They say “relax, try to lay down and do nothing sometimes”. And I say: don’t let my mind fly freely for a single minute because I love to find trouble.
That’s what happened when my husband said I should relax a little bit, work less and try to do something for fun. I entered a rabbit hole that I know I can’t get out of very easily.
I thought “why not try some creative challenge for my channel”? and ended up with a bunch of rolls of films, a lot of time spent on finding and understanding my old analog cameras and interesting video, for sure.
Yes, I shot some films just because I wanted to. And now I’m here to tell you how it was.
Well, I have a long relationship with photography and shot a lot of films in the past. Even developed some. But since we came to Canada, this hobby was kind of left aside – especially because of money – but now I kind of miss it.
I found an old Lomography Lady Grey 400 but then I realized both cameras I was considering to use were already loaded. The problem was: I had no idea what was inside: neither the already exposed frames nor the type of film. I didn’t even know if the ISO was set correctly on both cameras.
But that’s the thing: if we want predictable and easy results, we shoot digital, right? If we’re in the mood for some adventure, let’s shoot a film and embrace the unknown.
So it was time to shoot with my Canon 2000. I had 21 frames left and no clue about the film inside. I got the ISO right this time, but didn’t know it was black and white.
I recorded some POV footage while taking the photos, but I don’t think the results were perfect. I rethought my process and I can say: the next video I’m producing will become so much better!
So, if I were you I would subscribe to my channel because this video is good, but the next one will be amazing.
I went for a walk in the park nearby and tried to capture the beauty of the sunny autumn day, aka colours, without knowing I was shooting a black and white film. It was fun indeed. The film I shot was the Kodak BW400CN and it was expired, by the way.
At first I was a little intimidated because I hadn’t used this camera for a long time, but to be honest, it’s like shooting any Canon DSLR, about 5 minutes into it and I was fine.
I think I liked the results but noticed too much grain in my images, and I don’t know if it was because the film was expired. Looking at photos shot with the same film by other people I notice some grain as well, but most of the people shot expired films too. Maybe, I’ll never know the truth.
Something I didn’t like is that I didn’t get pure blacks from it but the amount of details captured is definitely a plus.
As I’m not a professional photographer my goal when I go out for shooting is to have fun. And after spending some hours dedicated to analog photography I remembered why I love it so much. In a fast-paced world where we’re always demanding perfection from ourselves, film photography can be an escape.
There’s no display showing us our pictures, therefore there’s no instant gratification nor pressure to do it better. We just take pictures. It’s a matter of enjoying the process, not the results. Something kinda rare these days.
Thinking that I was shooting a colour film, there was this time when I thought “this photo would look amazing in black and white” so I can assume God was by my side.
Those were the photos I shot. I’m already finalizing another video telling my experience with Kodak Portra 400. So, stay tuned for that.
