Welcome back to the blog guys,
it’s been a while since my last post on here and I truly hope you’re all doing well and healthy during these crazy times. Fingers crossed that we face better times soon!
That being said, I finally found the time to get my hands on some topics which I had on my to-do list for quite a while now. One of them is sharing more of my approach when it comes to film photography, hence I started a new series on the blog called “Talking Grain”. Through-out the next months, I will not only talk about why shooting film plays a big roll in my life but also about my experiences with certain film stocks, how I scan and archive my negatives as well as other topics within my creative workflow. So without further ado, let’s get right into it!
Berlin, 2020 on 35mm Kodak Portra 400
Greece, 2020 on 35mm Kodak Portra 400
For many years I’ve been exclusively shooting on a digital system and while I love the overall flexibility and the crazy development of this technology, especially with mirrorless systems, I felt quite bored at times. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to love about the digital age in general and how it offers us sheer endless possibilities when it comes to being a creative these days. Never has it been more easy and hassle-free to start with photography: Since the invention of smartphones we all carry a very powerful camera with us every day. Some people even made great careers by exclusively shooting and publishing their work leveraging the power of their phone. Think about how crazy that is! And then there is social media, which not only gives us access to a sheer endless amount of content but also makes it possible to share our own work with thousands of others out there. All with the click of a button!
Personally though, I reached a point during these last months where I started to question a lot within my own process. Technology takes over more and more tasks of each of us and that of course also affects the creative process itself. I’m talking about things like crazy burst rates, AI-driven face detection (even for animals), enhanced AF systems, touchscreens and what not. All of this baked into a small camera body! While these features are very useful and truly take away from the stress we photographers might face in certain situations, I also think they can make us lazy and disconnect us from what’s happening in front of the lens.
Furthermore, social media creates a certain pressure on most of us, as we all feel the need of constantly uploading new work to stay relevant as a creative. So instead of growing based on the work we created over the years, while gaining a deep understanding of why we feel more attracted to certain images compared to others, most of us just skip the retrospective part of the process and constantly move on to editing and posting the next shot… a never-ending, repeating route to nowhere…
Berlin, 2020 on 35mm Kodak Tri-X 400
Berlin, 2019 on 35mm Kodak Tri-X 400, pushed 1 stop
Berlin, 2019 on 35mm Kodak Tri-X 400, pushed 2 stops
Honestly, all of this made me think a lot and it was also the reason why I started with the whole fine print archiving topic back then. Adding more steps into my process to really question my work and to proof its quality, like making it tangible and transforming it into something physical, which stands the test of time, felt very satisfying to me. Long story short, these thoughts are also the reason which brought me into film photography!
As hyped as shooting film currently might be, there truly is a lot to take away from it:
Most importantly, I enjoy the limitations that come with shooting film. Not only is the amount of photos you can take very limited compared to shooting digital, but once you have decided for a certain stock you will be stuck with it until you have finished the whole roll. This means you have to put way more thinking into the stuff you plan shooting. When shooting digital you don’t have to worry about these things, as you’re only limited by the free space of your memory card, which easily can be swapped during a shoot. It might sound crazy, but it’s exactly these limitations which made shooting film so attractive to me. I’m much more part of the overall shooting process and each image feels much more valuable, as I carefully consider the overall frame before pressing the shutter button. And in the end it’s it’s also a lot of joy to experiment and use these old cameras, which have been the tools of choice for so many famous photographers from the past. Sometimes you miss a chance and surely there is quite a learning curve to it, but soon enough you get rewarded with just very unique and rich colored images. I just can’t tell you how much I enjoy waiting for a finished roll being developed to see the final results. Again, it’s just nice to learn being patient instead of taking everything for granted and use it instantly without any further thoughts on it.
Greece, 2020 on Kodak Ektar 100
Greece, 2020 on Kodak Ektar 100
Greece, 2020 on Kodak Ektar 100
Last but not least, I’m super stoked to announce that my friends over at Kodak Professional Europe agreed on collaborating and therefore provided me with some of their most famous film stocks to experiment, compare and of course share all of my experiences with you guys during this ongoing series of Talking Grain.
So yeah, that’s about it for this post and I hope you will enjoy this as much as I do. Expect a first update on some of the Kodak stocks I use in the very near future!
Meanwhile, feel free to check out my analog account on Instagram, called @chrismartinscholl35.
Stay safe y’all and talk soon,
Chris