These days, photographers are able to take a photo and not long after clicking the shutter button, look at the image and decide whether or not to keep or delete it. I don't have that luxury.
During the early days of my photography, I was very good at developing my roll/s of film not long after finishing the roll and there would always be a level of excitement whenever I got the results back. There still is. However, at some point, I began to shoot more rolls of film than I was able to develop which disappointed me initially. I would finish shooting a roll and throw it in a shoebox for safe keeping until I was able to go on and develop the roll. Over time, the queue started to build up.
My disappointment slowly changed when it was time to develop a particular roll that was about a year and a half old (at the time) and I was suddenly reconnected to a moment that I had completely forgotten. It was a nostalgic feeling.
Instead of worrying about exactly when I would develop my rolls, I throw my rolls into that shoebox without any thought, to "mature" like a wine and rekindle lost memories months, or even years down the line.
This practice of maturing film has never bothered me before until a couple of weeks ago when I opened up one of my shoeboxes filled with exposed film rolls (yes, I have more than one shoebox filled with exposed film).
I probably develop around 4 rolls a month and if a project is associated with a particular roll, I'll go ahead and develop that immediately. In the span of a year, I'll get around to developing 60 rolls or so which sounds like a lot if you don't consider how efficiently I go through film.
After looking at my growing collection of undeveloped film, it hit me. I may never live to see all of the photographs I've taken in the past or the photographs I will take in the future. That's a troubling reality.
I wonder how the great film photographers of the past that have amassed thousands of negatives dealt with this reality, or, if they ever thought about this. Vivian Maier, one of my favorite photographers to grace our world with her vision, amassed more than 150,000 negatives in her life. Just think about that for a second. 150,000. I've been shooting film for about 20 years and I only have a couple thousand. I'm no spring chicken.
Not to compare myself to the likes of Maier, nor is it a numbers game, but there are images; people and memories, within these rolls that I would like to someday revisit. Off the top of my head, there are photos of my father that I took just before his death. Not sure if I'm willing to revisit those memories any time soon but hopefully in the future.
There are a few things I can do to "catch up" my film development. I could go on a photography sabbatical. Take an extended break while I develop more rolls but that can be a problem. I hate not being able document and work on my craft. It drives me crazy when I become idle. This is out of the question.
I can pickup my dust coated digital camera and shoot digital images. I'm pretty adamant with my stance on digital cameras. I'm rather stubborn when it comes to the issue of digital photography. This is not an apology and neither is this a solution.
The one practical thing I can do that will allow me to continually shoot film while developing more rolls is to dramatically slow down the amount of film that I shoot through. This isn't tough to tackle, but a hurdle to this solution is that I have many film cameras and each one is loaded with some type of film. I'll easily pick up a camera on my way out, not thinking about this, and after I shoot through a roll, I'll reload it with whatever spare roll I would have, not remembering that I have other cameras loaded and ready to go.
It may very well end up being that I will never see all of the photographs I took and that would be sad on a personal level. However, the person that I choose to look after and be responsible with developing my undeveloped film (and I have picked someone for that task), will be tasked to release the images and share them. That isn't all that bad. It's bittersweet and also a more pragmatic way to look at it.
Was Maier ever concerned about this? I wonder what her stance on this is...