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Many things change with time. For me I am beginning to love and appreciate the beauty of film. The imperfections, grain, vivid color, the entire aesthetic when done “right” can be breathtaking. Don’t get too ahead of me, I am not there yet. A few years ago I tried to fall in love with film and enrolled in Embrace the Grain workshop offered by Joyce Kang. I was not yet ready for the experience. I saw it as an opportunity to learn something new, but I just couldn’t get over my need for instant gratification. I got tired of continuously checking the back of the camera for the non-existent LCD so I put the camera down and never tried again.
Now I am a little older, a little wiser, and a little slower. These all contribute to being a little more patient so I gave film another try a few weeks ago I went to the PhotoNative conference in Utah. I signed up for a shoot-a-long with Samantha Kelly. I wasn’t too far out of my comfort zone with a in-home family session, she is an all-film shooter. I originally thought I would shoot a few rolls and get them developed way ahead of the conference, but I only had my Canon EOS3 without any compatible lenses. The new year came and went and I still hadn’t bought a Nikon film camera so I could use my current lenses. It wasn’t until the week before the conference I bought a F100 locally, shot one roll, and loaded a second. So really it was just to get used to the camera because I had zero chance of getting it developed and reviewed before the trip.
I managed to have pretty decent exposure and focus for my first roll. Shooting at such a low shutter speed and just letting go of the anxiety of motion blur is a tough one. This family was the most amazing to get to practice on. I walked in feeling I would be THRILLED with just a handful of shots to blog, 2-3 would be awesome. Looky here I managed to get a whole scene! Now I realize there are no “sit and smile” pictures. Sam had just taken care of those before it was my turn so I wasn’t going to ask everyone to sit back down and do the exact same thing. I am just as happy sitting back and watching the magic unfold. I will update this post when I get a roll of Fuji 400H back that was partially shot in Utah. Scan day is like a surprise when you shot the film so long ago you really can’t recall exact shots. Images below shot on Portra 400. Scanned and developed by the FIND lab.
I still have bunches to learn and now I will work on this whole push/pull and shooting at something other than box speed. So here is some eye-candy from my 5 minutes of private shooting and you can see Samantha in action as well. I went ahead and created a film category for the blog because you know there will be more. Look for some personal scans in the next few weeks!
You can follow Cate and her family on IG. Thank you so much for allowing us to capture a little bit of your family love.
denver, dallas
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