// 35 M M //
Film photography is an area I have been experimenting with for a while now and I am keen to make use of my own film cameras within this project. Producing perhaps a mixture of digital and analogue images for the final presentation. After purchasing a Moonasi design La Sardina camera just over two years ago now, I began my ongoing obsession with film and the cinematic qualities of analogue images. This first camera was relatively simple in design and in terms of manual control options were fairly limited. While the lack of options initially proved frustrating, the simplicity came to be something I loved. Once I had accepted that my focus would never be quite right (with no preview available) and that any hope of shutter speed had fallen away, I focused on the things I could enjoy about the camera. In reality, without having to worry about excessive controls, framing became much more important to me. The grainy texture is something I have fallen head over heals for and light leaks are an area I am interested to explore.
Following my love of the La Sardina camera, I purchased a Canon AE-1 which after a little fixing has produced some interesting shots. This time I made sure to check for fully manual controls ensuring I could practice using every feature available. The control on this camera is truly fantastic, once setting the ISO to match that of the film (I typically use ISO 200) the aperture, focus and shutter speed can be adjusted accordingly. The focus is controlled visually in some respects with a split image being lined up in the middle of the viewfinder to show the focal distance.
With these two cameras available for me to use, plus my digital Canon 5D mark II, I think it could be interesting to create a project which uses images from the different methods of photography. Looking at the research I have already completed for this project – on double exposures and ‘Talking to the Ants’ – there are some clear directions I would like to now follow. Below is a double exposure of my brother shot on the AE-1 as an experiment to see how the process worked on this camera.
The project ‘Talking to the Ants’ has inspired me to try out a series of natural portraits and perhaps make use of Stephan Gill’s unusual abstract techniques (such as creating compositions inside the lens). His method involves collecting things found at each site and placing them inside the camera lens. This is not something I am keen to do with my Canon AE-1 however my La Sardina camera is a little more hard wearing and could be more suitable. Ideally, I think I would like to focus this project on something relevant to my age group right now. After speaking to my tutors, the idea we seem to have focused on is a set of stylised portraits about leaving home. One thought on this is to make a set of images reflecting the fear and anxieties behind this process of moving away. I will explore this more in a project blog post as I’ve become a little side tracked from the intiial point here. So yes – film photography. Wonderful way to stay poor.