When I started taking photography courses over a decade ago I shot film. Kodak Tri-X Black and White film. I labored over taking the perfect roll of 24 (or if I was lucky 36) frames. I meticulously metered, composed and timed the perfect image. I spent hours in the darkroom inhaling developer, measuring the proper chemical ratios, agitating the film in it’s bath for the just right amount of time until that moment when you could pull it out of the canister and see 24 perfectly exposed miniature images in negative which would beget a whole series of additional steps to develop an actual positive image on 8×10 paper. It was heaven, but man was it time consuming.
Digital opened up a world of opportunity. I could shoot endlessly and thus I wasn’t afraid to take risks, wasn’t afraid to fail and I learned. Since 2005 when I picked up my first 20D I’ve expanded my skills in ways I never dreamed. But it’s also created a more hurried style of shooting to catch every moment as it happens rather than explore the opportunity for artistic composition and expression.
I recently stumbled across my high school yearbook and a note from my photography instructor. She wrote that from my first roll of film she knew I had what it would take to succeed. She said she knew I “was going to take this medium to places it usually doesn’t go”. It’s funny to read now, now that I know and have learned from so many incredible photographers, now that I can look back on a creatively dry spell after college where I didn’t really take time to foster my love of photography and now when I find myself photographing in a much more documentary way than I ever did in high school.
Anyway the whole point is… I’m dragging out my film camera again. I brought it along to an engagement session last weekend and I’m hoping that it brings back a sense of personal expression that I haven’t been cultivating as strongly as I’d like. Here’s a photo of Kebi & Ian at Flagstaff Mountain in Boulder Colorado. I like the grain, but I’m not sure the scan is as sharp as the negative. I’ll have to figure out how best to meld my digital and film world!
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