Shooting film is something that I've recently become more and more interested in the further into photography I get. It's a combination of a desire to learn something that I didn't already know, to grow creatively, and an appreciation for the simpler, but more complicated aspects that shooting analog film involves.
The main ideas of shooting digital and shooting analog remain the same, however when shooting digital, some of the work is done for you with the luxuries of auto-focus, exposure metering, white balance, etc. There's nothing wrong with any of these and they are much welcomed advances in camera-making, but sometimes it's nice to strip them away and shoot with a fully mechanical and manual camera. (Just a quick disclaimer: I do shoot fully manual with digital cameras as well. But it doesn't remove some modern advantages of the digital camera. If you shoot with a digital camera and shoot on Auto...STOP! Learn to shoot in manual mode. Learn about ISO settings, f-stops, shutter speeds, white balance, picture profiles, etc. You'll be so much better off.)
Onto the story behind these particular photos that comprise my first roll of analog film. I became interested in wanting to shoot film late last year. I began looking at cameras on Ebay and planned to find a fairly cheap Canon AE-1 or something similar and just see what happened. One day I remembered that when I was a kid I would sit in the floor at Mama and Pawpaw's house playing with and old silver and black camera of Pawpaw's. (If you've never heard me talk about Pawpaw, my great-grandpa, then I'll spare you the details. The main idea is he was my hero as a kid. Ironically, many in my family talk about how much I remind them of him.)
I called Memom one day, who is my grandma and Mama and Pawpaw's daughter, to ask her if she remembered that camera and if she happened to still have it somewhere. She thought she vaguely remembered it, but she didn't have it. She told me if someone still had it then it would probably be my aunt. I quickly gave my aunt a call and asked if she knew where it might be. She said, "Yep. I'm looking at it on my shelf right now. It says it's a Pentax K1000." Needless to say, I got quite excited on my end of the line. I asked her if I could borrow it and she said of course, as long as I gave it back to her if I was ever finished with it. (Don't hold your breath.)
After getting the camera from my aunt, and buying a new battery for the exposure needle inside the viewfinder to replace the one that had been in there since probably the late 70s, I ordered a box of Kodak Portra 160 and set out with one goal: Just take pictures. I wanted to get as comfortable as I could with the camera and the differences of shooting film rather than digital. I love the organic look of film. There's something more real about it. (Which is why I convert my digital images to film stocks as well. It's a very specific look and I understand it's not for everyone. It's just my personal preference.)
Shooting film can be a lot like playing jazz music. You have to know all the rules, and then you're free to break them. The color temperature of analog film is generally white balanced for daylight. Which means if you want to shoot under a different kind of light, like the photo above of the book and VW van, your colors won't be perfect. And that's the beauty of it. Shooting at a low film speed, like with Portra 160 (160 being the speed of the film), means you need plenty of light available if you want your photos to be properly exposed. Which, on the other hand, means if you push it in low light you can also get a really great organic look. What also accompanies film shooting is the stress of not being able to look at the back of the camera to see if you nailed the shot. You have to wait weeks (or in this case, months) to find out.
I love the color tones of this film stock. Portra 160 a pretty common film among avid film shooters, and for good reason. I had this same roll in the camera from November of last year until early March of this year so there's quite a span of time captured on this roll. You can tell by how much my daughter grew from early on the roll to the end. These photos have not been edited other than some light straightening to a couple that were a bit tilted. Expect to see many more rolls of this beautiful film in the future. I've already got another that's getting ready to be sent off with some portrait work on it.
A huge thank you to The Darkroom in San Clemente, California for an amazing job developing and scanning this roll for me. They have definitely made a returning customer.
I leave you now with the remainder of the roll.