Just film photography in this one - Why Am I Making This? Issue #12
Hello there!
It’s a bit of an early newsletter this month, and also a slightly short one. I talked last month about feeling some creative burnout, and at the beginning of May it blossomed into full-fledged dread at the thought of having to make anything new. I powered through a couple things I needed to finish up, and then pretty much completely checked out of painting, pottery, scheduled photoshoots, almost all of my usual creative hobbies.
The one thing I have kept doing is film photography, out on my own without the pressure of creating photos for someone. It’s been pretty good, and it’s going to be all I’m going to talk about in this newsletter. Next month maybe I’ll catch you up on the couple of little pottery and painting projects I’ve done in the last few weeks.
It’s Julien, by the way! This is the 12th newsletter I’ve written, which means, miraculously, that I have stuck with writing this for a full year. It’s become a really welcome routine, and I appreciate every one of you reading. Thank you.
Film photography
The vast majority of the photos I took this month haven’t been developed yet. I sent 11 rolls of film (!!!) to my local lab the other day, and I’ll probably get them back in a week or so. That means I don’t know how most of the photos I took in the last few weeks have come out, and since no one except me is waiting on them, not knowing how they look is something of a weight off my shoulders. No obsessing over how they came out, no editing and re-editing.
The observant/film-savvy among you might notice the five long, thin rolls of film in bubble wrap at the bottom. Those are 120 medium format film, which I had never used before this month since I didn’t have a medium format camera. But I do now!
This is a Yashica A, one of the most budget-friendly, no-frills twin lens reflex cameras you could hope to buy. It has no light meter, only 4 shutter speeds, and is fully mechanical (no battery!) it’s been immensely fun to learn to use. I had been thinking about buying one for almost a year, but hadn’t had the push I needed until Filip and I watched Finding Vivian Maier at the beginning of the month. The next day I finally ordered one. (Of course, her cameras were nicer.)
(Photos of me with the Yashica A courtesy of Ruby, as usual!)
I’ve only got my test roll of film back from it so far, but I love the images it makes already.
The negatives are huge compared to 35mm film, and the images are correspondingly detailed and sharp. What a rush to look at them!
The rest of the film photos I got back this month were taken in April, mostly of friends, Filip, and flowers. I’ve been having fun trying new film stocks - among these photos are my first rolls of kodak colorplus 200, Kodak ektar 100, and lomochrome metropolis. Fun stuff. Here’s some of my favorites.
One more thought about the benefits, to me, of film photography over digital given my current stressed mental state. I talked a little bit in my last newsletter about feeling a kind of compulsion to process my digital photos as soon as I was done with a photoshoot, that I couldn’t think about anything else until I had gone through them. Another downside of the immediacy of digital photography is that it provides very quick feedback while actually taking the photos, which can be good, but at the moment is more of a stressor and psychological challenge than anything else.
Here’s a quote by Mary Ellen Mark about just this challenge. Here she is talking about her student Ariko Inaoka:
“I think in her case it makes a difference that she’s shooting film instead of digital because film encourages patience and slower shooting. With digital, one can just snap through a number of pictures, and some people tend to look at the back of their camera instead of the subject. When you can look at what you just shot on the camera, you might think that you have the picture and stop too soon when in fact you didn’t get it. You can’t really tell if you’ve caught the right expression or subtle gestures or fine focus on the tiny back of the camera. Of course, you can’t tell that with film either, but at least you’re not looking at the back of the camera or stopping because you’re confident that you got the picture.”
I also find that if I’m not happy with digital photos I’m taking during a shoot, I start to panic and start snapping wildly. Occasionally I will end up with some photos I like anyway, but it’s not a good approach to photography, either for the quality of the photos or my mental health.
But with film, I have no sense whether I’m doing well or badly, and that’s kind of freeing. I have a friend with a tiny tattoo that says 0-0, a sports thing - a mentality to keep throughout the game, to imagine that the score is 0-0. Don’t get overconfident, don’t get defeatist. That’s the mentality film gives me, too.
Closing thoughts
I hope I’m writing to you from a less frazzled state of mind next month, but I suspect it will take longer than that to get over this pandemic-end induced anxiety and become reacclimatized to existing in society and interacting with other people. I know for a fact I’m far from the only one feeling this way, but for whatever reason that’s not especially helpful to remember. In time, I’m sure, it will be better. The rallying cry of the past 12 months!
If nothing else, I will have some May pottery, paintings, and film photos to share with you in June. As always, I would love to hear from you if this made you think or feel something!
Talk to you soon,
Julien