Living up to tradition

» Written on January 8, 2009 at 9:50 PM «

So you’ll notice that my Flickr hideout has had a sudden influx of photos, presented, curiously, in a format that I’m usually more comfortable with when it’s fully customizable. And I mean customizable in every sense of the word; where I can make red look like goddamn green if I want it to. All with minimal artifacting, made possible with the advent of RAW.

Imagine my surprise when I found myself at the nearby coast, on my bicycle, clutching an unfamiliar Nikon F-301 to my chest, Fuji Neopan ISO 400 black and white film loaded within.

36 shots, and a whole length of beach to cover. It’s a monumental task.

at the beach

at the beach

I have to say, after all my experience with the D50, being asked to shoot with a film SLR is pretty intimidating, especially when the adage of ‘one shot is all you get’ becomes even more important than ever, since I am shooting in black and white. Having to think about how colours will actually appear after development, on top of an already complicated-as-hell process doesn’t help make things any easier. I can only conclude that I would have gone insane had I actually owned contrast control filters to go with the lens.

I’m happy with the first batch of stuff that I shot, though, if not the unbelievable prices of film development and film scanning. Maybe I should try a different photo shop or something. Yes, I am currently working my way through a second roll of the stuff, and hopefully I should have it done with by the end of the week, fucking stupid mistakes notwithstanding.

Elaboration on it would probably cause me to wither and die in embarrassment, but let us say, that perhaps, there is a camera. This camera requires film to be loaded into it. We shall then assert that the film was loaded, and loaded well. Then we shall say, perhaps, that the film jammed during loading and the film leader (the bit that sticks out of the roll) mysteriously receded back into the canister through the darkest of magiks, probably involving the thralls of the Underworld somewhere in this sad, sorry tale.

flower

flower

Basically the loading fucked up, the camera didn’t give off the warning bleeps during loading like it should have, and imagine my surprise! When I turned up at the photo shop all ready to develop a roll of shots and trying to rewind the roll only to find out my error grevious.

It’s quite all right; those previous shots were garbage anyway. Maybe it’s my subconscious at work once again. In any case, though the first few frames of the film are probably ruined (I personally stretched it out and left the back open to make sure the film loaded properly), as the photo shop assistant put it, 33 usable exposures is better than no usable exposures.

Also, after hearing both my D50 and the F301′s shutter whir, I have to say, there is is a certain flair that the film winder gives to the overall sound. Sure, it may be slower, and my D50 is king when it comes to serious situations that call for a camera with capabilities, but when it comes to pure, unfettered spirit, being reduced to shooting film is where you learn the most about photography.

I’ll be back with more tales from behind the viewfinder soon.

   

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