Unmarked - an exclusive Sydney Car Event.
+ Everything you need to know about shooting 35mm film indoors.
Hey Film Fam, welcome back!
Thank you so much for tuning into this Subscriber Special newsletter.
All the good stuff will be exclusive to paid subscribers beyond the initial preview - as this supports the ongoing costs of running this newsletter and help with all the film and development associated with creating and sharing my art for educational purposes.
This newsletter includes images that you get access to first. Eventually a few of my favourite images will make their way onto my Instagram, or perhaps in a downloadable guide, or a print store (coming soon!) but I want to stress that my Substack family gets to see pretty much everything before anyone else does.
You get exclusive access to more in depth information about how the process of shooting 35mm Film at an event like Unmarked works, all my gear and why I chose it, how the developing and editing went overall, any issues I encountered and how I overcome them - and of course I share my first hand experience with you so you can avoid potentially expensive mistakes and fast track your way to creating successful film photos!
To be entirely transparent - This wasn’t a paid shoot, I wasn’t contracted to cover an event on 35mm Film. I wasn’t sponsored and everything was paid for by myself, from the film and chemicals to the fees involved in attending.
I was lucky enough that the team at Unmarked loved my images enough that they wanted to feature them across their Instagram, and I did receive a little thank you gift from them which was incredibly sweet. They were also the ultimate hype team during the entire process - as I shared various videos of loading the film, metering light, shooting it, all the way through to the film developing, scanning and even editing.
It took close to 100 hours of work, about 6+ weeks of long days of intense labor. Still - I have enjoyed every second of it because I’m absolutely in love with the art of 35mm Film, and I appreciate how much the Unmarked team and their fan base have really embraced and celebrated the images I produced.
With that aside, let’s get into what you’re really here for…
How do you find the confidence to shoot 35mm Film at an event entirely marketed for Digital Photographers?
Chances are that you’ve been shooting film for long enough for muscle memory to set in - you already know the basics. You know how to compose an image, you have an idea of what the end result you want to achieve, you’ve got your camera and lenses all cleaned up ready to go. You know the second you bring the viewfinder up to your eye, you’ll get ‘in the zone’ and start to settle into a familiar routine.
But what about selecting film for low lighting indoors? How do I adjust my shooting style to work with difficult lighting conditions without losing what makes my photos unique? How do I know that it’s the ‘right kind’ for the aesthetics I want overall? And what do I do to correct the film if it doesn’t quite turn out as expected?
Firstly before you even consider any of the mechanically minded sides of shooting film - you have to trust wholeheartedly in your own ability and your instincts. Go into it knowing that no matter what, you’ll produce some kickass images. And if you don’t, you didn’t fail at all - take it as a learning experience and try again next time. There’s no real mistakes when it comes to shooting film in an environment like this. Someone will see a blurry image of a classic car and love it more than 10 technically perfect ones.
I’ve found that people in general are more forgiving if you show up to an event and make it known ahead of time that you are shooting only film.
Almost immediately they understand the complexities of it, that there’s an inherent risk that you could lose all your images for any number of reasons. And frankly most of the time they really don’t care if you end up with zero usable images - because you weren’t paid to be there, you paid them to attend - any photos that worked out and you choose to share are a bonus.