Hey Film Fam!
It’s good to see you again! It’s only been a week but nevertheless I hope you’ve had a fantastic one - Newsletters are back to Fortnightly scheduling.
If you’re new here, welcome aboard! Have a little sneaky look around at my previous blogs, and various links all over the place, or tip toe over to my Instagram if you want to see some occasional chaotic IG stories about what’s happening behind the scenes.
I’ve recently started a new phase of my spinal recovery and so far it’s been a bit bumpy as my body adjusts, but I feel like I’m over the initial shock to the system and massive wave of fatigue and additional pain I was hit with.
Despite this I managed to finish scanning my entire film archive - wild, I know! It’s been about 8-9 weeks of slowly chipping away at 150 rolls now, and the final session was around 5 hours of frantic scanning which got me over the line just in time to pack it all up and work on some other things instead. I feel like scanning has consumed my life lately but I am so thrilled with the results now that after a year and a half of trial and error, trying every light box, diffusion sheet, lens + settings combo, and even changing film conversion settings - I’ve nailed it, finally!
Speaking of, I hope you’re keen as beans for the results of this Black and White film only challenge that I set myself. This newsletter will be showing off my favourites from the first roll of several that I shot throughout April.
As always these newsletters tend to be quite rambly, photo heavy, 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!
(P.S I have a sneaky little announcement at the end of the Newsletter, so stick around for that!)
A slight menty-b about the challenge I set for myself.
(Like seriously, why did I pick bloody April of all times to do this dang challenge… *sigh*)
If you know me, I pretty much exclusively shot colour film for the majority of the portraiture I did for ‘Josie On Film’ and would churn out a ridiculous amount of rolls each month.
Despite having been shooting 35mm since late 2015, I never tried black and white film until years later where I quickly fell in love with it. Once I swapped to self developing that’s where the brief love affair ended - I really hated that I had to sit there and violently shake the Patterson tank every minute and have to wait anywhere between 12 to 15 minutes, or longer if the developer was under 20c. Never mind that every single film stock has different times and instructions and I never shot two rolls of the same type which made things just generally annoying.
So it fell to the side and I convinced myself that colour film was more convenient to develop - even though that’s not the case. There’s way more faffing about with temperatures and preservers and photoflo and all sorts of buffoonery. Still, my rolls of Kentmere, HP5+, and good old Fomapan got shoved back into the freezer, completely forgotten about for a while. Heck, they’re still probably buried underneath all the Ultramax and Gold.
It wasn’t until I was in the middle of archiving the family film negatives that I saw and promptly scanned/converted this photo of my Grandpa in his early 20’s and was so blown away by how good it looked that I decided to take a leap of faith and give black and white film a whirl again.
I found out through several weeks of chipping away at scanning his archive of film negatives (the whole reason why I redid my own as well) that my Great Grandfather was a film photographer and developed his own film too. I can see the influences of his style of photography throughout my Grandpa’s - at least up until the early 80’s where he kind of went off on a tangent and got wild with night time slide photos. And just like myself, they took little behind the scenes photos of their film and print making process - with some cleverly placed Illford and Kodak product placement!
Like father, like son. It’s so wholesome, I love it!
There’s so many other various family photos floating around with my Great Uncle rocking a mechanical Pentax around his neck, and of course some of my Grandpa throughout the years with his medium format camera - it was super cool to flick through albums and see.
But then all of a sudden as I’m converting all of the original negatives I felt this enormous pressure to live up to the amazing photos that I’ve now seen my Grandpa take - and there were so many dang certified bangers. Genuinely gorgeous and heavily technical photos from the 1950’s that deeply inspired me to see if I have the same talent of making black and white film look incredible. (Hint - It’s confirmed, and my imposter syndrome can get fucked, I’ll just say it’s some magical family gene and not me working my absolute ass off for years lol)
So I did what any film photography in the year of 2023 would do - overcommitted by panic buying a bulk roll of Fomapan 400 (and other random film rolls lol) just moments before it sold out, told literally everyone about my goals (including you all here on Substack), and posted daily stories of the little photowalks I took myself on throughout April as I attempt to shoot only black and white film for at least three weeks.
Full steam ahead! - AKA - being a dumb bitch and almost snapping my ankle at Cathedral Rocks
Of course I had to kick off the first roll with being extra.
I slapped in an expired roll of Era 100 film from 2009, had a cross-screen filter on my 50mm lens (which was left on by accident but oh my god the best one I ever made - more on that soon) and drove down to the South Coast to go stumble across some wet rocks only for my brain to absolutely break when I realized that nothing that I was initially doing applies to black and white film let alone an expired roll of it.
Expired film is always a fun way to experiment regardless of if you stuff the first few photos up like I did. Rule of thumb is that for every decade of expiry, you add 1 stop of light - plus another 1/2 to 1 stop for the filter used. So if you were smart you’ll Push/Pull process the film. This means instead of the original ISO of 100 for the roll, you’d set it to 25 and meter normally without changing the aperture or shutter to something other than what it states, and then develop it according to the 100 ISO instructions - effectively pushing it 2 stops in the developing process. Your photos will turn out just fine.
But if you’re me you’ll leave it at 100 ISO and just fucking send it by opening up your aperture or dropping your shutter speed to compensate for needing more light (sometimes both for the fun of it!) and then go “Oh shit, was that two or three stops?” only to shrug and slap the shutter anyways because film love's light so this won’t hurt it if it’s a bit over. Develop it at box speed, and bam, you created manual overexposure which actually is the correct exposure because of film science reasons! Go you!
It ends up developing the same either way you do it really. I just prefer to manually adjust the overexposure - so some photos may be just 1 stop, others up to 3 stops over depending on varying factors, but across the board they all look pretty bang on with exposure and consistent across the entire roll.
Plus with my personal style of shooting, the way I like to develop my film, and enough practical experience I just find it’s easier to make micro adjustments to each shot that way.
Although I will say the Push/Pull method of simply changing the ISO and leaving the rest tends to be most film photographer’s choice.
Okay, cool - but where does the slip and slide come in?
So with that little explanation aside I want you to picture me as ungraceful as a newborn giraffe, clutching my camera close to my chest with one hand, my other arm outstretched and flailing for balance - got that? - now in your mind's eye try not to laugh as you witness me struggling not to slip on soggy rocks while I tiptoe towards the jagged cliff edges to snap some photos. All while the tide is rolling in and absolutely smashing the rocks, sending sea spray everywhere and getting down right dangerous to be climbing over shit like I was.
It was a sight to behold and the small groups of people coming and going would keep looking over at me as I wailed and made noise with every almost-snapping-of-my-ankle moment. I didn’t hurt myself too badly - sorry to say - just a few stubbed toes and a few scrapes from brushing rocks.
And on top of that my brain had a meltdown after a few photos when I screamed very loudly “FUCK, IT’S NOT GONNA BE BLUE!” and had to pivot the way I was composing and metering everything. I was too busy being enchanted by how beautiful the ocean looked and just the golden tones of the sun - as I had just finished off the colour roll that was still in my camera. So embarrassing.
I had to keep reminding myself how different it is to shoot black and white film. I felt like a newbie again, and kept getting confused about where I was supposed to meter as I know depending on how punchy you want the shadows you change your metering point. And well, I was still shooting for the highlights as if it was colour and felt like I was messing up massively.
Once I got over that initial hurdle of adjusting my brainwaves I tried composing the photo again and… meh, it kind of turned out? Just don’t look at my horizon lines, I’m painfully aware they’re not straight.
Show me the rest of the roll already!
Okay okay, enough rambling. I get it. I’ll show you the rest of the photos from Cathedral Rocks. I tried a few different angles and compositions, and I tried capturing the waves (somewhat successfully?) but being an expired film it was pretty unpredictable and the highlights are on the edge of blowing out thanks to the extra glow the filter adds to every single photo.
And just so I don’t load you up with endless captions here’s all the gear info across the board for all the B/W photos throughout this Newsletter.
Camera: Ricoh KR10-Super.
Lens: Rikenon 50mm f/1.7 - with a vintage cross-screen filter, unknown brand.
Film - Era 100 - expired 2009.
Development - Kodak D-76 - 1:1. 12 minutes at 19.5 degrees.
Scan/Edit - DSLR Scan - Canon 5D mkii, Canon 100mm macro lens. Lightroom Classic with NLP and my current workflow/edits + light dust removal.
Soon I’ll pop up an in depth newsletter that takes you through a whole scanning/editing cycle for my film photos for those who have been interested. So much goes on that it’s a bit hard to compact it into a basic list.
Anyways… enough about that. Let’s get on with it shall we?
I even convinced Jordan to pose for a few photos and directed him to look effortlessly cool for one, and “Do that classic IG model pose I tell girls to pull off!” for another.
They’re a tiny bit brighter than I would have liked, which gives them a bit more of a washed out tone (and the filter did some weird shit at times) but I was shooting in an extremely sunny spot and he was being quite blinded by the sun as you can tell by the hazy corners and well.. You’ll see.
I tried to snag a few detail shots and this one specifically of the rocks is where I slipped and promptly was caught by Jordan who then led me towards more stable flat ground, oops.
Once I felt like I snapped all that I wanted to at this location (both photo wise and my body lol) we ventured out to a nearby street which I now kind of want to do a portrait shoot at. I spotted it on the drive into Cathedral Rocks and asked Jordan if we could pop by on the way back and see if this random tunnel leads somewhere. And oh boy it was absolutely beautiful! I’m a sucker for overgrown vegetation near a railway line!
The only complaint I have is that I couldn’t step back as much as I wanted to fit everything in, so these photos below looked trash as a 4x5 crop for Instagram so I doubt I’ll post them anywhere but here on Substack where like all the others they can be displayed in their full 35mm frame glory.
Nifty Fifty life problems, am I right?
And of course on the way back to the car I had to be cliché and snap a telegraph pole… twice. Couldn’t help myself.
And finally I ended the roll a few days later at Tallawarra, where I did my usual trick of somehow messing up the end of the roll and triple exposing?
One of the frames overlapped, and then the advance lever got stuck halfway cranked. So I rewound about a frame so I could finish advancing and then took a photo - only to find I had more than one photo left and well.. That’s how you get the messy end to this roll!
What did I learn from this first roll?
For one - How much I actually love how Era 100 looks! So much so that I went and snagged up another roll while it’s still available. It turned out way better than expected and it’s actually pretty punchy at times which I prefer for black and white film if I’m being honest. Some photos I wish I metered differently though, but next time I’ll sort that out and hopefully get even better results.
That’s always the case too isn’t it? You find a ‘new’ film you fall head over heels for only to realize it’s discontinued or expired stock and ughhhh! I’m sure I’ll find a suitable alternative. If not, then I got 40 rolls of Foma to get through…
Secondly - I actually love the soft hazy diffusion the cross screen filter gives and the wild starbursts in the highlights are very ‘80’s glamour portrait’ vibes. I enjoyed it enough to decide that whenever I shoot black and white I’d just leave the filter on because I think it gives it a unique look that transforms what I think would have turned out fairly bland - so far I’ve been right.
I even caved and got of those fancy schmancy modern ‘Black Pro Mist’ filters because I’ve seen a few people swear by using them for 35mm Film - especially portraits. But you’ll have to wait a little longer to see those results and decide for yourself if it enhances or ruins those kinds of photos.
And last but not least - I think my Grandpa would have absolutely bloody loved the entire process (as chaotic as it was at times) and I have no doubt he’d have wanted to take his own camera out for a whirl one last time.
I plan to travel to some of the locations he visited and see how different the landscape looks now - 70 years later. Hopefully some of his magic and talent will rub off on me the more I revisit the basics and practice my (once upon a time really damn good) monochromatic skills again.
Okay, time to wrap it up… plus an exciting announcement!
Thank you for sticking out this far as always. Please pop a comment below and let me know what you think of this film stock and if you think I did an alright job on this first roll!
Announcement time!
I’ve decided to pivot towards teaching 35mm film in late 2023, early 2024. There will (hopefully!) be a variety of things on offer from hands-on 35mm film workshops of all skill levels and subjects, to 1:1 mentorships for more intensive learning where you have my full attention, and some fun accessible and affordable photo walks. Yay!
These will be held around the Blue Mountains area - from my little local town all the way up to Oberon region and everywhere in between, as well as on the South Coast in areas like Bulli, Wollongong, Kiama. And hopefully a few within Sydney as well if I can find disability accessible spaces for myself and others.
This is something that has been now a few years in the making and unfortunately with the film shortage I probably can’t get Kodak to come on board anymore - originally I was in talks with them about potential sponsorships and wholesale film, the whole shebang! They were super keen and excited by my pitch to them which gave me a lot of hope at the time… But alas, shit happened and now I’m doing this all from scratch - and entirely without any sort of kind-of-sponsorship or fancy discounts to help with the costs involved, etc.
I’ll open up a wait list sometime soon for those interested in staying in the loop. I hope to ‘soft launch’ a test run in September/October before officially launching full on workshops to see if my spine can handle it.
But at the very least I know I want to absolutely get into 1:1 mentorships if nothing else comes of it. I’ve spent the better part of 2 years now answering peoples endless questions on IG and providing free information wherever possible - and lately I have had an increased number of local fellow photographers who have asked if I’m ever going to teach a class or provide some sort of coaching or educational service. I’ve had some waiting for over a year now for me to hurry up and announce when it’ll allaunch.
I appreciate everyone’s enthusiasm so far and patience too - it’ll take a bit of time for me to get it all organized and to find the initial funding to make it viable for me. But I wanted to let you all know it’s very much in the works :)
What’s the next few Newsletters going to be about?
1 - A really cool editorial portrait session on Black and White film that I cannot wait to show you. Oh it turned out perfectly and I have so much to share from it that I think you’ll all enjoy reading and seeing.
2 - The one after will be a look at some actually bloody good point and shoot film photos. I love my SLR’s and Rangefinders but damn, I’ve finally found a good P&S that I enjoy using!
3 - Following that the last roll from April should be ready and I might drop it as an early bonus Newsletter. We’ll see how things unfold and go with the flow as always eh?
Thanks again for sticking around, let me know what you think of this Newsletter, and I hope to see you again at the next one.
Until the next roll, take care!
Xoxo, Josie
This was so delightful! Thank you for sharing. Looking forward to your future adventures! 📸