Shooting Film

Maybe it’s not even about taking pictures, with film there is nothing else you can do, especially using a simple camera like the Olympus trip 35, there are no focus to fuss with, no exposure settings to worry about, no lens to should have packed. Just point and shoot.

Out of focus, who cares!

It’s freeing, not knowing. It doesn’t matter. Who cares anyway? In our minds it was and will always be fantastic. It’s a moment we enjoyed enough to think to put on film. No need to fuss about, perfecting every little detail. No worries.

It’s not what film gives you, it’s what it takes away that truly makes it quite unique in this day and age. with everything offering more and more, film takes away just about everything except for the ability to take pictures you can’t even see right away. It is truly a different experience.

Tourist shot

What was most important to me was the freedom from the limitation of film. There is nothing else you can do other than make photographs with film cameras, limitation is the very best thing about it. You can’t take videos so you don’t even think about it. No panorama mode, no selfie mode, and none of those fake film simulation stuff because you got the real deal.

With the XPro2, digital is great!

I also feel with shooting my 5 dollar value village film camera I have a less of a “omg this is serious” kind of mentality. Maybe because I can’t and don’t control everything with the camera so it provides me with some excuses if the shot didn’t turn out well. With that comes with the freedom to do many things, take photos of things I normally wouldn’t. The best part is when I see the film it’s all a surprise for me.

It is so much fun to shoot film, the freedom provided by the nature of film, that surprise when the film is developed, makes it a fun and enjoyable experience. Of course I’m not ditching my digital camera for a film one but I am carrying both everywhere I go. Try a roll, you will get hooked.

 

Printshop with Marku

Had the opportunity to visit the print shop my friend Markus is doing some silkscreening over the christmas break over six months ago, finally processed the pictures. 

It took so long to process these is because I was trying to get the pictures to show off the nice rainbow inks he was printing with. It never felt right. There was too many colours, too many different colours to make the pictures come together as a whole.

Soon as I converted to black and white however it clicked, the light was surprisingly good thanks to the window and the work lights, but it was really hard to see with all the colours getting in the way. I think these pictures are much better served in black and white than in colour despite my initial thought of the importance of showing off the colours.

I wanted the black to be really dark to accentuate the window and work light on the work surface, he’s arms and occasionally he’s face. Trying to emulate the look of tri-x but not recreate it.

Through doing this set of images I learned for me colour could get in the way of seeing the light. I had a hard time seeing through the mix of window light, artificial lights with both soft white and blue-ish, not quite daylight colours, perhaps in these sort of situations black and white really is our friend. Throwing away all the colour reduces distraction leaving us pure light.

Centre Island

Sometimes the closer you are to something the less it is appreciated.

Last time i went to centre island was when i was just a wee lad. With my parents and can barely remember what had happened.

For most tourists it’s a must go, for the barbecue and the view of the city.

A few tips:

• skip the line by purchasing your ferry ticket online. We did it on our phone while we queued up for normal ticket purchase. Once you have your e-ticket they just scan it at the booth and you are through.
• Bike rental is not cheap, they will take debit for deposit if you are cashless.
• Wear comfortable shoes and pack some snacks, you are in for a long walk.
• Pack a jacket, it can get cold at night.

New lens!

I usually talk about how to save money however we all have our hobbies. I did buy this second hand and saved at least $300, so perhaps the money saving tip for the day would be to look on kijiji or craigslist or any second hand classified of your choice before heading to the store for your money burning exercises!

I have a 35mm which sometimes I feel is too close, something wider would be very nice to have so I picked up an 18mm, and I went shooting.

I enjoy this lens quite a bit, some have mentioned the sluggish autofocus due to being an older lens but I had great experience with the autofocus, it hunts a bit during close focus situations.