Hey Film Fam, welcome back!
I’m not going to lie, I completely lost track of time this Fortnight. I’ve been flat out with some really exciting projects that kind of came out of nowhere, repairing a Minolta SRT 100 - which has been a bit of a nightmare, and I’m scrambling to pack my car to travel down the coast so I can go pick up the scanning setup I borrow from my partner.
It’s all kind of kicking off and I’m a little stressed, but also enjoying the process as it all unfolds! I hope you’ve had a great few weeks, thanks for stopping by and hanging out for a bit, it’s so good to see you :)
As always these newsletters tend to be very rambly, photo heavy wherever possible, and have the vibe of catching up with that one friend you haven’t seen in a while who’s just very passionate about all things film. So if that’s your kind of jam, you’re in the right place!
Grab a coffee, settle in, and let’s get into it!
Pushing it into Overdrive
I’ve been feeling kind of blah and uninspired in my work for a while. Taking time away from pursuing it as a professional/full time career has left me feeling major FOMO and wanting more than anything to “be back in the game” - but as we know, I can’t do that because of various medical complications… oh boy. It’s been a rollercoaster of feelings lately let me tell you!
I’m not 100% sure what my ‘style’ of photography is anymore. I love portraits don’t get me wrong, but there’s only so many photos of the same friends I can take (or of myself) before it gets a bit repetitive. So I’ve been trying to find other avenues to express my creativity and continue to expand my skills while continuing to rest and make my recovery a priority.
I really enjoy shooting cars on film. I love experimenting with weird filters - especially as I have a handful of vintage cross screen and kaleidoscope filters - and that almost cheesy cheap looking 90’s nostalgia hits when I see other Photographers post their epic car shot with lens flares everywhere.
I follow some photographers who are either multidisciplinary like myself, or they have one specific defined style they repeat across their body of work. Both are equally inspiring and I find myself wanting to re-discover my own shooting themes and try new things thanks to seeing them take a risk first.
By being able to witness others give it a go, it gives you permission to try and possibly fail, and I think that’s such a cool thing amongst the photography community. I’m really loving what I’ve been seeing lately.
I’ve dabbled in both car photography and portraits before, and wanted to lean more into it just for fun. I’ve shot a whole heap of self portraits with my own car, Scorpion. I’ve attended car meets and played around with night time photography, and I got the chance to meet up with my best friend Julia and created a sort of ‘Beauty and her Beast’ editorial which turned out amazingly.
I don’t want to stop there though. I grew up living and breathing the car scene in one way or another. The Fast and Furious movies were an obsession growing up, and my brother Adrian and I would load up Need For Speed - Underground onto our Dad’s work PC’s and back then you’d have to connect via a LAN setup to be able to play together. (Kind of showing my age here aren’t I?) We both loved the idea of buying and doing up our own cars.
Later in our teens and early 20’s, my brother got himself a very sporty 86, where as I leaned more into the 4WD and camping scene even though all I had was a small white hatchback instead. I wanted an XY Falcon (heh dream on kid!), and then flirted with the idea of building up a trashed Camaro because I wanted my own ‘Bumblebee’ before eventually settling on the car I have now.
I loved the idea of getting in a car and being able to escape somewhere, anywhere, and was really enchanted by the thought of having a home on wheels. A base of sorts to operate out of. So as much as I loved driving a zippy little car, I outgrew her quickly. Especially as I was hauling Makeup and Hairstyling bags along with my Photography gear up and down the South Coast constantly towards the end of 2021.
Driving and getting my license was my one ticket to freedom when my body had repeatedly failed me thanks to a disability diagnosis in my late teens. I was otherwise ‘stuck’ relying on others and felt very isolated and lonely. It wasn’t an easy journey to gain a sense of true independence - but once I was well enough to drive solo, you couldn’t stop me even if you tried.
I loved my little hatchback ‘Riley’ and weekly road trips were my favourite thing. She’s also the car I first snapped photos of when I started shooting film all those years ago - I’ve told this story before about how Kmart tossed the negatives and all I have left are laminated prints I saved. But still, I had my sights set on something more capable…
Scorpion - 1991 Nissan GQ Patrol
When I say I’m obsessed with cars, I really mean my own more than anything.
She’s everything I’ve wanted and worked hard towards for 10 years, and I still pinch myself that she’s finally here. I write poetry about my experiences in her, I take her to car meets even though every other Japanese import is a race car and not a boxxy beast from the 90’s, and I’ve snapped every kind of shot I can, learning more and more each time about what looks good aesthetically in the car photography scene.
It’s been an absolute joy and truly if everything else falls to shit, at least I achieved my biggest dream so far, owning a GQ.
I’ve even found my ‘signature shot’ and you see me snap that across every other car shoot that I’ve done in the last year, although it’s slowly improving and I can definitely see a change the more I try new angles and different lens setups on my cameras.
I love snapping a close up of the headlights, treating it like the eye of the car, the window to the soul of the engine - whatever fancy metaphor you want to use - that’s my favourite one of all. But I also love the full shot of the car, or when the owner is using it as a prop to enhance the shot. There’s just so much you can do really if you dare to play around with it!
So of course it only seemed natural that I push myself outside my comfort zone even more and actually snake my way in deeper and deeper into the Sydney Car scene than I already was…
Unmarked Vol. II
First, you need to know how I got involved in being a Photographer at a car show, because going from striking and dramatic portraits to shooting strictly cars for months is a bit of a wild slope to fall down. I’ll try to make it short!
I wanted to join a workshop a fellow friend and insanely talented photographer - Clyde - was running. It was a drift event with a Sony Sponsorship to try out new Mirrorless cameras - and I fully intended to rock up and expect to snap sick night drift photos on film as well. My spine had other plans and I spent that night recovering after a medical appointment, literally crying that I missed out on this one off event.
I then stumbled across ScottMitchellMedia who posted the coolest reel that was shared by Clyde - (and truly I would love to try videography one day like both these guys do but I don’t have the gear lol) and I started following Scott’s work as well. By chance I saw he shared a story about ‘Unmarked’ and I of course clicked it being curious, saw it was a massive car show and… damn, I needed to get involved somehow!
I scrolled for a bit more and saw Unmarked’s story about Media Applications. There was only two days left to apply. So I thought about it, thought about what Lucy mentioned in our mentor session not long ago, looked at the car stuff I’ve been doing and decided - fuck it! I either get accepted and will figure the rest out on the fly, or I get rejected and just keep working at it for next time.
I checked on Thursday night just a few days before the show and saw I got accepted… oh shit… what am I supposed to do now?!
Imposter Syndrome kicks in HARD!
I was overwhelmed, entirely. I spent days researching everything I could, trying to figure out the best place to park, how I was going to handle potential disability accessibility issues, how I would even shoot the damn film. I managed to convince my brother to join me and assist. He did an amazing job carrying my bags and juggling 3 phones to record videos for himself and my photography page.
I knew from previous experience that shooting at car meets is really bloody hard - even more so if the venue is a giant warehouse with harsh spotlights, yet the lighting still isn’t enough to register above 1/30th to 1/60th on film.
So I picked my two favourite cameras, two lenses, packed a flash just in case (which I forgot to use oops), took a mini RGB light and a small hand grip to make it portable, extra rolls of film, and any fun filters I wanted to play with. I more or less decided I was just going to wing it and try to have fun.
And I had such an amazing time at the event! I met Scott as well, the only familiar face in the endless crowd of people - but despite not knowing anyone, everyone there was just so incredibly lovely and welcoming. I was talking with total strangers about the cars on display, chatting about gear, had a lot of people ask me how the film was going, and shared a few funny moments while we waited for the official opening of the show.
Overall, the feelings of ‘not being good enough’ ended up just melting away. And as always, the further along the event went the more comfortable I felt and I knew from about 15 minutes in onwards that my photos just kept getting better and better!
I am so glad I took a chance and managed to spend about an hour and a half uninterrupted with the cars, snapping as many photos as I wanted to before it got way too chaotic. I also really appreciated the Unmarked team’s willingness to cater to my Accessibility needs. I’m still absolutely beaming from the event, can you tell?
You can watch a video of the ‘Behind The Scenes’ as well! A big thanks to my brother for recording some great videos for me.
Strive to remove pressure wherever possible.
I think it’s so incredibly important for my own passion and general wellbeing to reduce the expectations I place on myself. It’s a practice I urge others to try as well. Take it all a little bit less seriously and trust that you’ll figure it out if it goes haywire.
If I walked into this event being like “I need to shoot 50 perfect photos and prove I’m as good as my portfolio shows or else I’m a fraud!” I would have had such a shit time. Instead I embraced the fact that I had no idea what the fuck I was doing!
I mean, I know how to shoot film to look good and I know how to adapt to difficult lighting situations. I know how to capture dynamic shots, how to push the film beyond its limits, how to compose and snap cool car stuff, all that technical stuff I’m known for being able to pull out of my brain. But still, I felt very out of my comfort zone and like I didn’t belong there amongst the sea of digital photographers and really fucking talented videographers with their giant rigs, firing off endless shots with ease.
I really had no idea if my film was going to turn out. I think most of the darker cars are probably slightly underexposed. There was one room full of wild flashing lights that confused the shit out of both me and my camera - so I just picked a random ass shutter speed in between and hoped for the best. Stuff like that happens!
Sometimes it’s okay to be bloody clueless. I actually had a lot more fun this way. I was too busy fangirling over all the incredible cars and checking them out to really care if my photos were turning out technically perfect each time. There’s at least 2 rolls out of the 4 that I know I have some kickass shots, the rest was kind of just candid fun stuff, capturing the atmosphere and trying new experimental styles.
It definitely helped to know that because there’s such an abundance of ‘content’ that would come out of a large meet with soooo many photographers, that it really doesn’t matter if my photos are potentially shit. It’s definitely something I’d do again, I enjoy attending group events where I’m not the one and only person snapping photos and I can relax.
Big batch of film dev, coming right up!
I’ll be mixing chemicals and getting everything ready for developing these 4 rolls (amongst others) over the next few days. I was over the moon and happy with it all so far and it really doesn’t matter if it does or doesn’t turn out. If the photos are underexposed and bad because I forgot to use flash - then I’ll take it as a learning experience and try again next time!
I shot with Reflx Lab 800T - which is new to me, so that adds an element of spiciness. I don’t know what the film is like and kind of just picked it because it was the only 800ISO film I could get my hands on in time. The other two rolls were good old Kodak Ultramax - and let me tell you that was a STRUGGLE, oh my goodness! Even with additional LED light panels I was shooting really low shutter speeds and don’t have a lot of hope for the images coming out super crisp.
Another film photographer was there with his medium format camera on a tripod, shooting 4 second long exposures for each frame! So that gives you an idea about how difficult indoor lighting for film really was.
I still haven’t unpacked my bags - mostly because I’m doing another car shoot down the coast on Sunday - and I’ve instead been organizing the next steps for everything else. Developing the film will happen when I’m back from the coast, and then scanning with the setup I’m going down to borrow, and of course the editing comes next.
It’s a lot of work to get to the end result, but I’m excited for it and really can’t wait to show you how it all turns out!
Tearing down to rebuild - DIY camera repairs.
I decided last minute I wanted to restore my new-to-me Minolta SRT 100. Initially I planned to replace the light seals and then test it over the weekend, but there were some gremlins like the mirror being locked up, shutter jams, loose curtains, broken light meter, etc… so I pulled it apart. Entirely.
It’s both the most simplest mechanical camera to pull apart and restore - and yet the most difficult. There’s tiny strings that control a pulley system for both the lens aperture and the shutter speeds, as well as the ISO, which then activates the light meter. I stuffed up and mine fell apart so I spent an hour fixing that and putting it all back in place.
Then there’s the mirror box, which is fairly easy to get out - assuming it was previously assembled correctly. I discovered someone before me tried to DIY repair the camera, and assembled most of it wrong. The mirror was not calibrated properly and was put back with pins in the wrong spots so it jammed each time the shutter went off. The gears to control the mirror return and the shutter were loosey goosey and that was a pain to calibrate. And of course the focus screen itself is out and I’ll need to spend hours re-calibrating it so it reads infinity correctly before I can finally film test it.
There’s so many tiny screws, and gears, and light sealing foam pieces that were just… a mess. It’s been 3 days of working at it for 8+ hours and I’m mostly done.
She fires now at least! The light meter is alive but I think it’s been wired backwards so I need to track down new diodes and also modify it for modern batteries. The lens focus screen is almost calibrated. Every little seal has been replaced. And soon I plan to customize it with green leather, possibly some fancy engraving, and new enamel paint on the lettering.
A lot of work for a $50 thrift store find. But I love learning how cameras work, and mechanical cameras are the best place to start if you want to learn how to repair and restore your own gear wherever possible.
35mm Film Workshop!
I’ve finally decided to go for it and I’m holding my first in-person workshop in my local area. It’s totally dependent on sign ups - but even if only one person comes, or no people come at all, I’m going ahead with it! Watch the little reel about it HERE!
I really want to make everything I do more ‘low stakes’ so it’s not like my bloody mental health depends on something being validated or a success, so I’m going into this first one with a bit more of a relaxed approach.
It’s open to Digital Photographers too this time around - but that’s not to say you’ll be able to rapid fire endless shots - oh no… you’ll have limits and a fun challenge set so you can feel a similar experience to what us 35mm Film shooters will be doing on the day.
There will be 1-2 models, some really cool editorial concepts, and lots of time to really nail the shots. I will be there to guide you every step of the way, show you exactly how I capture striking and unique portraits, all my little tips and tricks for stunning images - basically everything I have learned over the last 8 years of my film journey you can ask me about and have access to!
It’s going to be a fun day. All the info can be found on this SIGN UP form, with the final invitation + shoot details to go out 3-4 weeks before the event. Right now there’s an early-bird discount at an absolute steal! But come September 1st the price will be increasing, so get in early while you can.
If you’re in the area near Warragamba, NSW and you want to come shoot a film in person with me, I highly recommend you sign up and let me know you’re interested! You then get a chance to accept or decline the invite later on, so don’t worry, if you change your mind there’s a way to opt out.
Other ways to support me -
Share, like, comment, all that good stuff! If you want you can follow my adventures on Instagram as well, where I share more educational goodies and photos snapped, behind the scenes reels, and so on.
If you want to work with me, I’m sloooowly opening up books. I’m very selective with what clients I take on now, so keep an eye out for announcements, or send me an email at josieonfilm@gmail.com and I’d be happy to shoot you my portfolio and rates.
I’m located near the Lower Blue Mountains in NSW, but I travel up to 250km from home in my big beastie - and yes that means I can get off-road and travel to remote locations for shoots too!
Coming soon…
As soon as I have the rolls from Unmarked done I’ll do a ‘film only’ newsletter, so you can just scroll and enjoy all the cool shots. I should have some more videos up ready for that as well!
Future newsletters will feature some fun techniques like using wild filters, or dipping your toes into Macro Photography. I have a mini educational post here but I really want to deep dive into it a bit more! Plenty of blogs planned and I’m really keen to write about what else I’ve been up to.
Soooo many rolls of film from May - August to come! Film developing is in progress so I hope you’re just as bloody excited as I am to see all the kickass photos I’ll have! Self portraits, car shows, personal projects, candid documentary lifestyle stuff, experimental shots - you name it! It’s all coming very soon.
Thanks so much for being here and catching up on the chaos. Have an awesome week ahead, cheers for making it this far, and I’ll see you in a few weeks time.
Until the next roll, take care!
xoxo, Josie