the photographic paper as i forgot and ordered it late. misjudged the date of when school restarted, and had while i didn’t max out the bank card - it wasn’t accepted in europe, i was warned of that but the good people at bank of america assured me that i would be fine, now i know why banks are in the state that they are in - i was trying to hold off until the closing date and thus delayed my productivity even more. i need book cloth and cover paper from stationers, i have the wrong size inkjet paper - think it will ever be called archival pigmented printing paper?.

it took longer to get used to the sub-arctic conditions in the darkroom - in fact i have yet to enter it - as normally i don’t notice the 10C temperature it cooling down minutely as the winter progresses. being out of it for 10 days and then trying to work in a 5C room was more than i could take - the platinum actually precipitated out of solution. the methodology that was running so smoothly and showing progress was nowhere to be found.

i had disciplined myself to ignore my hyper activity and make slow determined progress through projects. i was balancing old series that i hadn’t seen with more recent ones and actually diminishing the backlogue of old negatives. would go through 200 sheets of paper a week - not exceeding that so as not to have heart stopping monthly statements.

now it is back to at least a half dozen projects in various states of completion, i have yet to work on the people that i documented this summer, the good people at the current must be wondering where clarke’s beach is and now i have the 50 rolls and 1700 files to edit.

worse - but fitting - i am sort of computered out. i am tired of being in front of one. i don’t want to respond to e-mails, don’t want to spot prints, read blogs or listen to ideas - well i can do that as the computer can be in the next room. until now i wasn’t all that worried but in my new attempt to slow down i realise that it will take a good week after i can get going before it will be known.