I've been away from the blogosphere for quite a while. Mainly, I've been keeping my postings to Facebook. However, I've recently been doing a couple of projects in photography that I'd like to share and require a little more room than Facebook gives.
As time went by, life started getting in the way of photography. Sure, I've still been shooting, but I wasn't as passionate about it as I had been. I was pretty much just shooting things that came up, I wasn't going out looking at things to shoot. The problem with that is one does not grow in the art that way.
The thing that first got me back into the photography bug this summer was when I inherited my grandfather's camera. My Grandfather, along with my Dad were the two people that got me interested in photography when I was growing up. I got my first camera when I was in Middle School. The was a big, rubberized, bright yellow point and shoot camera that leaked light and didn't always completely rewind the film. When I got in high school, my Dad gave me his Canon AE-1. This was an awesome camera. It produced great pictures, the controls were easy to use and could do so much more than a new photographer could want. I used this camera regularly all throughout the 90s until it's age finally got the better of it. The ISO selector wheel was a little damaged when I got it and through use got worse and wouldn't hold it's position. If I didn't catch it when it slipped, this would throw off my exposure. The light seals in it were also starting to wear out. I took it into a camera store to hopefully get fixed up, but they told me there wasn't anything they could do. They were happy to sell me a shiny new EOS though.
While my father gave me my first camera and initially got me into photography, my grandfather was the one who taught me photography. Photography was always a big part of his life. After every trip he went on, we'd gather in the living room for a slide show of the vacation pictures. We saw pictures of African Safaris, the Berlin Wall, Moscow behind the Iron Curtain, the Great Wall of China. Grandpa taught me how to not just take pictures, but photographs. He taught me how to use the aperture and shutter speed to get the pictures I wanted. He gave me books on photography. He critiqued my shots and help me improved.
My Grandfather had a Konica A1000. It's pretty similar to the AE-1 I was used to. The shutter priority auto exposure worked pretty much the same as on my old camera. The shutter speed dial, aperture ring, film advance lever were all in pretty much the same spot. It felt like an old friend in my hands. The first thing I did once I was given his camera, I went to the store to get some film. I wanted to get slide film since that's what Grandpa always shot. Unfortunately, that was a special order item. So, I picked up a couple rolls of Kodak T-Max 100 since this was always one of my favorite films to shoot. I loaded it in Grandpa's camera and started shooting.
I immediately noticed a couple things I wasn't used to from shooting digital. The first was the lens. Back in the day, SLR cameras shipped with a nifty fifty, 50mm f/1.8 prime lens. This is a fast sharp lens that, when fully open, can give a paper thin depth of field. Having the prime lens forces one to think about composition a lot more than a zoom. Since you can't just turn the barrel to zoom in, you need to re-position yourself. When you do that, it's easier to move not only front to back, but also side to side and up and down. The zoom can make you lazy.
The other big thing that one thinks more about with film is exposure. There's no full automatic, no LCD display in the viewfinder, and the aperture adjustment is a ring on the lens. In the viewfinder there is a needle that moves up and down to indicate proper exposure. There's also no preview window so no chimping to see if you got it right. This was more of an adjustment for the kids than me, when I answered the first "Can I see it?" question with "In a couple weeks once I get the film developed". Between not being able to look instant results or histogram and only having 24-36 tries to get it right, one tends to slow down and make sure to get it right.
But, enough talking about photography. People don't go to a photo blog to read about photography, they come for the photos. Here's some of the pictures I shot:
Portrait of Hannah
Alexis and Kristi with Henry
Playing some yard games
These were all from my first roll of film. I've always been a fan of back and white. There's a simple elegance with the interaction of light and dark, without color getting in the way. For my second roll of film, I went with Rollei 200 color reversal (slide) film. This film is know for warm, subdued colors. In a lot of the pictures, this ended up being a yellow color cast. I don't know if I would end up getting this film again.
Washing the car
Hannah at Niagara Falls KOA
This one is my favorite of the batch. The subdued colors give this a vintage look.
So, that is my reintroduction into the film world. After these two rolls of film, I dove a little deeper into film photography. I dug out one of my old camera bags and found my EOS Rebel 2000 with a partially exposed roll of film from about 7 years ago and a Canon AE-1 Program that I picked up from ebay at around the same time. I also found a 1950s era rangefinder camera for $4 at a thrift store. Right now, I have the roll of Tri-X 400 from the EOS, a roll of Fuji Velvia 100 slide film from the AE1 and Tmax 100 from the rangefinder en route to the lab for developing. I'd like to eventually get into developing black and white film at home.
If you are still with me, thank you for reading. I'll hopefully have another post coming in a week or two. I'll be stepping back into the digital world and telling you about the photo scavenger hunt I have been doing.
Be happy, shoot often,
Rik
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