Well, we are at the point in time, where it's all about looking back. And this time it's not only a look back at the past year, but the past decade. I'm not very good at these things, I always forget things I've done, here I mean the little things, it's not that I have forgotten everything I did photography wise the past year, there just always seams to be some cool/awesome little thing that I did, that just slips my mind, and then comes back to me a few days after I posted this post. Another thing is that I like looking forward instead of backwards. Yes, yes I totally agree that sometimes it makes a lot of sense to take a look back, to see what you did good and what went wrong.
One of the easier things to do, when looking back, is finding your favorite photos from the past year. So I'll add some of my favorite photos throughout this little post.
Looking back shows me that I've shot more analog photos the past year, then I ever did before. In 2019, I even shoot more analog photos than digital – that might say more about how few digital photos I made, than how many analog.
I like lists and keeping track of everything, so of course I have a list of all the films I've shot in 2019 – a post about that this is in the making, and will popup sometime in 2020 – I already posted how I keep track my cameras and film stock.
And the camera list tells me that I now have 255 working cameras, and I haven't used 81 of those, meaning I haven't had a film through them yet.
There are also 38 broken cameras – which actually makes my total 293 cameras – I hope to get some of them fixed in 2020. I also sold quite a few cameras in 2019, and I hope to sell more from the collection in 2020, and that way fond new cameras.
I have 386 film in stock, that should be enough for 2020, I guess. I'm properly going to buy more in 2020, even though I don't have to. a little nerdy fact is that of the 386 rolls, 217 are new and the rest – 169 – are expired film.
I shot 186 rolls of film in 2019 – in 35mm, Polaroid, 126, 110 and 120 – that is without comparison the most I ever shoot in a year, not sure 2020 is going to get close, I shot 108 rolls in 2018, and 104 in 2017, so it's properly going to be somewhere around that.
I also started scanning my old photos – photos that I made before 2005 – all tough scanning is my least favorite thing to do in the analog photography process, it's still kind of fun scanning these old photos, a sort of walk down memory lane. And even tough I wasn't that good at making photos back then – it's mostly vacation photos – there are still some real gems among the lot. Like the photo below, it's from a vacation on Crete, Greece back in 1998, made with my very first SLR camera a Minolta XG2 – that I still have – the film was a Konica VX 200.
Gear wise, 2019 was a very good year. I got my very first “real” Leica, the M4 – had a few point and shooters, but they don't really count, do they? – I also sold my beloved Mamiya RZ67 Pro II, simply because I didn't use it enough.
I bought a Nikon Ti35 and an Olympus Pen FT, two cameras I've been on the lookout for, for a very long time.
I got a Pentax 67 – instead of the Mamiya – and a Nikon F3.
And of course a lot of stuff – point and shooters, rangefinders and so on.
So what about 2020, do I have any goals?
I'm definitely not big on new year's resolution, I'm just to bad at keeping them, so I stopped making them a long time ago. I do more in hopes 🙂
I hope I'll get to shoot large format in 2020, I have the camera and film, all I need is to figure out how to use it, and go out and do it, pretty simple right.
I'm also thinking of a 52 project – which is going to be a 53 project, because there are apparently 53 weeks this year – in that I mean a roll of film and a different camera for every week in 2020, could be fun, and I think its doable and I already started 🙂 (because week 1 is this week).
I hope I'll be more active on Twitter, by that I mean to interact more with the analog community, is not that I didn't spend time on Twitter in 2019, but I like to get more involved with people, after all the analog community on Twitter is so darn awesome and filled with nice people.
I also hope to find a theme/project – I'm unfortunately very bad at coming up with fun/great projects – and make a zine with some of my analog photos.
And just make more ink jet prints of my photos in general, because it's a great way to look at your photos.
A thing that would be awesome if it happened in 2020, is that I get to make some sort of collaboration with one – or more – photographers. I don't an idea for a project – as I'm writing this – but hopefully I find something during 2020, that would be fun – and made sense – to do with somebody else. So if you are reading this, and have an idea for a project, make sure to let me know about it.
Blog wise, there is properly going to be the same amount of posts in 2020 as in 2019 – give or take a few – or at least I hope I won't be less active here.
I think that was it… I'll just end it all off, with one last photo.
And a happy new year to everyone, I hope all your wishes for 2020 come true!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
