My shoot with Eva

Eva and I had been discussing doing a shoot for quite some time, and most of the delay had to do with my needing to get the motivation to shoot again. One of my biggest problems with wanting to do shoots is overthinking everything and imagining things need to be much more complicated, when things could really be simple and be just fine. So we went with simple!
She brought her own beauty and vibe, a nice, timeless style dress that went great with the look we were going for, and she selected a nice location. To add the finishing touches, she brought a few items along to use as props. We really hoped for fog that morning! We had always talked about doing a shoot with fog to add to the mood, and it had been foggy lately, but not that morning! I recall feeling bitter on my way to work the week following this shoot because the fog had returned that morning and I thought, “How convenient!”

I had a great time collaborating with Eva and we quickly got some great images in a short amount of time. I used my digital camera and that roll of Wolfman 35 film by Film Photography Project.
Here are images from both!

I believe I had my aperture setting too low for some of the film images because they turned out a little dark, but I still got some great images, so everything turned out okay. I need to have a little more patience with the 35mm camera until I get more familiar with it. I still guess my way around it because I only used it a small handful of times.

More images can be viewed here: Eva’s Photo Shoot
When I dropped this film off to be processed, I bought another roll of film…Revolog Tesla 2!

My shoot with Priscila

I bought this weird alien mask a couple years ago and had been wanting to use it for a shoot. I just wasn’t sure who would be interested or what exactly to do with it. I saw a lot of silver in my ideas and wished I had a cheesy looking spaceship prop to use like about the size of a tent. I could probably make one but knew it would take effort I wasn’t trying to put in! But then I thought of tin foil hats and thought of a different idea. I just needed to throw the plan together and find someone willing to get weird.

One thing that motivated me to bring this to fruition is I purchased a roll of Revolog Volvox film and wanted to try it out! I felt the green effects of the film would look great with the green hair on the mask and with the whole look, in general. I have really been digging the specialty films and wanted to experiment with them.

I was happy to hear Priscila was interested in this shoot! We originally planned to go to a river actress point so we could be near nature, but I had a lot of school work due that weekend and had limited time, so we did the shoot in her backyard. It took us a while to get the foil outfit going! Making the foil “bra” was harder than I planned it out to be in my head! We just kind of winged the rest of the outfit. I had a great time shooting with her and loved the weirdness and humor she added to the whole experience! They made for great images!

I brought my 35mm to use the Volvox film, but I also brought my digital so we could have instant images. Here’s an example of both!

You can see the rest of the images here: Priscila’s Photo Shoot

When I dropped off the roll of film at Mike’s Camera, I picked up some Film Photography Project Wolfman 35 film, with intention to do another film/digital shoot!

Getting out.

Still in the pandemic, but I’ve been getting outdoors a bit recently. Just a little bit. Still no shows. And I still haven’t done any film or developing, but I need to because I miss it.

Here are a few self portraits from recent outings. I’m not terribly used to being in front of the camera, but I might try it more often. Just as a form of expression. Maybe I’ll get a little artsy, we’ll see.

Awesome thrift scores!

I recently went to the Big Blue Barn thrift store last month and found some goodies for only FIVE DOLLARS! I was stoked! I got a Holga camera, a mini developer tank, a film reel to use with the developer tank, and a film canister opener! I have been wanting one of those because there is no can opener at home that opens the film canisters without a struggle. I still have yet to try the canister opener out since I haven’t developed any film recently. I’m really happy about this little haul!

I have never used a Holga camera before, but I have always wanted to. And I’ve never used 120 film. I looked on YouTube and saw it’s just as easy to develop it at home, like I’ve been doing with the 35mm. But I don’t have a method of scanning 120 film. Murr. Maybe I will have to give in and have it developed at the local camera shop and have prints made. Or let them scan it. I don’t know if I am trying to invest in a better scanner that does 120 film at this time. Hmm…

Update on film developing

…or lack thereof.

I haven’t been developing any film lately. Mostly because I haven’t been going anywhere, which is lame of me. I feel like I have a lack of subjects. I don’t want to take pictures of anything and everything. If it was digital photography, that’s no problem, but the film costs money and development uses chemicals and takes time. And after all the old film I developed from eleven years ago, seeing all the people I photographed that aren’t even a part of my life and images that hold no artistic value, I am reluctant to photograph anything and everything. I’d rather photograph good friends and really neat stuff. Not just taking pictures of anything out of desperation.

There’s another reason I have been slacking off. Last time I wrote an entry, I complained that my images had a weird blue hue. I honestly don’t think that it my fault. I think it is the cheap film scanner I purchased from Amazon! I purchased the Jumbl scanner for about $60 and it did a decent job at scanning a whole bunch of my old negatives. I used to notice most of them did have a blue hue to it, but thought it’s because the negatives were old. I had no idea. It doesn’t auto correct color, but there’s a setting to adjust the color before scanning. I didn’t mess with it much, though, because the screen is small and you can’t really fix everything accurately.

I went to Amazon to see if there was any reviews mentioning the blue hue, and sure enough…it was mentioned!

“Sorry to say, but the item is junk!!! I tried the product thru 1,000 slides and they were all BAD! They all turned out BLUE! I tried all software provided to adjust color, but just didn’t work. I returned it to Amazon who docked me $30 for S/H and Restock Fees. Never again.
I just bought an Epson V600 FlatBed Scanner (Not from Amazon) to do the job. Now I get to start all over again. I have a total of about 8,000 35 mm Slides to do.”

Well there’s that, plus I am sure a better quality scanner can produce better quality scans! So this cheap scanner isn’t showing the full potential of the quality. 😦 I do have an old scanner but I don’t have the adapter to scan negatives. It’s a good scanner for prints, though. So I really want to know what my film photography would look like scanned on a better scanner.

Developing Color Film

If you read my last post, you will have read that I decided to develop film at home and purchased chemicals to develop black & white, although I did use it to develop C41 film, which is color. But I wanted to try my hand at developing color! None of the (two) local photography shops had a color kit, so I ordered one from Freestyle Photo

I was a bit intimidated because I’ve read developing C41 is a bit more detailed than developing black and white, mostly because the temperature needs to be just so. I was also nervous about mixing the chemicals, although it ended up being easier than I thought! I messed up when I was mixing the developer, I believe I was supposed to mix it using hot water, but I used cold instead. I was thrown off at the dark, blood-red color of the blix chemicals. I couldn’t wait to try and develop a roll of film, so I popped one into my plastic Vivitar LC 600 camera. The film speed was 200 and it was getting later in the day, so I wasn’t sure I’d have enough light with the camera I was using.

Here are some of the images from that roll. They are very BLUE! And also very dark. I felt a little discouraged with developing color film when I saw this, but then I remembered the roll of film I used was a roll that I found in a used camera bag I purchased at a thrift store! Not only could it have been expired, but who knows what it may have encountered. It could have been left in the sun or heat and that would have done some damage. I did, however, get some compliments when I posted these images on my Instagram. I guess the flawed effect does look kind of neat and mysterious.

I took those images a couple weeks ago and had been wanting to give it another try with a fresh roll of film, just to see if I got the same result or if it would turn out better. So yesterday I grabbed my tripod and went in the back yard for some experimentation. This time I used my Canon EOS 10s so I could adjust the lighting. I developed the film shortly after, trying to be sure everything was at the right temperature.

Click images to see full size.

I am quite pleased with the results! They’re not too dark because I used my Canon, but there is still a slight blue hue. I could easily Photoshop the images to correct that, or even edit them on my phone. But let’s not forget the days when Photoshop wasn’t available and photographers had to learn to get it right when they developed the film. I want to learn how to get it right, so I don’t mind posting less than perfect photos because I want to document progress.

Here is one of the images above edited on my iPhone in two different ways:

I think they look much better this way, but I want to get it right during developing. That will mean more practice!