Sao Paulo’s City Hall reflected on this building
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gay burger king!
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Hello Insert Credit Forums Photography thread. Very stoked to scroll through some of these photos and backread stuff because I don’t really get many opportunities to talk to people about photo stuff.
I am a pretty amateur photographer and have very little in the way of genuine or useful knowledge about camera operation/equipment but I try to take a lot of photos for the purpose of being used as collage/poetry/book design/comic reference material. I am primarily a Drawings and Writing type of artist. I got started photographing things in earnest around late 2020, my dad having died & me inheriting his crummy Canon Powershot something or other (c. 2004?) as well as a Minolta X700. The Minolta came with a 35mm and some kind of telescoping one. I watched a bunch of youtube videos about how to use a point and shoot & took some photo walks & messed up a bunch of film & then went on a road trip from Savannah, Georgia to Anacortes, Washington just trying to photograph a bunch of different stuff with different compositions. I found this to be extremely rewarding and have pretty much been hooked on it since.
At some point I also picked up an Olympus OM-2. My current MO (lol) is I sort of walk/drive around with all 3 and maybe put the telescope lens on one of them, regular lens on the other one, and then just film a bunch of stuff with the digital Canon thing. I find this basically completely disallows me from getting too in my head about anything other than just trying to capture things.
I typically don’t like editing my photos at all & I try to keep things very fluid. To me photographing stuff is mostly about capturing textures and moments and I find just leaning into what my eye felt was important at the moment is typically what is most interesting to me. Because my background is largely in drawing stuff & I have done a lot of image manipulation there’s something deeply appealing to me about photographing things and then leaving them completely be.
My main subject matter for the past few years and just general object of obsession has been things like windmills, empty American highways, and plant ephemera. Living in the PNW I have a lot of opportunities to shoot stuff like that. To that end, that Half Life documentary where the texture designer talks at length about photographing things around the Columbia River Gorge as well as various Rob Sheridan NIN Art Direction interviews/documentaries (esp around The Fragile era) have been massive influences on me. I also do fashion photography for my own clothing line & try to make music videos with collaging techniques from time to time. Regardless I’ll let some of my photos speak for themselves I guess but I tend to have a pretty sentimental thing going on I think. I like the warmth and sort of ethereal mollified look that both of my film cameras can produce with minimal adjustment.
Those being some of my favorite photos I’ve taken in the past few years, here’s some examples of how I use them in my work.
Anyway, hope this isn’t too spammy as a first sharing post. Thanks for looking.
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Those are some great looking photos! They definitely make me feel nostalgic for places I’ve never been before.
I checked out your website and there’s some really hot stuff on there too. Love the mixed media feel of it all!
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Thank you! This is actually reminding me how badly I’ve been slacking on making a dedicated photo gallery on my website. I tend to want to conserve material for as long as possible before sharing it but the volume of photos I have that I’m proud of that I’ve basically never shared makes me somewhat glum.
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Great post!! Definitely not spammy, thanks for sharing :)
I like your photos and think that is a good way to go about capturing them. I also dislike editing photos so i’ve found film pretty appealing lately. Something nice about just taking a shot and seeing what you get.
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I particularly love letting film sit around for long stretches of time so that I’ve mostly forgotten what I was even taking photos of (often just sitting in my car doors out of sight and mind for months at a time); it makes an artistic pursuit into a gacha-esque activity where every reward is something just for me. Very interesting sense of gratification when most of my other art hobbies are very mentally demanding but come with instant results to have this medium be nearly the opposite.
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I both love and dislike this type of thing. I do love taking photos and then completely forgetting what’s on the roll and discovering what cool things happened much later. However, lately I thought it would be fun to grow my skills and not being able to see what I did until much later has kind of been frustrating. I think my short term memory lasts about 3 weeks before it gets logged into the much less detailed long term memory where I struggle to remember what exactly I did and how to improve. I’ve decided though that perhaps the answer is developing my own film so I’m going to try that in the basement next time I’m feeling that pressure. Either way I agree it’s nice to work in a different way than other mediums (which I also like to draw a lot!)
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In the same boat with improving but not shooting enough to justify developing often. I started keeping a small notebook in my camera bag to note what film, camera, settings, conditions, and composition is happening with each roll/shot. Not the best at keeping it diligently yet but it’s a start lol. Have about 5 rolls in the fridge that need developing and another 2 in cameras that need finishing…
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This is reawakening a memory inside of me long since repressed of me neurotically changing the ISO and shutter time on every shot for my first couple rolls of film and taking elaborate notes on my phone only to have accidentally exposed the film by not closing the camera properly and getting back my USB drive full of black JPEGs. LOL. The notebook is actually a super dope idea though.
I have felt like I don’t really know what improvement looks like wrt photography other than researching and investing into different lenses/equipment. It’s been a big stopgap for me- the photos I take are usually suitable for my purposes but I do feel a drive to be as good at the stuff as I’m doing as possible (or at least to feel like I’m trying new stuff). So I guess I’ve mostly resolved to improve at taking photos by being more observant / getting out more rather than operating the camera itself better. Composition is a huge general interest of mine artistically so that’s always been my sort of main thing with the photos I take, and then the colors & lighting are usually things I want to be left up to the equipment/nature. But I’ve never really been in or around any kind of academic or passionate photography circle to hear what other people really like or strive for. I’d be super curious to know what kinds of things people look for in making their own camera work better.
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Haha the notebook helps keep some of those mistakes out of things, and find what film stocks work best for how I shoot.
For me, I measure improvement by more shots I like in a roll than ones I dislike. I’ve been studying a few books on photography the last few years, I really love the magic/alchemy of film and learning its behavior and how to best manipulate it for my own artistic purposes is what I am trying to get better informed on. Understanding focus and exposure so I can shoot quicker and without the viewfinder is what I am working to now. With film, especially black and white, the light is the composition at times which I am trying to work on better emphasizing in my own work and using more b&w. Working on less literal framing/subjects, more storytelling through a roll. I love that no matter what the result is a surprise, I just want to have more happy accidents the more I learn and go. The biggest obstacle has been not shooting enough lol.
I lucked out that a close childhood friend of mine has gotten deep into large format photography and we have gotten back in touch just talking film, and bouncing ideas off of each other. Otherwise none of my friends are much interested in film and I find most online communities tough to deal with, the exception being this thread on this specific forum. That’s what’s lead me to old books and some YouTube videos for inspiration/background noise.
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Review embargo just lifted for the first of the new film cams
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I too started using a notebook! Otherwise I was struggling to even remember what film I was using because I’d send 3 different rolls in and I was like… what was this? I now keep notes on the film stock, camera, settings and subject if I have time.
I have very similar thoughts to Mack41 in that improving is kinda related to getting more shots that I like or being able to replicate that moment or make the best decision for the situation. It’s super fun getting a great shot on film and then sometimes I’ll have a bunch of stinkers in the same setting and I’d like to up my chances that they turn out. I enjoy learning about the process as well. I took a shot of a swamp and the sky was so washed out. Now I get to figure out, was it the metering, or the film stock? And discover things like filters people use specifically for this purpose. I bought a couple of old lenses for my Pentax for like 28 dollars which was cool too so I can try shooting other things.
I like experimenting and trying new stocks to get more magical results but I also want to make sure I’m not shooting a bunch of duds because I didn’t take the time to figure it out. There’s also something very appealing about getting good at this. Maybe because it seemed like it was a dead format for a while and out of reach when I was younger.
Thinking specifically about what I want to get out of my camera. I take a lot of photos of my boy (a 3 year old dog) and its awesome to get an action shot of him running or jumping I just love it. It requires some planning ahead. Also when I see a crazy sunset, or the clouds on the moon or something like that I wonder how I could capture it on film because it’s technically tricky but a beautiful moment and it would be fun to capture. It also feels like the real deal to me, like buying a fancy Sony and popping a $4000 lens on there to zoom in on the moon is cool sure, but it also feels like cheating in a way. Can I do something cool on a 50 year old camera with all analog tech? Then there’s things like capturing a cool scene in low light, what do I need to do and how far can I push it to get something acceptable. I find myself putting that ol’ shutter speed on 15 a lot to try and get something cool and thanks to the notebook I can see when it succeeded at least. Then when I try an 800 speed film its a whole other ballpark figuring out what looks good in low light cause its generally not been easy to just point and shoot that way. Fun stuff!
Also that half frame Pentax looks cool. I think half frame would be a lot of fun so I might ask for one for xmas or something.
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Here’s a shot with my boy that I just absolutely adore. I didn’t really do anything in particular to take it but I’d like to be able to make the right decision on the fly if the opportunity arises again to get something like this.
On the flip side here is another I love that my partner took of us and she took it by mistake. She was trying to take it if he jumped through that box. But I think this is better and love it to death.
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I can’t wait to experiment with lenses and filters now that I have the camera systems that suit me. I think some of the drawbacks with certain film stocks I’ve had could be alleviated with filtering and better preparing for the situation.
I have been trying to embrace those long exposures times in low light, even if things aren’t sharp or perfectly focused capturing the light/movement/mood is still happening.
Will try and finish the remaining rolls in my cameras this week, feeling inspired!
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Glad you’re feeling inspired, let us know how it goes!!
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https://www.xiaohongshu.com/discovery/item/6674d613000000001c034b32
SUPERIA IS BACK. Quality could be a concern seeing it’s being contracted to a Chinese film factory but if it’s the Fuji recipes made at a quicker rate that would be great. Superia rules and more new films is great!
Hmmm it may not be Superia but it could come eventually. Seems this factory makes medical film for Fuji already so hope is there they expand into Fujis recipes. At the very least it shouldn’t be repackaged Kodak like made in USA C200/400.
That is surprising. I guess if they aren’t going to make any more film and are already having another company do it why not outsource it again.
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Yeah more new color film the better. I think Ilford already handles Acros so hoping Fuji will maybe bring back discontinued formulas. I was hopeful that Pentax announcing their new film camera effort it would mean some behind the scenes discussion with Fuji to get buy in on Japanese brand film being available.
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