Back To Film Photography
FIRST PART
By Richard February 29, 2020
INSPIRATION
I love street photography, though I don’t consider myself a great photographer neither a master but I really enjoy shooting film. My work as an interiors and boudoir photographer is of course 100% digital and does not leave me much time for my personal projects and I almost forgot the pleasure I feel each time I can grab my film camera and take a walk in the streets of my city, Milan. There’s another reason that has taken me away from shooting film in the last two years and that’s the new European law concerning privacy. We can’t publish or share any image where people are involved; if we do we could be legally pursued and this is a serious deterrent to our art. this is the reason why I can show only a few photographs of the 36 roll I shot.
THE PROCESS
However, a few days ago, I took a look at some photographs of the great Chinese master Fan Ho and I found an enormous font of inspiration. The way he mastered lights and shadows remembered me another great artist of the past: The Italian painter Caravaggio. Highly contrasted images where shadows occupy most of the scenes, that’s what I was trying to accomplish but I’m aware how difficult it is to reach a decent level of skill in this art. I thought needed a different film than my usual Ilford HP5 400 or Fujifilm Neopan Acros; the right choice has been Kodak TRI-X 400.
ACTION:
I decided to shoot at night in order to avoid the presence of people and I pushed the film to 1600 just to have more speed. I woke up at 05,00 am, grabbed my Canon A1, I bought it in 1986, and went out for a walk. Shooting at night with TRI-X is not easy since I must work with low shutter speed usually between 1/15th and 1/30th of a second. However, I feel lucky because I enjoy the entire process about film photography: Loading the roll into the camera, shooting without a monitor showing me immediate result, slowing down and taking my time to think about the composition and the right exposure to use. Manual focusing is another critical factor because at night you may take some great shots and discover later that the image is a little bit out of focus or blurred; this adds personality to the photographs.
I finished shooting my first roll of TRI-X 400 in just one night and I decided not to develop the film by myself cause I din’t want to run the risk of messing up the whole thing. I gave it to a professional developer. He explained to me that since I pushed it to 1600 the process would take a longer time. When he delivered me the negative I scanned them with my DSLR and put it in Lightroom. I was shocked by the amazing quality of Kodak TRI-X. It’s a punchy film, I love the grain, the tonality and the mood it gives to the photographs; It’s like listening music on vinyl record rather than on a CD. This is something I really missed in digital photography! I must say I made some mistakes during the shooting; my camera seems to have a tendency to overexpose this film at 1600. Next time I’ll use Kodak TRI-X I will have to adjust my exposure dial at least by one stop. I ‘m not really satisfied by my results but I consider them a first try with this beautiful film. In the next weeks I’ve decided to test Fuji velvia 100 pushed 400 and Kodak Portra 800 pushed 1600 or 3200. Can’t wait to see the results.