Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“I had rescued the moment by using my camera and in that way had found how to stop time and hold it. No one could take that image away from me because I owned it.” ― The Lovely Bones
In a previous post, A Leica Dilemma (or not), I asked readers for their advice about whether I should expand my path into film photography or spend my camera budget on an older digital camera that had a CCD sensor. (Look for a discussion on this subject in an upcoming Pixels, Grain & Cookies podcast on my YouTube channel.) The overwhelming response from most of you was basically, “why are you wasting time with film photography?”
Kodak just announced the reintroduction of Kodacolor color negative film in ISO 100 and 200 versions for about ten bucks a roll. I just pre-ordered a roll of each from Freestyle Photographic Supplies. Look for a review after the film arrives. And Lomography just announced LomoChrome Classicolor ISO 200 color negative film at $11.90 a roll.
Keep all that in mind that this is the same readership that advised me to get a Yashica FX-3 film SLR. I don’t blame them for my bad decision and for what was also the first time I got scammed on an eBay camera purchase from Japan. Speaking of wasting money on film cameras. I spent $250 for a CLA and repairs to my beloved gold-trimmed Seagull TLR and just finding someone to repair Chinese cameras was a challenge. The camera is sorta fixed but it doesn’t work as well as it it did prior to falling into disrepair from, I’ll take the blame, neglect.
Film is Not New to me
I’ve been shooting film since I was eight years old, in a time when it was the only option. Much, much later I was an early adopter of digital photography, so much so I had scorn heaped upon me—in print—from the then-editor of Photomethods magazine for just mentioning the idea of digital photography in my “Perspectives” column. As an early adopter of digital capture, I’ve have been shooting digital cameras since then but have spent far less time capturing digital images than during all the years that I shot film.
Unlike the advice I received on the Yashica FX-3, I plan, and this always subject to change, to ignore the advice given me vis-à-vis film vs. digital photography. But I’m not going to shoot film exclusively for two main reasons:
First, I love shooting digital infrared images and want to explore this genre even further, such as exploring the possibilities with cameras that have CCD sensors. But I also want to shoot film and have been enjoying the process so far. Perhaps it’s nostalgia for the the cameras? I think the 40-year old Canon AE-1 I bought for $200 is far better constructed than the Panasonic Lumix G9 I paid lots more for—and then sold—after hardly using it.
The second reason is how the pandemic affected my studio photography; it’s almost killed it. Photographing models is a collaborative process and understandably, the virus affected many models career aspirations as well as aspiring model’s attitudes about being in an enclosed space with a photographer shooting glamour, unless of course large amounts of cash were involved. Then it was no longer a problem. Only problem? I don’t have the cash.
The clock ticks on with me considering turning my in-home studio into an expanded LEGO city and train layout, I wanted to have something that would fill the creativity (and be fun) that was formerly spent shooting in the studio and film perfectly fit the bill.
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