Making Good Use of Generosity

Soon after I wrote THIS post a couple weeks ago about wanting to get serious about shooting film more often, THIS MAN, this sweet generous man Mr. Jason Hudson, (who has become a quick friend, mentor, and all around inspirational human since I discovered his blog a year or so ago) sent me the very camera that I had my eye on to start down that path. He did WHAT?! Yeah, that was my exact reaction too. I had spotted a Mamiya 645 in good condition at a local camera shop here, and was saving up to justify the buy, and before I knew it, I received this email from Jason...

"Hi buddy!
I have a Mamiya 645 ProTL.
Tried selling it on Craigslist, but no bites. It’s all yours, you can just have it! Pay for shipping. Polaroid back, 80mm, 55mm lens, light meter . . . Maybe more. Can’t remember. Literally fired that thing no more than 300 times. She’s a beauty. But I’ll never shoot film again."

So after some back and forth banter about how "I just can't." and "no way." and "this is too much." He shook me by the shoulders, slapped me around, and I said, "yes please." And I can't say thank you enough times. I tried. It never feels like enough. So here she is pictured below. Just after I fired my first roll of film. I have never owned a medium format camera before, and so the first thing I did was read the manual. READ. YOUR. MANUALS. Sorry, had to stress that. Amazing how many people never even open up their camera manual. Of course as always I had to watch a You Tube tutorial to load the film. I wanted to make sure I got it right the first try.

** You Tube tutorials have been a tremendous companion to just about everything I have ever wanted to learn about. It's always a great start, if you don't know how to do something, search for a tutorial on You Tube and see if it is out there, it probably is, and even if it might not be the ultimate tell all, it is usually a great first step to figuring shit out on your own.

And yes that is an Instagram shot below. I finally caved and got the kool-aid in my mouth, largely because of, who else, Jason. I admit, it has been fun. Ugh, that was tough to say. If you are also on Instagram you can find me on there now. HERE is my Insta info so you can see me struggle with learning how to take pictures with a phone. I need Cole to give me lessons.

So I ran out and bought a variety of 120 film to test. Kodak, Fuji, and Ilford. And like always when I want to do some kind of a camera test, I watch the windows for Cole to get home from work, and the second she walks in the door I'm like, "COLE! you have to get Tessa's hair to stop looking like the Feral Kid from Mad Max and please go outside in the backyard, I know it's hot, I'm sorry, and let me take pictures of you and the children."

So in preparation for my camera test, this ended up being the very first time Tessa held still long enough for Cole to put braids in her hair. It was a sweet moment. Captured on Instagram.



So the first roll of film I tried out was the Kodak Porta 400 which boasts-- "The PORTRA 400 Film is the world's finest grain high-speed color negative film. At true ISO 400 speed, this film delivers spectacular skin tones plus exceptional color saturation over a wide range of lighting conditions. For years, professional photographers have preferred KODAK PROFESSIONAL PORTRA Films because of their consistently smooth, natural reproduction of the full range of skin tones. In that same tradition, the PORTRA 400 Film is the ideal choice for portrait and fashion photography, as well as for nature, travel and outdoor photography, where the action is fast or the lighting can't be controlled."

Who wouldn't want to buy this film with that description?! These test shots were printed at a local shop here in town, on Matte paper, and I scanned them in with the CanoScan LiDE 700F. Which isn't the best scanner in the world, but it isn't the worst either. I am still searching for that solution now that I am going to shoot more film. Ugh, so expensive.

I was pleased with the results, I mean, we were just in the backyard, the light wasn't great. 3:30 in the afternoon. It was thankfully a little cloudy. I mostly wanted to make sure I could load this camera correctly, and make sure I could make crisp sharp images. Mission accomplished. Now I have a whole mess of film to experiment with and figure out what I can do with this camera.




And since I had the light meter out anyway, (which I have no idea why I waited so long to just suck it up and start using one, should have listened to you sooner Rachel), I wanted to see how much better my Polaroids would come out on the 600SE when i wasn't just guessing the exposure. The Goose is still my favorite camera to take family pictures with, as Cole says, "The Goose just makes everything look dreamy."

This is Cole with The Littlest Buddy, just after he woke up from his after school nap, we are still trying to figure out his new daytime routine, with Smith Magenis Syndrome he is often listless and sleepy during the afternoon, and it can be a challenge to get him awake. It produces both some of the sweetest moments with LB and some of the most challenging. This day, was one of those sweet, wake up slow snuggly moments, which thankfully is usually the case.



So this weekend is The Littlest Buddies birthday and I happen to have a ton of film to shoot :) Hopefully I can find a way to squeeze in copious amounts of camera time, and still be present this weekend, and not just camera zombie, grunting, and tinkering, and staring at the fun through a viewfinder.

Have a great weekend, and for all of you East Coast people, take this Irene seriously, she seems like she could be one serious bitch, and if she ends up heading up to NYC, you city folk please take care of yourselves.

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