Keeping a Photography Notebook

2024 Photo Journals

If there was ever one lament that I have, it’s about not always keeping a journal.  When we are young, we sometimes keep journals to record our thoughts, thinking that they are important - and they may certainly be so.  If if were not for diaries, much of what happened to ordinary people on a daily basis long ago would not have been recorded.  But I’m not discussing diaries or daily journals, but those notes that are kept to record what I do photographically.  I wish that I’d kept travel/photo journals 50 years ago, and even 20 years ago.  All I do have are all the photographic results from those outings, and in some cases, I did keep notes, but I was never fastidious about it.  I have some small notebooks where I have started with a few entries, and the rest is blank.  Some notebooks are the pocket style, and may contain only a single photo trip, with notes that were jotted down along the way.  I changed that in 2017, when I started to keep a journal of all my photographic activities, not just those taken on trips.  I’ve never kept notes on every roll of film that I have shot, as that’s just not as important as what I saw, where I was,  and what else was happening.  On a long trip, I will number my rolls, so that I can just enter the information later as to the camera and film stock that I used, and the date.  That works out well for me.  You can purchase photographic record notebooks that are essentially just a list of rolls with exposure information, if you are the sort of person that likes to keep that information, and I’m not.

From my 2022 Takumar Trek notebook - a list of films shot, 
all added after the trip was over.

Small photos, printed by the Kodak mini-printer

My preferred journals. 

I also decided rather recently, to stick to a certain style of notebook that is generally about 5.5  x 8 inches, and found that I can buy them in bulk from Amazon. These have brown covers, lined pages, and have 60 pages. (Image).  They cost about a buck each.  While for some people, 60 pages may be too little, I find that they are perfect for a long trip, or 2 to 3 months of activities.  I don’t want a whole year in one journal, because losing one would be bad enough, but to lose a many months or a year at once would be awful.  In addition, the smaller size takes up much less space in a bag.  So far, I have been happy with them.  Another journal that I like is the one issued under the Magnum Photos imprint (Thames and Hudson), which are just a bit wider, and with thicker paper, and 48 pages. They are also more expensive. Moleskine notebooks are nice, too, but a far cry from being $1 each!

These cheap notebooks are utilitarian, for sure.  But they do the job, and that’s what I want.  One thing that I often do is to include shots from my iPhone, when it’s appropriate, and for printing those I use a Kodak C300R camera/printer that does a great job with small dye-sublimation prints.  A good thing to carry on any trip.  The photos really help augment the journal entries.

June 2024, when I was working on the Kudzol developer

Now that I have been diligent/consistent about keeping notes, these journals have been very useful when I need to write about photographs that I have taken.  I find myself referring to them whenever I am working on a project.  I counted 160 rolls of film shot in 2024, and I used 6 journals.  There is no way that I can keep all that in my brain.  I may not know where the hell I’m going, but I do know where I have been!

Older pocket notebooks, some contain just a few pertinent notes, others are entire trips.

from a 2018 trip to Ontario

An entry for 2009. Marc Akemann and I did some night shooting.

How photographers keep notes and  organize their work is a very personal thing.  What works for me may not be what works for you.  But if you have a system, and you like it, stick with it, because you’ll be better off than just throwing your negatives in a shoebox.  I do know that having all of my negatives in polypropylene negative sheets and stored in 3-ring binders has served me well.  I can go into any year and find what I need.  It’s the notebooks about that particular roll of film that I lack, and I wish I’d been doing that since I started. I now have 25 years worth of binders, and I find myself going through them when I am working on a project. I used to make negative contact sheets, and lately I have started going through the years 2000 to 2010 to scan in the negatives.  I can do so much more now with the scans than I did with the darkroom then.  I have a lot of old work that I can use in upcoming zines, and it’s been fun to pore over those older negatives and find that I did get some pretty good results.

But what about if you just want to keep a log of exposures?  There used to be some very specialized notebooks for photographers, especially into the 1980s.  Perfect for large-format photogrpaphers, where every exposure can be unique, unlike the person shooting 4 frames per second.   For a while, those notebooks seemed out of print, but with the resurgence of film photography, various types of photo memo-style notebooks are now available.  Possibly the more useful one is from Mike Padua's Shoot Film Co.. as shown below.

In addition, a quick search also shows another one, but I've not examined it personally:

Of course, you can just use any blank ruled notebook to do the same, but having an organized layout fopr doing those records may be the better way to go, if you go that way.  These notebooks make a great deal of sense for large-format practitioners, since you can develop each sheet of film according to how you exposed it.  

As far as photography-related notebooks, there are many sizes and styles available online.  Etsy sellers are one source, as I have seen some nice-looking notebooks there.  I'm not a fan of spiral or wire-bound notebooks, as they can have pages rip out or the bindings get messed up over time.  Lay-flat notebooks are preferable to hard-bound notebooks, because they are easier to write in (at least to me).  In any case, make time to record your photo adventures, so that in the future, you won't be wishing that you'd done it (like me).

Working on a project

I have not posted anything here since early November.  For me, that's a bit unusual, since I have posted something every month - sometimes several times a month. However, I have been busy writing and researching for a book that I plan to have out sometime in 2025, tentatively titled "Takumar Trek - the joy of working with a Pentax Spotmatic."  

This is sort of a passion project of mine, since I have always thought that the Spotmatic series and some of their forebears, the Pentax SV, for example, are excellent cameras, and were designed to be as unobtrusive to the photographer as possible.  Culminating with the Spotmatic F, which features open-aperture metering, these cameras are a delight to use.  However, the lenses are legendary, and I'm writing about them, too.  This has also caused me to go through my archives of negatives and find the films that were shot with Spotmatics.  So, I have also been scanning in negatives that I haven't looked at for over 20 years.  It's a good reminder that photography's tools may have gotten more complex and (ahem) more expensive, but a 50 year-old camera can be used for making good photographs.  

A bunch of Super Takumars

In the process of writing, I've learned more about the predecessors to the Spotmatics, and have acquired a few more of them.  I've also had the opportunity to try out what was supposed to be a working Pentax ES - one of two fully automatic exposure SLRs released by Pentax before the K-mount bodies were on the market.  It's a shame that the ES and ESII are flawed creatures, probably doomed by the electronics that made them quite the advancement for Pentax.    

I've also been encouraged by reactions from people that learned I was writing a book.  My hope is that it will be useful to a newcomer to film photography as well an old hand  that likes 35mm cameras.  Millions of Spotmatics were sold during 1964-1973, and they remain a good bargain for anyone wanting a simple, easy-to-operate 35mm SLR.

A lot has happened this year, and while I am extremely disappointed and angered in the outcome of the presidential election, I aim to work diligently on things that are meaningful to me in the years ahead.  2024 started with a great trip to Tucson, AZ, and I had many great little trips in NC, VA, and OH that provided me with some good photographs.    I also met some wonderful people that just happened to be photographers.  I published two issues of Monochrome Mania, and in December, a new issue of Panozine came out.  All are available on my Etsy store.  

I wish you all the best for 2025.  

500th Post!

I never expected to have 500 blog posts. Ever. A blog is a way to express one's self, and when I am feeling creative, the post come easily.  When Iam not, or too busy, it does not get written.  I don't have a schedule or a plan for blog posts. They happen when I feel like writing.  When I started this blog in 2006, I really had no idea where I would be going with it, but I knew that I loved photography and using cameras of all sorts, hence the name Random Camera Blog. RCB has been a fun outlet for me, and has kept me writing about photography.  Sometimes I put out 4 or 5 posts in a months, sometimes only one. I try to keep them interesting, and I thought you might be interested in the stats. Here is a capture of stats from over the past weekend:

The average monthly pages views hovers around 5000, which I think is pretty good.  The all-time most viewed post is the one about the Argus 75, and the second is a review of the Gakken-Flex.  Wow.  Who knew that the Argus 75 post would be so popular?  It's the first thing that shows up in searches on that camera, too.  So, I am quite pleased to have a lot of followers as well as many visitors. I hope that viewers find my information useful and that a post has inspired them to try something new.

Only one thing bugs the hell out of me regarding the blog -- I really dislike when someone looks like they are making a comment about a post, but it is really an advertisement for their web site. Do you really think I want a link to some half-assed web store selling digital stuff?  Nope.  You get deleted.  I appreciate real comments and am always willing to reply if you have a question.

I don't want to just write a bout the blog.  I didn't get to 500 posts without writing SOMETHING about cameras.  As you can tell from my posts, I have had a lot of them pass through my hands over the years.  Some I keep, others I use for a while, and then sell, give-away, or trade for something else.  Recently, I have written quite a bit about the cameras that I have been selling for someone else.  I also have a soft spot for camera bargains.  Here is one such bargain...  

I was in the local thrift shop a few weeks ago and picked up this nice Canon EOS Rebel X 35mm SLR with the 35-80 kit lens for the sum of 10 dollars.  A decent pizza costs more than that.  Three bottles of wine can cost that at Trader Joe's.  A six-pack of beer can cost that.  Hell, a roll of film can cost $10.  Now, I have gone through my Canon EOS phase a while back, and sold off all the Canon gear that I had acquired.  However, seeing that lonely camera in the case for $10 made me buy it.  It was pretty clean, and only needed a fresh set of batteries (CR123)  and film.  The Rebel X (or at least THIS rebel X) does not have a built-in pop-up flash.  From the Canon Museum web site: "Based on the popular EOS Kiss marketed in October 1993, the Rebel X was for the North American market. The Rebel X did not have a built-in flash, auto date back, and metered manual like the Kiss. The Rebel X was 55 g lighter than the Kiss.." So, the camera is 21 years old. Wow. It still takes great photos, and weighs less than 500 grams. In fact, it is so light that it can be carried in the hand without fatigue. I have shot one roll with it, and am working on another. If you are a mostly digital user, and want to experiment with film, find yourself a cheap Rebel and use the lenses that you already have (except for the lenses that are only for APS-C DSLRs). So, for less than a dinner, you can find yourself a decent modern film camera with features that you are probably already used to on your DSLR.

Some images from the first roll, shot on Kodak B&W C-41 400 film.

The camera just plain works, and remember, yes, it's not the camera, but the person using it--however, some cameras do make it easier to "get the picture." The EOS Rebel was a fantastic entry into using modern SLRs, and certainly still holds its own against later Rebels that appeared.

Thanks for viewing the 500th post of Random Camera Blog, and USE FILM!