So far we have wandered through my blog posts from January to July 2021. A total of around sixty posts over the first seven months of the year. Over the next two months though I added thirty five more posts, twenty four of these in August alone. We spent two days in Salford Quays during August and I somehow managed to create eight blog posts from that two-day trip.
August saw a couple of essays, one a slightly tongue-in-cheek dissertation on how film, not love, is the drug contrary to what Roxy Music might say. The other was more serious and talked about camera club competitions and how the desire to please the judges leads to homogeneity and stifles personal expression. It was a topic I have returned to many times throughout the year including a further essay in September entitled “I #believeinfilm”.
I made more use of 5×4 (4×5?) during August and September including a four-day project over five days in September when I visited and revisited a small patch of local woodland with the Intrepid 5×4 and both film and glass plates. Entitled “Into the Woods” this was a spontaneous project and ultimately one of the highlights of 2021 for me.
16th September 2021
In September we also managed a few days on the coast which provided me with a rare opportunity to fly my drone an all-too infrequent event over the last couple of years.
So, August and September were the most productive in terms of my blogand unsurprisingly in terms of film usage too. These two months accounted for a quarter of my total rolls of film in 2021.
Whilst 5×4 played an important part in my 2021 it was roll film that predominated, Over 230 rolls of film went through 24 different cameras (remember excluding LF) and almost a third of those were exposed in the Horizon S3. Panoramic cameras accounted for around 40% of my roll film usage in 2021. Over 20% of my total for 2021 were pinhole meaning almost two thirds of my roll film usage last year was attributable to panoramas or pinholes.
It was indeed my year for panoramas and pinholes!
I’ve not compiled the stats for my large format photography in 2021 but have a feeling that pinhole will make a very good showing there too. If I get time I shall include some LF numbers in the fourth and final part of my 2021 retrospective.
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