B&W

Well, Christmas is finally over and I can get back to thinking about my ongoing study of the art of photography.  I have very deliberately taken a break from creating photographs, reading about photographs and writing about photographs, the 3 tasks that seem to fill any free time recently.  I am running the risk of becoming too engaged with the subject and becoming frustrated or worse, bored with the whole thing.  On the other hand it is time to get back in the grove,  I have much to do in the new year. I must rework my 2nd assignment, begin to think about the essay and catch up on much of the project work I have left undone.

Before all of that, I want to revisit a personal project, exploring the use of medium format film as opposed to my arsenal of digital cameras.  Just before the festivities I was able to collect my first B&W negatives from the processor, the first roll of film that I put through the camera.  The first key learning has been that B&W takes much longer and is far more expensive to process than colour, quite the reverse of the situation were I to do it myself.

The second big learning point was astonishment that on a cloudy day I was able to shoot at ISO 100 and still get blur free images, not a single frame had issues with camera shake.  I did not write down the shutter speed I used but it was around 1/30s, well below hand held range with a DSLR and 80mm lens, even with IS.  My admiration for the camera and its integral leaf shutter grows and grows.

The final bit of learning from scanning the negatives was that dust is not a small problem.  Oh boy, and there was me thinking that I had left behind the issue of sensor contamination.  However, I am pretty sure I know the problem, I cleaned the scanner with an old duster just prior to scanning.  I now have  a brand new microfibre cloth and some spectacle lens cleaners that I hope will fix the problem for the future.

Again I find that the medium format camera and in particular the square framing supports very precise alignment of objects in the frame and enables the minimization of vertical convergence of parallel lines without use of expensive perspective control lenses.  It is not all goodness, though, the final shot well illustrates the limitations of the medium, the ISO 100 film has forced me to use a wide aperture and I have insufficient depth of field to properly render the scene.  The second shot in the sequence takes advantage of that limitation, but clearly shooting film implies constraints that I do not suffer with Digital.  On the other hand a 4th lesson learned is to use ISO 400 film in the future unless the light is very strong.

This is still pure play, enjoying getting to grips with a new medium (to me at least).  I have another 2 colour films in for processing and a further 3 B&W waiting for me to develop.  I must still question why I am doing this and where it might take me for this course in particular.  I am enjoying the look of film and with my need to shoot in the style of Robert Frank, perhaps film might help, although 120 film and slow careful shooting was not really his modus operandi.  I do need to spend more time with the camera and see how it works into my current projects.

One thing for sure, it is teaching me the value of patience and forcing a slower more contemplative approach to my work.  This might not, however, be a good thing.