TexasGirl Photography

Over a year ago, I opened PPA Magazine and was delighted to discover an article about Keith Carter. I flattened the issue to that spot, left it open on my desk, and ultimately ended up piling tons of stuff on top of it instead of reading it. Fast forward to me cleaning off my desk a couple of weeks ago, and I finally did that reading. Here is a link to the article, if you’re curious (I recommend being curious).

Me getting around to perusing this piece of writing came hot on the heels of my processing two rolls of film from our recent trip to the San Antonio Missions. Now, it’s not as if I hadn’t just recently processed a zillion rolls of film from our road trip to Colorado, but somehow those images from San Antonion really stood out to me. I mainly used my Hasselblad and HP5; it’s been a while since I shot Ilford film, and if you know me you know I am a die-hard devotee to Kodak Tri-X, but with Kodak’s current prices I thought it might be a good idea to give Ilford another look. I certainly wasn’t disappointed!

The truth is that I fart around a lot. For what feels like years, I haven’t had a great deal of focus with my photography, other than trying to build up a body of work based around road trip Polaroids. I’m still making those Polaroids (how can I not?) but the drive to build the body of work slammed to a halt when I realized that everybody and their dogs’ fleas’ uncles are making those same kind of images. The great American road trip around the Southwest on instant film? Pfft. It’s been done to death. I still love my Polaroids, but I’m not going to be making them into a book like I originally planned.

Besides Polaroids, I’ve used every camera on my shelves, every color film stock I could get my hands on, making all kinds of mistakes and going more for the atmosphere of the moment than anything else. Wherever I happened to find myself, I would make a photo. Often – SOOoooo often – these would end up kinda wonky and difficult to manage because maybe there was a light leak, maybe the film had been expired for a long time, maybe I left the pinhole open too long, or not enough. Maybe sand got into the camera, maybe it was too cold too hot I wasn’t pay attention etc etc etc. There’s been a lot of messing around and not much focus at all. I have had no need to focus, and I also didn’t want to.

All of a sudden, however, between those San Antonio photos, the article about Keith Carter, and some extraordinarily exciting opportunities that have fallen into my lap, I want to focus. I’m ready. I see the need, and I feel the need. My heart has been put back on track and reminded of the days when my Dad first gave me my Hasselblad and I was all about one film stock, one camera. Honestly, I think my photography was stronger when I had some kind of sense of purpose and wasn’t just farting around. This isn’t to say that I don’t think there’s value in farting around: of course there is! Life has different seasons, and they’re all valuable.

So, here I go: Hasselblad, and HP5 are going to be my partners in creativity for the next bunch of months while I work on something new that I am very excited about! News about that later, tho. For today, I leave you with these moments from the Missions.

All images Hasselblad 500cm and Ilford HP5 developed in D76