Film has always been a magical, and unique process. It's truly a blessing to be able to capture a moment, frozen in time, suspended on silver halide crystals on a thin piece of plastic. But the process of turning a button press on a camera from the 60's into a beautiful, or familiar photograph in the modern world - is no trivial task. 

With the ability to control your exposure at all points during the process, leaves you a lot of room to adjust. During this particular shoot, my skills were challenged and like all true artists, I was left having to compromise. 

The way that I approach my film process is a lot more hands on than the average joe. Recently my days as a customer in the film lab have dwindled to the occasional restocking visit or medium format drop-off. The proper storage and disposal of my development chemicals however remains ever on my mind. The strips of film from my last batch of development hang by binder clips on my ceiling fan. A rectangular machine hums and whirs on my desk as I process each strip of the shoot, one frame at a time. Each scan takes over 5 minutes, and the file size can be nearly a quarter of a gigabyte. With 36 Shots on a roll of film, thats over 3 hours to scan just ONE roll! 

Then, there's the choice every film photographer must makes.  What film stock to shoot with. This has serious implications on the color, exposure, and grain of your final image, and can ultimately make or break your photos. With prices for a roll of film higher than ever, and the golden hour dwindling, every shot counts. For my shoot with Neomi, I chose Lomography Color '92 Sunkissed. My goal was to get some warmer colors out of my film stock, so I would have an easier time in the edit. Little did I know at the time, the decision would come back to haunt me in "The Darkroom".

My Giant Orb from IKEA was set to red, as I slide the tray of film to the left of the machine. I hear a spring click into place, and I press "Scan" on Silverfast to process the next image. My brow furrows as the result comes a few pixels in a row at a time, line by line. Greens, blues. Cooler tones than I expected for a film stock called Sunkissed. I flipped through a few presets but was unhappy with the contrast, color, etc. I landed on something somewhat more neutral toned,  and I tried to treat the image like a raw. I didnt feel quite comfortable applying too many edits in Silverfast's advanced mode, so I meticulously adjusted the settings until I was left with the results you can see below, and throughout my post. Editing makes a huge differences in the final results.

Another factor that I consider while I edit, is how my Fuji XT5 handles the colors in comparison. I always shoot with both digital and film, as I mentioned before I did struggle a bit during this shoot. This time, I ran into limitations with shooting outside! I felt like I simultaneously needed a faster lens AND an ND filter! I struggled with some reflections on the lake, and pointing anywhere within 15 degrees of the sun. I added some new gear to my wishlist that night for sure!

Comparing the results from film on an old clanker versus a flagship modern mirrorless camera isnt exactly scientific, but I feel it gives me a good baseline on what my image could actually look like if I wanted to stay true to life. At the end of the day, I'm left with a handful of images I can happily use as a canvas to bring in more natural tones while keeping the warmer feelings that I wanted in the first place. What do you think of this shoot? Should I post more of it? I'm looking forward to posting more blogs about my work, and talking about my gear, editing process, and everything that goes into what makes my photography special.