One of the wonderful things about photography is how broad it is as a pastime. The options are absolutely endless, from capture media, camera type, process to display. In fact, with the revival of film photography, combined with what digital photography and computers have brought to the table, not to mention all the other traditional types of photography, we as photographers are spoiled for choice.
Kodak Portra 800 is quite possibly my favourite colour negative film. I say that as someone who’s just committed to shooting only P3200 and Ektachrome E100 for at least 6 months in a bid to learn these two returned-to-market films from Kodak properly. But when making that decision, the first concern I had was how I was going to cope without my quite-recently found love for this fast and very versatile colour emulsion.
There’s been a large amount of chatter on some of the analogue photography Facebook groups recently about whether or not it’s cheating to use software to tweak your film photos to look how you want them to. Personally – as someone who uses Lightroom as part of my workflow – I find the whole conversation absurd. It’s my process, they are my photos, I know how I want them to look, so why shouldn’t I achieve that outcome by whatever means I see fit?
A little while ago I loaded a roll of Kodak P3200 into my Leica M4-P and proceeded to shoot a few frames one evening down the pub. I then forgot I’d loaded P3200 and thought I’d loaded a roll of Ilford HP5+. Now, at this stage I should probably tell you that I treat HP5+ like crap. I often shoot it lackadaisically between EI400 and 1600 and then have it pushed a couple of stops by a lab. I like the flexibility this approach gives me, and find the resultant negatives perfectly usable within my workflow. This lackadaisical approach was how was how I accidentally shot a large chunk of the rest of the roll of P3200. It could have been a disaster, but as it turns out P3200 is also forgiving enough to deal with my slapdash approach to exposure… so, I thought I’d pen a little post showing how well the results came out via a little tour of my 35mm workflow.
My second year of shooting film – Part 16 (Read Part 15 here) For about nine months now I have been developing colour film at home, so I thought it was time to share some experiences. But to start with my conclusions: I don’t have a fool-proof strategy yet. My biggest struggle is dealing with …
Experiments in Developing Colour Film At Home: The Chemicals Dilemma – by Aukje Read More
