Analog Photography
The week before last, I was down in London. I was supposed to be taking some photos of various private views, for FAD’s Flickr blog. Unfortunately, I had left the batteries and charger for my digital camera at a friend’s house. So, for the first time in about ten years, I dug out my trusty Pentax and bought some films.
It was quite a revelation. There is something incredibly rewarding about using a “real” camera, from the reassuring click of the shutter to the beautiful crisp image seen through the viewfinder (my digicam only has a crappy, scratched, thumbprinted LCD screen, worse than useless especially when the sun is shining). In fact, it was all the things that are “better” about a digital camera that I really found myself appreciating about the film equivalent (”Wow! You don’t get to see the picture as soon as you’ve taken it, so it’s, like, a total surprise what the developed film is going to look like. How cool is that?”)
Of course, there are also many more pitfalls with a film camera; potentially expensive ones too (although I was lucky to get my films developed for free). There was already a film in the camera when I took it out (not ten years old, thankfully: I had put it in a few months ago, then left it there when I realised that the battery needed a camera for the light meter). I assumed that, as the camera was set to 100ISO, that’s what the film would be. Oh no, I discovered when I reached the end that it was actually a 400. Got the developed film pulled a couple of stops and that didn’t seem to make too much difference, thankfully. But then the next film… well I loaded it, wound it on (I’m 90% sure that I checked it was loaded properly, as it was pulling round the reel on the other side of the camera), set it to the correct ISO. Went to the gallery and took a shitload of photos, got home and I’d used 32 of my 36 exposures, so I started taking random shots around the house to try and finish off the film. Over 20 shots later, I chickened out and rewound the film because I was sure I must be double-exposing my gallery shots; I had no idea what was happening.
Well, I still have no idea what happened because when I got the negatives back, they started off from the point where I started photographing the house. As if those 32 exposures taken in London never existed. I have no idea what happened: well, obviously the film didn’t take somehow, though I was sure I’d seen it winding on, and I didn’t do anything special in between London and Sheffield that would magically make the winding mechanism work (other than, probably, bash the camera about a bit in my bag). Ah well, some things will remain a mystery.
And then came the time to scan the negs into the computer. Well, I’d always known that dust is supposed to be the bane of this type of activity, but I’d always seemed strangely kind of immune before. But this time… well, every shot was covered with big white dots where universe-sized dust molecules had blocked out the light, and huge worming snakes of hair. I really must invest in one of those blowy squirty brush things (and, no, blowing onto the negatives really doesn’t help, especially not when you end up spitting on them by accident and the spit dries on as a ghostly crust). I also realised, once I got to look at my work full-sized, that I’m really not as good at focussing as I thought I was, nor as good at holding the camera still for 1/30th exposures. Oh well, it’s all a learning experience.
I shot another roll of film last night, and I have one more to spare in my bag, but I don’t know whether I’ll be using the camera much after that; partly because it is, let’s be honest, a bit of a hassle (and the results not as good as from digital), and also because my rough treatment seems to be taking its toll: there’s a bit of metal inside the camera which has slipped down and now half-covers the viewfinder from the inside, and on one shot the shutter got stuck open so that I had to flick the camera onto flash setting and take another shot before it would un-stick.
Here’s some results:
