Ever since I discovered my passion for photography and stuck with it for a while, I thought about my dad’s old canon abandoned in the garage and wanted desperately for mum to find it and see what hidden treasures came with it. Time went by, my business grew and I simply forgot about it.
Then at the end of 2011 days before my trip to the US mum surprised me and came over with my dad’s Canon A-1 and all the bits and pieces that accompanied it, lenses, flash, battery pack. It took me so long to find the batteries it was needing, I soon gave up on it again!
Finally, the urge to shoot film and a friend across the ocean (thanks Veronika) gave me the kick up the bum I needed to get it going. Found the batteries online, ordered the film and I was ready. It was exciting and daunting at the same time to shoot film, the camera that had last been used by someone so important and special to me, there was no screen on the back to check if what I had done was right and manual focus with little ones that move all the time, isn’t the best of combinations. The excitement of not knowing what you’ve captured and the wait that comes with film, was such a welcome change to the fast paced digital world we live in. I think that when it comes to photography I’m a bit of an old soul and hopefully my images reflect this. I love natural, raw, organic, imperfect and pure images. What you see is what you get. Film to me was initially a way to explore and expand my knowledge and passion, now I believe it has become my way of the future, for our family images and hopefully more.
When you think about people that do certain jobs for a living, a chef, a cleaner, a builder, you know they tend to put their own off, to do the work of others, yes?! Of course, one because they are paid for that work and two, they don’t always feel like coming home and doing something they’ve done all day. Same goes for photography (for me anyway) I work through so many files and images for others, that being in front of the computer and working more, for my own family, at times is more of a burden than pleasure. I know I’d rather be spending my time WITH them, than importing, selecting, editing, filing away at images….as important as they may be.
Well, I thought film could have been the solution to the folders of RAW files that fill my external hard drives. My editing may be minimum, but shooting in RAW, there is still processing that needs to be done and my own family photos are always put to the end of them line. Being able to hand that processing over to someone else and have the anticipation of waiting to see what has been captured, to me is a dream! I can’t wait to learn and explore film and here are a few scans from the first images on my father’s film camera. Canon A-1 with a 50mm 1.8 lens. Kodak Portra 400 and HP4 film. Thank you to Film Frenzy for the scans.
