Film Appreciation 1/15/15

It's funny how you forget really helpful information sometimes, but it's almost like a test to see whether you can pick yourself up and brush off and keep going. As you may know, my first roll of film was a whole lotta nothing and quite disappointing because of a busted light meter. Apparently I had been told this earlier but had completely forgotten but alas c'est la vie. Andrew was very kind and lent me his camera, a Canon EOS Rebel K2 with a Canon lens 28-80 mm, 0.38m/1.3ft with a B + W 40.5 mm Kaesemann Circular Polarizer Multi Coated Glass Filter. 

The Canon is quite nice and much faster to use than the Minoltas that I was using earlier because of the automatic focusing, automatic shutter, automatic aperture settings, and other simple but very helpful options. For those who dislike doing things by hand  the camera also makes rolling film really easy and eliminates the possibility that you might not wind the film to the right tension. The filter apparently: 

"...helps to reduce reflections and glare by filtering out light that has become polarized due to reflection from a non-metallic surface. The light from the sun naturally becomes partially polarized due to reflecting off electrons in air molecules, causing the light to scatter into what appears as haze. A polarizing filter arranges, and filters, this directionally polarized light perpendicularly to the reflected light, allowing for the absorption of much of this light. This results in a noticeable reduction of glare and reflections from non-metallic surfaces and an increase in the saturation of skies and foliage."


Which Andrew summarized as: its good to use outside and he gives it a good recommendation. I am going to try and take most of my images outside because it tends to be rater pretty and not to mention sunny, in Sarasota. Sadly, the last few days have been grey and drizzly which haven't mixed well with my want for good lighting. Every now and then I catch myself just pointing the camera at different things checking to see if it would look good on film. I am beginning more and more to understand the beauty of how simply film cameras work and have really enjoyed learning the science behind it all. 

A lot of people use film because they love how conscious you become of how many pictures you take and the composition of them. You have to make every single snap matter because you only have about 24 tries and you can't afford to just snap away. Today, we have the luxury to review our hundreds of pictures we took in a day and then dump the ones that weren't quite right within seconds. So many people click and click with the "there's gotta be a good one in there somewhere" mentality but with film you have to really take the time and compose yourself and figure out whether everything would look good. I watched the documentary, "Long Live Film" by the Indie Film Lab about people who enjoy film and for what reasons and it seemed like every single person either said it made them more conscious about the moment they were documenting and that it helped them stay in touch with the here and now or that film captures something indescribable that can't be reproduced using digital methods. One described film photography as "very organic" while another liked the Polaroid's ability to produce instant, physical pictures of the moments in his kid's lives. This of course does not mean that one is exclusively better than the other, but that they each have their own unique pros and cons. I really like all of the reasons, and mostly agree, with the ones expressed in the documentary but for me the moment of realization of why you are using film instead of digital is when you dunk the empty looking piece of paper in the developer and just like that an image beings to appear before you. And all of a sudden I feel like a child again. It's the beauty of art and science being married together right before your eyes that I find beautiful. And just like that, the reason that I am conducting this ISP slips into focus.