Film Friday - Santa Barbara in Black and White

A few more photos from Santa Barbara, this time in black and white. One roll of Ilford HP5 Plus, and one of Ilford Delta 3200.

Film Friday - Black and White Musings

Here are a few photos of San Francisco in black-and-white. The first two I shot on the same day as my first roll of Velvia with David - what a wet day! Whew.

And then these I shot on a day when I was on my way to a dentist appointment, and I took advantage of the little bit of extra time I had and made my way to the ocean. Something about that open space and infinity of beach and sky just gets me every time. And I knew it would look good in black and white. What I didn't expect, was to see the people working on the roof, or to be inspired by the row of houses all exactly the same except for the color (somehow still expressed well in black and white). 

And the calla lilies, effortlessly elegant as usual.

I've been experimenting with doing a little bit of meditation every day when I can manage it. There's something about five minutes of just relaxing not doing anything that really focuses the mind.  

Shooting film is like that for me. When I'm shooting a roll with only twelve frames, I don't think about anything except my next shot (and I know there's only going to be one photo of this particular subject, unlike my digital work) and that's very freeing. With digital I can take any photo I want, so somehow I don't want to take them as much. 

Of course, there are some limitations. For example, shooting film that's 50 ISO is really difficult. Even on a bright sunny day I find that there are compositions that are too dark to make the photograph. This is a problem you never have with modern digital. 

But maybe that's the point. Maybe it's the problems that make the solution feel more elegant. Get rid of the problems and what's the point?

*Interested in a film or digital portrait session? Please contact me for details!*

*Want to see more film? Check out all the Film Friday posts!*

Film Friday - AnnMarie and Paul

Another recent film portrait session. AnnMarie and Paul were troopers, meeting me just after dawn at Stow Lake in the bitter cold. (Okay, bitter for here, anyway.)

We took advantage of the beautiful light and managed to get some great portraits of the two of them as well as their trusty sidekick Leo.

I just love the look of film, the buttery highlights and the soft bokeh. Digital is convenient, yes, but it doesn't have the same special feel.

Thanks again, AnnMarie and Paul. It was a wonderful morning!

*Interested in a film or digital portrait session? Please contact me for details!*

*Want to see more film? Check out all the Film Friday posts!*

Film Friday - Alec and Robyn

So, recently I've kind of been playing around with the idea of offering portrait sessions on film. I've been shooting mostly film for my personal work for several month now (so much so that it's hard to find digital photos for Wrdless Wednesday posts sometimes), and I just love the process and the results that I'm getting with film, but I couldn't decide if any of that would translate well into my professional work at all.

Let me be clear: I am not giving up on digital. I still think it's the right choice for the majority of my work right now, and I can't even imagine shooting shelter kitties with a film camera - talk about not knowing what you're going to get!

But I wanted to be able to offer something a bit different than the current average portrait, and I think that square film is something not a lot of people are shooting any more, especially when it comes to portraits.

So here are some of the photos from one of a few recent sessions I've shot on film. Alec and Robyn were total troopers, meeting me at Crissy Field so they could get a few shots with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, only to have it disappear into fog about five minutes after they got there! Being good San Franciscans, they took it all in stride. (Fortunately, the fog lifted later and we were able to get it into some photos.) And then at the end of the session, little Nigel joined us, braving photos by the water's edge despite his deadly fear of getting wet.

*Want to see more film? Check out all the Film Friday posts!*

Film Friday - Fort Ross

For our anniversary this year, Evan and I went back to the place where we got married, in the hills near Cazadero, and we spent a lovely weekend in a tiny cabin. Sadly, this time there was no goat to peer out the window at, but we did take a day trip to Fort Ross to see the old Russian fort there and have a look around.

Our visit was slightly curtailed by the fact that I had left my phone at the restaurant we had stopped at for brunch, but we still had a great time and I managed to shoot some black and white film fairly successfully, getting results I'm pretty pleased with, unlike most of my previous black and white film work.

Here are a few shots from the visit. They were all shot on HP5 Plus black and white 35mm film.

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