More of the same

I honestly don’t think you can beat printing on an inkjet printer, at least not if you’re doing what I’m trying to do at the moment. Not only did the chirpy anorak at the Kodak Pro shop not get the idea that I wanted to print pictures complete with their original aberrations and colour indiscretions, the finished prints (which cost an arm and a leg and a bit more) were lifeless and, in a word, crappy. Having also had my Nokia work published in a full colour separation magazine before and seen equally dull results, I’m more and more excited by an inkjet printer’s extraordinary ability to squirt vast amounts of delicious ink onto shiny paper and produce the most stunning photographs. Since starting printing a few weeks back (why did it take me so long to do this?) I’ve tried just about every kind of paper available and, interestingly, I’ve found I get by far the best results from the cheap generic stuff (acme®) from the local supermarket. The black and white prints I’m working on now, which may or may not end up as the Daily Lives Revisited project, end up with a slight brownish tint, which really make the images absolutely perfect. What’s also extremely interesting is that having printed out a range of prints over the last day on A4 paper with the images considerably smaller in the middle I’ve noticed that they’re all photographs I shot blind. Zen archery again? Anyhow, ordinary people in ordinary situations captured sneakily and presented using the most basic and amateur of equipment seems to be where I’m heading for the final term. This is a glorious path of discovery, and I really feel like I’m producing work in a style that’s really me. It’s a crazy project, especially with such a crap camera (I could of course go out and buy an 8Mp cameraphone and take the same pictures only in ‘much better quality’… but I won’t), but it’s unique, and of course the pictures are good. Now on with the project and work out where to exhibit the final stuff at the end of the year. I think a quick trip to the UK is in order too, to show some of these pictures I keep going on about.