Percolation Time

I had hoped to have the Baker's Dozen done by now, to prove that I can get it done faster than, you know, 856 days or whatever it was. But, while I can do the actual work of compilation quickly, the selection and editing process just needs a little more percolation time. My experience has been that sometimes you can't rush that maybe as much as you might like to. Your "visual intelligence" works somewhat independently of your conscious intentions.

I learned years ago that this "percolation time" is an essential element of selection for me. I've told this story before: my habit in 1980–2000 was to develop three rolls of film at a time (35 frames per roll or 105 frames total—I deliberately shot 35 frames per roll instead of 36 or 37 because that's what fit neatly on one 8x10 contact sheet); make contact sheets (one sheet per roll); study the contact sheets with a lighted magnifier; mark between one and six frames on each sheet for workprinting (occasionally more or less if the work really called for it); and batch-produce quick full-frame prints on 8x10 paper from the marked frames. That usually resulted in 18 or fewer workprints per batch of three films.

Old workprints

Here's the interesting part. When I finished the workprints, at first I would think that all the pictures (they're called "images" now—that came in during the '80s and was established by the '90s, but I prefer the word pictures at least with film) were all more or less the same quality. Nothing really to choose between them. But if I taped them to the wall in a spot where I could look at them frequently, an interesting thing would happen, as if by magic. Within four days or so they'd sort themselves out. After a handful of days or or a week had gone by, a few of the pictures would interest me more, and I liked looking at them more, whereas many of the rest I'd simply be done with...they had no more "pull" for me and I just didn't need to see them again. So whereas at first I might have 15 pictures that all seemed pretty good to me, by the end of a week I might have three I really liked and a dozen throwaways.

How this worked I have no idea. But it gave me a great appreciation for this notion of spending a little time with something to learn how you feel about it.

I've never been able to work out a similar process with digital. It can be done, obviously. I've just never done it.

The process is more complicated with the 112 "Grandkids" submissions. I know what my first impressions were; but as I click through them again and again, a few "quiet" ones are rising in stature in my mind and a few that attracted me immediately no longer seem quite so strong. Also, I'm beginning to get a feel for how various combinations are going to look as a group, which is, of course, how you're going to see them.

A final comment: another thing I try to do is challenge my presumptions. Usually, a few pictures come in that I think are just great, that I like a lot, and that I just assume from the start are going to be part of the final set. But I try to identify these and simply question myself about them. Are they really that strong or are they just tweaking something in my own mind or my own memory that makes them work for me personally? Am I just responding to my taste? (Because personal taste and objective judgement can be anywhere from a little to a lot different when you're editing. Those who say such discrimination is simply a matter of taste are sometimes right, but not always.)

Most of those still do make the final cut, but I try to be fair.

Anyway, I love this process. The submissions this time are a real treat to work with. I'll have something soon, but it's going to happen on its own time, not necessarily on mine.

Mike

P.S. By the way, a tip for those still working with 35mm film: a deluxe way to make workprints is that with certain glass carriers for 4x5 enlargers, if you cut your negatives in strips of six, you can fit one end of three strips in the glass carrier together (you have to overlap the sprocket-holed film edges). Then you can make one 16x20" print of the nine negatives to get nine enlarged workprints at once. With six strips of six, it takes four sheets of 16x20 paper to enlarge a roll of film. Essentially, you end up with the equivalent of a 32x40-inch "proof sheet." Very luxurious to work with. I preferred individual prints, though. Also, my problem was that I began to work with the prints of nine images at once as deliberate prints! It worked nicely in some cases.

I learned this from Arnie Gore, who was a professional photographer in Milwaukee when I was a boy. He and his wife Elly were friends of my parents'.

Book o' the Week

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Gerard Geradts: "When I saw the header 'Percolation Time' I was hoping for another coffee story, a percolator being a type of coffee machine in my country. Maybe the English-speaking part of the world has the same meaning. You never know. But my hopes were in vain: another photo-related piece. I keep hoping."

Mike replies: Alas, I no longer drink coffee. I did some experiments and discovered it was aggravating my irregular heartbeat problem so, after 45 years (age 16 to 61), I quit.

Now I drink two mugs of white tea with a little lemon juice every morning. The first steeping supposedly has only 10% of the caffeine of coffee, the second steeping much less because most of the caffeine is extracted in the first steeping.

Curiously, I like my tea every bit as much as I liked my coffee all those years. I was surprised at that but it's true.

Sorry about all the pesky photo-related pieces.  :-)

Comments

[ASW]

What if you used a few digital photo frames (maybe score some older models cheap on Ebay)? Load up the "selects" on a few scrolling digital frames that you can see regularly, set them to random, and note which pictures draw your attention over time.
Not quite the same as a wall of work prints that you can consider more carefully, and likely in comparison to each other, but...

[Michael Perini]

Back inn the day , Enlarged contacts were a regular service of many labs. I used to get them from Modern Age, and Duggal.
Of course they had 8x10 enlargers which had 10"x10" carriers, you could get a whole roll on 16x20 which was enough to see them much better. 9 - up on 16x20 is bigger still.
Nice way to look at work, a real pain to store.
Mostly we processed B&W ourselves and proofed on 8 1/2" x11" AZO
Everything fit much easier than 8x10.
Those AZO contacts are pristine after 50 years.

[Joe Lipka]

Percolation time is essential to sort out infatuation from true love. The enthusiasm at exposure may not hold up after a few days.

I often find images I don't like after I make them. I attribute them to temporary demonic possession.

If you want to make a choice of terminology, I consider an image to exist as pixels on a screen while a photograph is an artifact.

[Jeff]

My work print process, since the 80’s, has been very similar to yours, as have been the often surprising results from culling over a week or two. But I have done the same thing with inkjet prints since transitioning from film to all-digital in 2009. For me, a print is still a print. And I find that I still shoot as deliberately with digital as film; the difference being that some of my prints (the minority) are now color.

[Jim R]

Dude, I don’t care how long it takes, just make sure it meets the MJ TOP standard of justifiable and coherent, per your excellent writing. MJ TOP JC for short. ‘Nough said, carry on.

[hugh crawford]

Some guy had a newsletter named “the 37th frame” sort of the opposite of what you describe.

Back when photocopiers were gigantic pieces of office furniture, they contained a lens that was perfect for building an 8x10 enlarger setup to make 16x20 or 20x24 enlarged proofs. I picked up 4 or 5 lenses on the street in Manhattan back in the early 80s. For that matter the pre-press and printing industry was exciting Manhattan and there were 20x24 stat cameras on the sidewalk every few days. Still have a box of lenses from them.

[Luci]

Hello Mike,

I find your process interesting. It does produce the best results for you, no doubt. But I wonder if you tried at least once to put the winners of a few batches together and to reapply the process, if that makes sense. Is the second percolation more difficult? I would say it should be, but only you can confirm this.

Can't wait to see the selected pictures this time. Thank you for doing this!

[Simon]

This process seems to be the diametric opposite of how Instagram works, publishing attention-grabbing, often superficial images in order to collect 'likes' and gushing comments before the viewer moves onto the next brief stimulus.

Looking forward to seeing the selected images and some of the stories that accompany them.

[Crabby Umbo]

Plus One for enlarged contacts. A great idea until you started wondering how you were going to store them? I started professionally at a studio that shot mostly sheet film for advertising, and we had an 8 X 10 enlarger where we could put a whole roll of 35mm into the glass negative carrier. One of the photographers liked it, but since we did zero 35mm for money, it was mostly his personal stuff and we were told not to do it for him.

BTW, think I read somewhere that W. Eugene Smith made 5 X 7 workprints of everything he shot, everything! At least on certain projects.

[Crabby Umbo]

BTW, ditto on coffee. Caffeine aggravated all kinds of muscle problems for me so I quit it in my 30's. It started creeping into my life again in my late 50's, and now in my mid-60's my doctor started to see a small heart palpitation, so I quit it again. Problems disappeared. Hated all decafes I tried, so I now limit myself to one strong coffee shop brew Sunday morning and that's it! BTW, heart palpitations (and muscle cramps)? Also could be lack of potassium. I also added a banana a day, and the cramps disappeared immediately.

[psu]

Percolation helps with a lot of other things in life too, like solving difficult computer problems ... if one is stuck it often helps to move on to other things and come back later while the information collected in the first pass percolates. Revisiting the problem later will often bring insight that one missed before.

Unrelatedly about Instagram:

I have as many gripes about Instagram as any older human might, but they are mostly around how the *mechanics* of the site are terrible. While there certainly exist folks who go after cheap likes in my experience there are also a lot of folks who no doubt percolate over what to post for a long while before sending something out.

[Bill Tyler]

Linguistic note to Gerard: Yes, "percolator" has the same meaning in American English - a device for making coffee by repeatedly passing the fluid through a bed of ground coffee. Boiling water is forced up through a tube in the center of the percolator. The top of the tube projects through a perforated basket that holds coffee grounds. The water lands on top of the grounds and percolates back down into the main part of the pot, collecting coffee goodness on its way.