A few months ago we were given a colour film camera (EOS 300) to shoot any subject matter of our choice. In theory this was a straight forward task but in reality it proved to be more difficult than I imagined. For a start, I had never used a film camera before, other than that one time I did some black and white film photography in my Level 2 photography course. I actually got to process the negatives in the dark room but that was a one off and wouldn't know what to do if I had to do it again. I've always used digital point and shoot compacts, so this was unfamiliar territory for me, and one I wasn't very comfortable with. At the same time it was quite an exciting prospect to go out and photograph things and not know how the images may turn out, until after the negatives had been processed.
Using the film camera made me seriously analyse my subject matter and whether it was worth photographing - because after all, each shot was so precious and I did not want to waste it on a bad shot. It helped me to realise how we can take photography for granted these days and how not a lot of thought process can go into what we are photographing.
In the age of disposable digital photography it's easy to take hundreds of shots and then discard them at the touch of a button, before starting all over again. I've done that many a times when I've been out photographing weddings/events etc. Digital image making is not necessarily a bad thing, it's certainly very practical, convenient and cost effective. But with analogue photography, you as a photographer have a great deal of involvement in creating that image, putting a lot of time and effort in to it. It's very much a labour of love, whereas with digital there's very little involvement in the process of image making, it doesn't feel as personal when you get that instant result.
I worked with Sara and we decided to use half of the roll each. She photographed people on the street, whereas I photographed various objects/items in and around the shops. Even though we had 18 shots each I struggled to use up the film. This was primarily because I was so worried about wasting a shot. I was so careful to take each photograph, I decided to put a lot of thought process into each individual shot.
Below are are some of the images from that day. John processed the films as there's no dark room facility in college. They've been scanned using a special bracket to hold them in place. The scanning mode had to be set to negative so the the images would appear as positive once they were scanned. The dpi was set to 2400 so the images would be scanned at a reasonable size, otherwise they would appear too small. This did mean each scan took around 10 minutes or longer! patience is definitely a quality one would need to possess for working with film. And precisely because of that lengthy involvement, film photography becomes just that bit more special.
I'm not ecstatic about these images as the quality certainly could have been better, but it was lovely to experience something a little bit different. Many of the images are under exposed and slightly out of focus. Unless you're an experienced film user, it's difficult to get a feel for exactly what you're doing and whether you're doing it right. However, it wasn't a complete disaster and there are a few images I quite like.
I opened the scanned negatives in PS and adjusted the clarity and contrast to sharpen them. I also used the unsharp mask to sharpen them further and highlight some more of the details. Some of the images above could also benefit from reduction in hue and saturation as they've got a bit of a purple tint to them.
This image is straight out of camera without any processing. It was a dull day so the sky looks quite grey and there's a lot of focusing issues.
I've managed to sharpen this image a little and got some detail back. I quite like it as it looks a a bit unusual to have a bike on a roof top.
This is another one of my favourite image as I love the contrast between the colours. The composition works nicely and fits in well with the rule of third.
I took image inside a shop. I like the quirkiness of it, with lots of bits and pieces in the frame.
Recently I have become quite interested in alternative processes and film is definitely something I would consider using in the future. I'm especially impressed with the image quality you can get when using a medium format camera. However, until the day I can afford a medium format, I will be sticking to digital!.
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