Hanging Around The Drawing Board

When I was in CA on a job a couple weeks ago, for the first time I took along both my digital setups, and for fun I brought along my favorite image maker-- the Polaroid 600SE (The Goose). My job was to shoot the event, and to do some basic step & repeat shots at a fancy party, and then just shoot coverage of a bunch of hair stylists doing their thing. It's always an exceptional experience to be surrounded by a bunch of creative types being pushed to be more creative. While I was there I had a few extra minutes to shoot some of the presentation models that they used to parade around some great hair color. So I thought I would shoot one still image on film, and one on digital, and see which result I ended up liking the most.

All this experiment did was confuse me more, because I like them both, but for completely separate reasons, but it did keep me pointed down a path I have been standing in front of ever since I bought The Goose. I played with both images in post, limiting my editing to the bare essentials of a dark room, the exception being the gradient I laid down on the digital images. And that decision became the big difference maker for me. The film shots I liked right away, out of the camera, and after scanning felt like the only thing I wanted to do was make up for my terrible scanner. The digital shots on the other hand, I had this desire to keep doing shit to them because I could. There is so much latitude to make subtle changes, and the images are so clean, I feel like they needed some grit, and so I realized that I am always disappointed in my digital shots lately, I feel like they are never finished, because I want them to look like film, because once I started shooting The Goose, I want all my pictures to have that look. Once I started holding prints in my hand, I wanted to get that same feeling when I look at my pictures I take on my digital camera.

So I decided that the next job I get paid on, **tangent (which takes forever these days, anyone else in freelance notice that the 30 day cycle feels WAY more like the 90 day cycle, and all you do is watch the mail box and sweat it out while your bank account gets thinner and thinner, waiting for your damn checks to get to you? Anyone? I don't like it. Not at all.) So where was I? The next job I get paid on, I am going to buy a medium format camera and start down the path to making the switch to film full time. Just using my digital setup for video work. I think I have settled an old Mamiya 645 with the 80mm lens, you can always find one on ebay that is clean and fires right for around $500. It feels like a good start and a good workhorse to get me back into film mode.

With all the new technology being put into consumer cameras, I can see in a few years that point & shoots will be able to basically photoshop all your shots as you take them, and turn them into idiot proof perfect shot machines. I can feel myself wanting to just put my cameras down for a career, and concentrate on photography solely as a passion, and get back into the dark room. There is a really great camera shop, and dark room opening up here, that is totally affordable, and I am really excited to spend some time there. I would say 90% of the work I am asked to do in the last two years has been to make video, and I have really fallen in love with it. I would like to feel the same way about the photos I am taking.

Remember THIS POST? Well, I am excited to say that I have been planning ever since, and Cole & I and a whole team of creatives are going out the last 4 days of August to my favorite places in Florida to make some pictures. I got tired of sitting around and looking at magazines wishing someone would give me the chance someday to take shots like them, so I am going to go and prove to myself that I can shoot on a high level. It's a big test. And I am so ready to take it. I'm not afraid of failing because I quite like the drawing board, every time you walk away from it, you get a little bit better.

Here are the shots that set me down this path.

These were taken on the Polaroid 600SE shot on Fuji FP 3000-B




These were taken on the Canon 7D

Tweet