Film Photography

For those of you who are into photography, but only use digital: LET ME JUST TELL YOU that film photography is awesome.

Before taking this class at school, I knew the concepts of photography pretty well- if you have a large aperture, it's smaller numbers, and the depth of field is shallower. If you have a long shutter speed, more light gets let in...

Let's rephrase that. I thought I knew the concepts of photography pretty well. Once I started exploring my film camera (this one's a Canon, so I'm officially on both sides of the Nikon/Canon spectrum), I got to literally open up the back of my camera and see how everything works. Now I understand why the smaller numbers in aperture are called "large" apertures, and I see what happens when film is exposed to the light. It's all so cool!

I developed my first contact sheet today (that's basically seeing all your photos for the first time- it's hard to understand what a photo looks like when it's all negative) and I was pretty happy with my results. When I enlarge some of them, I'll scan it into the computer and upload it here to show y'all some of my first attempts at film photography. Granted, they're not as good as my digital pictures yet, but frankly I'm just happy they came out non-blurry and correctly exposed.

I'm loving learning, not only about film photography, but about developing- literally mixing the chemicals myself, learning to take the film out of my camera in total darkness, learning how to expose the pictures onto photo paper. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in photography.

I'm a busy bee.

Lately...I haven't picked up my camera. Oops.

So this post won't have any new pictures. Just me talking. Sorry.

Well, I'm ridiculously busy with homework. Silly school. And I'm a doulos (literal translation: slave) at my church, helping out with the middle school ministry. But I AM taking a film photography class at school, where I'm forced to practice- hurray! So I'll probably scan in some photos from that. I think I'll actually scan in my first roll just to show you how little I actually know about film photography.

OH! Did I mention I'm going to Africa? :]
My church is taking a small group of students (yours truly included) on a mission trip to host a camp for missionary kids whose parents work around Africa. And I'm bringing my camera.
Can you imagine how gorgeous it must be there? The stars must be so bright. The sunrises must be stunning. I'm just so thrilled, to be so privileged as to get to serve God, serve others, and serve my art at the same time. Obviously, photography won't be my priority, but I'll do my best to make time for it.

And that's the update.

But really. I hate it when people tell me my camera is fancy. I'M THE FANCY ONE.

I like to think I've grown as a photographer.

2009

 2012

Granted, I have gotten a new camera, but looking through old files, I've learned so much about composition and lighting, what is flattering to the subject, and so much more. My perception of what a "good" picture is has (obviously) drastically changed.