Gear Theory

Wedding Inspiration shot on Film

My Story of the Imperfect Perfection of Film in Wedding Photography

By / / Gear Theory, Philosophy & Reflections / 12 Comments

I was always looking for a way to earn money on the side with something I love and escape the suffering of nursing. When Corona pushed things to the limit in 2020, I started taking selfies with my phone and playing around with photos. Instagram wasn’t new anymore, and people just posted whatever came to mind. So I started taking photos with my Sony Alpha 5000, which I used for vlogging back then. Here a traffic light, there a tree, and here an old car. But I couldn’t get away from the question of “how can I make money with it,” so I started calling for couples to photograph for my portfolio.

Je Suis Le Mal Aimé! – The One No One Likes

By / / Gear Theory / 6 Comments

Je suis le mal aimé is a French classic song and roughly translated means: the one no one likes! For this article I’m going to talk about three of my passions. I’ve spend a bit of time trying to find non-technical articles about these but failed to find something that grabbed my interest. This became the idea for an article to share with you, and I hope it inspires you to try them out for yourselves!

Making Flash Work for my Photography

By / / Gear Theory, Philosophy & Reflections / 7 Comments

I do not like flash photography. I do not enjoy the feeling of light cutting through the darkness directly towards whomever or whatever I am photographing.

However, sometimes there is simply no light available. Sometimes making the image is more important than my sensibilities and taste for ideal conditions. Sometimes photography is not about what I enjoy, but what is necessary in order to continue enjoying it. Most everyone knows what a camera is, and the only thing you’re likely to achieve from photographing “stealthily” is presenting as an outsider, which isn’t going to give you the results you’re probably after. Similarly, people know what a flash is and does, and if you’re using one while also trying to remain stealthy you’re entering quite the paradox – but using one while also being overt is just combining two obvious things about photography that people are familiar with without wondering what you might be trying to achieve.

minox IIIs_agfa_apx_25

So you want to get into Minox photography?

By / / Gear Theory, Point & Shoot, Processes, Tutorials & Guides / 16 Comments

Would it be a good move for you? I honestly don’t know. Would it? It all depends, I guess, on why you just  bought one (am I right?). Perhaps you found one in an old box of stuff? Out of curiosity? You had a Minox once and have a wish to revisit the gone years? Have you heard marvellous things about this little camera? The Minox and its place in the photography world lies, as they say, in the eye (or hands, as it were) of the beholder (the user).

Indeed, from what I have seen in the last 20+ yrs of using Minox 8×11 cameras, there aren’t two ways about it: you either love it or hate it. OK, perhaps there are some who stand in between the two, but truth of the matter is that Minox can be a somewhat demanding piece of photographic technology. I believe that the learning curve however is not that steep.

Economies of Film

By / / Gear Theory, Philosophy & Reflections / 2 Comments

After seeing some online discussions about the price of film rising I thought I’d revisit and follow up on a piece of writing I previously wrote about darkroom prints, and how I go about working out my cost basis in order to price them appropriately.

Unlike that article, the cost of film itself is just that – an expense. Prints are a cost with the back end possibility of a sale, which means a cost breakdown is actually part of a calculation for pricing them. You can factor in the cost of your physical film to the eventual print, or charge a markup if working with a client who has asked you to work with film, but for most people I think film will not be a factor you are making much money back on. That is why finding a way to keep that cost as low as possible makes the most sense for the long term approach to working with the medium. Finding ways to save even 50p per roll works out to hundreds of pounds across long term consistent work.

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