A Print.

      Its winter. And winter in Chicago means semi-hibernation. So I decided to move back into the darkroom. For me the darkroom is so many things. Its first and for most a place to slam some headphones on and get lost in a new album and zone out. I could very easily get into a rant about how everyone should go and print in the darkroom and how only REAL photography is done in the darkroom, but thats just a bunch of shit really. 
   
 Instead I want to explain what prints mean to myself. 
   I was thinking about this today, we {as in photographers} are always trying to get to someplace with our photography, weather we are trying to rule the world, or just trying to get our colors right when we shoot in the sun. Mediums really do not matter anymore, we capture. Thats all we do. We capture weddings, parties, the weather, the landscape, a building, a model, a moment. All we do is capture these things the way WE like to see them. But what is the end game? Where are these moments going to end up? On Facebook? On twitter? On a blog we obsessed about designing for years and still don't like it? For me, the things I capture, the things that I capture end up in a box. In fact they end up in 6 different boxes. All filtered out depending on size and if they are color or not. These boxes, will be with me for as long as I live {barring a house fire or any number of natural disasters} and if that does happen all my negatives are in another home. 
  
 One day these boxes will be open, they could be open hopefully one day by my children, or Vivian Meyer style, by a stranger. Either way, my pictures WILL be around for many many years. My passion of photography and view of the world will be seen one day.......
   
Which leaves me with no choice but to ask, will your vision of the world, or style of seeing it go any further than the story page of Facebook? Or even more scary, the lifetime of your hard drive? 

 If your pictures mean anything to you -  Find your favorite pictures and find a way to print them. 


Prints above: Ilford RC Paper, Hand developed negs and print. The bottom print is a small contact print.