But, I made a promise to myself. I promised to look through these old negatives and new film rolls with a changed mindset. Edit with an open mind, understand and reveal. That’s my new mantra.

So, taking a deep breath, let’s get on with it.

First stop, one set of 36 negatives taken in 2015.

The Magic of Contact Sheets

When I was first studying photography I loved printing contact sheets in the darkroom. There was something magical about laying out the negatives on a piece of photo paper under the enlarger. Those pages of tiny frames showed the direct print of a roll, the exact sequence of negatives, the first view of what had been captured. Years ago Magnum created a book of contact sheets, looking at the process behind some of the most iconic photographs. It was wonderful.

Contact sheets provide a uniquely intimate glimpse into a photographer’s working process. They reveal each step, each shift in viewpoint, angle, composition, and light. Seeing all those frames on a single page tells an incredibly honest, unvarnished story of a photographers thoughts.

These days in the digital world we get those views via Lightroom or whatever app or program we use. I put some together using just the photo app on my MacBook, it shows a process, a rather stilted one perhaps, but a process of sorts.

Australia, 11 years ago

I vividly remember taking these images. I had just arrived in Australia, keen to capture anything, with some Kodak Tri-X 400 and my trusty 35mm lens. I was using the camera to distract myself from a difficult time in my life.

Looking at the contact sheet now shows a haphazard viewpoint. A flit here, a turn there, no real direction, plan or idea of what I was actually doing, but enjoying it nonetheless.

I’ve looked through these images with a new eye and can see potential, along with errors in focus, exposure and aspects I would do better in a less nervous state. But then again, these are moments in time that will never be there again. So perhaps I should be less critical. They have a darkness to them, not reflecting the soft light of the late afternoon, but instead a heaviness that perhaps reflects my state of mind at the time.

A friend of my family owned a farm, and I followed her around one day. It wasn’t planned, I was helping her with some roses when she just started walking and talking. She wasn’t keen on portraits or anything too in your face, so I just trailed around silently behind her whilst she completed her daily chores.

She has never seen these images. This week I plan to show her. Print them out. Tell her how I felt taking them and what she thinks. It’s been 11 years since that day. She’s since left the farm and she’ll be 90 this year.

And then at the end of the roll is the sea. I was obviously quite taken with it. This was Byron Bay and I was probably trying to capture the surfers, with a 35mm lens. Need I say more. The resulting images confirm it, tiny, blurry dots lost in an ocean. My mind was definitely elsewhere that day.

But as Garry Winogrand once said “Great photography is always on the edge of failure.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blowing my own trumpet here. I’m simply asking if sometimes are we way too hard on ourselves? Are we too driven by the approval of others, usually complete strangers, to actually see that pushing the boundaries of what a frame can hold can mean images risk looking messy, off-balance, or chaotic, which as Winogrand states, “captures life's energy exactly as it unfolds.”?

Thinking like this makes me look at my images in a completely different way. What was the reason I thought that shot was worth taking?

Using film makes you slow down and consider a little more than digital, but it can sometimes mean you miss the shot you felt was “it” and are disappointed by the results. But should you look at that “mistake” and think, well, actually it’s captured something about life I didn’t even realise was there. Prioritising raw truth over technical perfection. In street photography a blurry or unexposed image is not necessarily a mistake, it is often the only way to capture an honest, fleeting moment.

This week I’m waiting for more scans to come back, one from a newly taken roll of film and others from negatives I’ve hidden away for over a decade. When they come through I want to open them and not, as usual, feel the doubt of failure and dash through them, but consider each and every one just a little bit more closely.

They say if you get one keeper image from 4 to 5 rolls of film then you’re doing well. Perhaps I could find that one keeper in the rolls in the fridge or the folders of negatives I still have unscanned in the drawer. You never know.

But sometimes, the pulse is a little too fast.

On my recent trip to Bangkok, I found myself ducking into those dark pockets I love so much away from the main streets. I had my camera, a few rolls from the fridge, and a familiar, rising knot of anxiety. It’s funny, I’ve been taking photos for over two decades, yet I still shoot like a thief. I was of course rushing, not breathing. My hands were doing that thing they do when I feel “watched,” a frantic sort of vibrating energy.

I was battling my own nerves.

The scans came back, and they are anything but perfect. In fact, technically and visually some are a real mess. There is camera shake in some. The exposures are struggling against the gloom of the deepest corners in others. The focus is off in many. In the past, these rolls would have been a one way ticket to the very back section of my negative drawer. I would have looked at the blur, felt that familiar sting of unworthiness, and tucked them away to migrate with me to the next house, the next country, the next decade.

But I’m trying to stop being my own harshest critic. We all do it.

I’m looking at these blurry frames now and I’m realising that the mistakes are actually just the visual record of my own heart rate. They are honest. They show the rush, the nerves, and the frantic desire to capture something before I lost the courage to stand there.

The fridge door is getting a little lighter, but the work is getting heavier. I’m finding that the grimy feeling I chase in my subjects is often mirrored in the process itself. It’s messy. It’s unpolished. It’s a bit broken.

Maybe that’s why I can’t quit this love affair. Because even when I’m shaking in a dark corner of a building, I’m finally, actually seeing. And for the first time, I’m not hiding the result just because it didn’t come out the way I anticipated.

I’m curious, for those of you who also chase the unpolished side of life, do you find your best work happens when you’re comfortable, or is there something in the nerves that actually captures the truth?

I’ve spent years looking deeply at the work of others, admiring it, loving it, whilst having far less love for my own efforts. I don’t think I’m “bad,” but if I’m honest, I often feel like I’m just playing at it. I make mistakes and I hid it all away. I am my own harshest critic. Yet, I come back again and again. I still revisit, I still look, and I still take my camera out. It’s a love affair, and I don’t want to leave.

The Weight of the Negatives
I live in Australia now, having moved here over ten years ago from France, and before that, Bristol, UK. My undeveloped rolls and files of negatives have made every journey with me. They migrate from one fridge to the next, one drawer to the next, different houses, different countries, different continents. They are the heavy, silent passengers of my life.

Earlier this year, my family and I went to Thailand. I took my camera and some expired film from the fridge, even picking up some Kodak 400 while we were there. That trip was the spark. It inspired me to finally explore what I already have, to find out exactly what is hidden on those old rolls and get those negatives under a scanner. And I choose Substack to take my first steps, my website is covered in cobwebs, as it seems such an exciting and welcoming corner of social media.

The Question of Worth
What is it about photography, or art in general, that makes us so unconfident? Why is it so easy to feel subject to criticism or a sense of unworthiness? Or am I the only one?

Perhaps it’s because we live in a world where everyone is a photographer now; everyone with a phone has a camera in their hand. In a sea of endless images, it’s easy to feel like your own “view” doesn’t matter, isn’t relevant or important. It makes me wonder why the arts are so often dismissed in education when they are clearly so vital to how we process the world or escape from the turmoil that exists.

I’d love to hear from other creatives, do you also feel your work gets lost in the sea of images or has your art been your escape too?

Read Part 1: The Fridge Door Film Stash

I finished a degree years ago, (is it 19?) and then did… well, nothing. Except for occasionally popping a roll into a camera and pointing it at the world. Paid for the rolls to be developed and then it stopped there. The process of capturing makes my soul feel good. But to be honest, I’ve always been too uncomfortable to let people see what I see; it’s scary.

But the scans from the latest batch of those old and new rolls are back. For the first time, I’m actually going to take that next step. I’m not claiming there’s profound depth here; it’s just a view through my lens. It feels like I’m finally loosening that self-conscious stranglehold and capturing things before the film, and my own eyes, get too tired and old.