Relearning Photography

The journey of any art form is an an ebb and flow, a wave between mastery and novelty. As a beginner, the wave moves heavily towards novelty, with some sparks of your voice appearing between all the mistakes. As time goes by, and with practice and time, that wave begins to balance out a bit more, swaying towards mastery ever so slightly. With every art form, as we venture towards mastery, the lesson always remains. Always go back to basics.

The way I interpreted the basics this time, was to go back in time and use my 1970s SLR analog camera, and to photograph in black and white. I decided to do this to photograph my journey in Egypt, allowing the novelty of the space to dance with the novelty of the medium. I thought, in order for me to truly understand photography, I must return in time before the delete button and automatic exposure were invented.

I used 4 or 5 rolls during my time there, traveling from Cairo to Alexandria, and then back to Cairo. I travelled back to Amman with my rolls, developed them myself, and then travelled to Dallas, Texas, and photographed the photos myself, and then over the last few days, was able to edit them digitally to see what I came up with. This is a long, long, and messy process. From the moment I put a roll in the camera, I feel like a beginner again. A beginner with some sort of information and training in the back of my head, as I figure out how to use this tool and tell the best story I can.

I am still figuring it out, as many others would say. I am proud of a couple of the shots I took, and I look forward to continuing this journey.

To return to black and white, I had to shift the way I see the world. I saw myself saying and thinking the same things that many previous photographers have said. I started seeing the world in shapes and values. I started “looking for the light”, and “waiting for the moment”. With a wide 28mm lens, I found a world that I needed to get close to. I found a world that I needed to include a lot of in the frame. And luckily, I was in Egypt, where a lot was happening a lot of the time. So with that, I present to you a selection of photos from that time. I present them in a series of 4. Cairo I, Alexandria, Cairo II, the Pyramids.

Cairo I

Alexandria

CAIRO II

THE PYRAMIDS