Social media may reward the new, but timeless photographs deserve to be seen again.
I notice a lot of us younger photographers don’t really re-share our images again or repurpose those images to form a different narrative photo set.
Conversely, I notice many from the older generation of photographers don’t hesitate to post, share, discuss, or use images in different ways over and over again.
I think social media has so deeply ingrained in us this idea that “You already shared it. You have to go post something new.”
We’ve become fearful of people getting tired of seeing the same thing again.
And yet, thanks to these crazy algorithms, it’s doubtful that the same eyes will even see that image again the next time you post it. And even if they did, that image is still just as gorgeous.
I believe becoming more closely associated with your best images is a positive thing.
I bet you can quickly, off the top of your head, think of a handful of iconic images from your favorite photographer. But I doubt you can remember dozens. Maybe that’s OK. You’re probably more likely to grab a print of one of those iconic photos because they etch themselves into your mind, inspiring your own photographic journey in some way.
Consider musicians. Do you think they want you to just play their song once? No, of course not.
A great song is still just as fun to listen to after 100 listens. I believe the same can be true of our best photographs. My favorite images are just as fun to see the the 100th time as they were the first time.
They can take on new functions. An image shared on its own conveys something different than sharing it with a set of similar (or completely different) images. The possibilities are endless.
I took my first photography trip to New York City in the late summer of 2021. It has since become a place I have returned to again and again, each time falling more in love with it and deepening my archive of work. When I got back from this first trip, I made a single, personal-use copy of a photobook containing some of my favorite images from the trip. I’ve created a gallery below of some of the images from the book:
During 2020, I spent a lot of time photographing slow, quiet Midwestern scenes on medium format film. I still make images like these from time to time; however, I no longer own a medium format camera. I recently went back through my archives from this time period and made some new edits on a small batch of images and I’m pleased with how they turned out:
I’ve been making so many photographs the past year and a half. More than ever. I’m starting to develop my skills with my small ‘archive,’ both in terms of pairing images into sets and finding old pictures to share again.
An example of this is the work of Greg Girard, a fabulous photographer who has an extensive archive of images from port towns around the world. This ship image leads off both of these sets, which were posted on Instagram just two months apart. In both cases, this image draws the viewer deeper into these port towns and prepares them for the images they are about to see next. I have attached both posts below:
I have begun making darkroom prints from 35mm black-and-white negatives. This is pushing me way back to the beginning of my film photography journey. I’m finding some gems that I had either forgotten about or now see with a fresh perspective several years later. Much more on this topic will be coming here soon.
It used to bother me, this idea of having a massive “backlog of unshared work”.
But this backlog is a good thing. I don’t have to rush to share it all. My goal is to make images that stand the test of time. If I love a photograph so much, why would I just share it with the world once? Shouldn’t I share it often?
kinda grainy 