Just Add Wall

In this episode, I want to talk about prints. You remember prints, right–little pieces of paper with pictures on them? Your parents probably had albums or maybe boxes of them that you would flip through on holidays or birthdays or the night before you went off to college.

The act of printing photographs has changed dramatically since I bought my first camera in 1982—necessarily so. With film cameras, you had to make prints—even just contact prints—to see what you shot, unless of course you were shooting slides. But even then, if you were regularly shooting slides, chances are you had a slide projector and one of those clumsy fold up screens, or at least a favorite wall. The point is, the act of looking at photos used to be a completely separate act than that of taking photos, since film offered no way to chimp as you shot. With digital, it’s all more or less the same process: shoot, look at what you shot. If you missed it or it wasn’t quite right, you do it again and if you did get it, you move on. And once you post that shot to social media, you may never look at it again, other than to check the number of likes.

Recently, a friend turned me on to the work of a Russian photographer named Daria Belikova, whose work is absolutely stunning. It’s a little Tim Walker, a little Mario Testino, and a little Paolo Roversi all wrapped up into one terrific body of work.

Lead Foo Fighter and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl has released a new documentary called Play that “celebrates the rewards and challenges of dedicating one’s life to playing and mastering a musical instrument.” The film shows Dave playing every musical part of a 23 minute instrumental track, all recorded live.

If you’re a fan of drawing sketching or journaling, you’ll love The Moleskine Project, which is a collective exhibition of artists’ sketchbooks from around the world from a variety of different backgrounds.

Music in this episode: The Wrong Way (Jahzzar) / CC BY-SA 4.0