The opposite of chimping

I read somewhere that Garry Winogrand thought you should let some months pass before you look at your photos for the first time. Maybe he was overdoing this a bit, but digital photography - where you can immediately look at what you captured - definitely changed the whole game. Of course, you don't have to do it, but it is certainly tempting. And even if you don't chimp, you usually see your photos the same day once you upload them to your computer. With film, you will at least have to develop and print them first which gives you a kind of "grace period" you don't have in the digital world. I'm beginning to think that Winogrand was on the right track and that a certain "emotional detachment" due to time lag helps you to see things more clearly.

Anyway, back to this photo. It was taken at some flea market in Manhattan in 1998 and maybe a week or two later I saw it on the contact sheet and that was it. I forgot about it. Only when I scanned the film eleven years later did I see the picture again and I suddenly saw it not with the eyes of the photographer but like someone who just happens to look at it. And now I'm sure I like it a lot, for various reasons. If you don't, maybe you should come back in eleven years...

Leica M4-P on Tri-X.  (By the way, look at Winogrand's M4 here. Mine is pretty old and worn by now, but compared to his it looks almost pristine.)