Hey Film Fam, welcome back!
Wow, the last two weeks have absolutely flown by haven’t they? I’ve managed to get out of the house and do some fun experimental photography shoots just around my local area, and I plan to do a fresh film dev session in the next fortnight finally! I’ve been waiting to have at least 10 rolls of film to make it worthwhile and to develop a good amount when the chemicals are at their crispiest.
I have some MFS Vision 3 200T and Reflx Lab 800T Cinefilm to develop, as well as another roll of expired 500T. And to make things ~extra spicy~ for myself, I’m going to be attempting to develop 110 film for the first time as well! I made my own custom reel to fit into the patterson tank a few months ago and I’m really excited to see if it even works.
How has your last fortnight been? What did you get up to? Are you working on any cool new projects? I’d really love to know!
You may have noticed this newsletter is different. It’s still going to be rambly, and heavy photo wherever possible. The intro and outro have been scripted but the main section was entirely off the cuff and in one take. If you enjoy some unfiltered film chat, this is definitely the newsletter for you.
As always, my newsletters have a vibe of catching up with that one friend you haven’t seen in a while who is just very passionate about all things film. So if that’s your kind of jam - you’re in the right place!
Grab yourself a coffee, and let’s get into it!
People like myself are really good at making shooting film look easy…
The truth is that it’s not. I mean - in a sense it can be if you use a point and shoot or an automatic camera that does everything for you - but if you want to dive into the deep end of shooting film, whether it be very highly technical editorial portraits or just macro photography, or landscapes, or street photography, you really need to learn how to master the gear that you have.
And the best way to do that is to throw yourself in the absolute deep end and be willing to fuck up, a lot. Because you’re going to. There’s going to be so many rolls of film where you’re trying something new and it's not gonna work.
You’re gonna be experimenting with different types of film, maybe you want to try cinefilm and you forget to use a warming filter, and everything turns out bright blue.
Maybe you try a black and white film and you decide - that you know - it just doesn’t have the right aesthetic for what you want to shoot and everything is just washed out.
There’s value in the mistakes. There’s value in trying and trying and trying - even if you fail every single time. Because you are learning to push beyond the fear of rejection, the fear of not being good enough, the fear of never improving, or that it’s not going to be something that you are capable of doing.
Shooting film can be an absolute joy but there’s a lot of heartbreak to it too. I remember some of the moments where I just wanted to give up because I lost a roll of film because I messed up in the film dev process, and it got exposed to light for just one second but it destroyed everything.
Luckily I had a backup roll of the photoshoot, but it wasn’t the main roll of film that I wanted to share! So I was left with the backup. And having to make that work instead, and that taught me how much I love Cinefilm.
I would have never gotten into Cinefilm if it wasn’t for that moment happening. If it wasn’t for me being like, okay, well now I have to make this work. Now I have to learn how to edit this type of film and develop this type of film. Next time what can I do to make it look even better?
It’s the little moments like that, that will really push you and make you a better photographer and a better creative in general. It’ll make you think outside the box.
One of my biggest tips…
is if you can - and I know it’s hard because we all love to have all the gear and no idea *laughs* - Pick one camera. Truly master that camera. Learn the ins and outs of it, learn how to shoot completely manual on it if it has that ability to do so. Learn how to shoot double exposures even if it doesn’t have that setting.
There are ways you can get around things. There are things that people have been doing since the 50’s and 60’s that are just as relevant today in learning how to shoot film.
Just really sit with your gear. Try everything. Experiment with everything. Every type of film you can get your hands on - I know that’s hard too nowadays. But try… macro photography, street photography, go on a drive to the mountains and shoot the landscapes, shoot a sunrise, shoot a sunset, try taking photos of the moon!
That’s really hard - taking photos of the moon is really really hard, but you kind of learn all these new skills of what you like and what you don’t like, and you learn different ways of composing a scene. You’ll learn just how to have fun with it and how to take it a little bit less seriously.
And I know that there is an emphasis on making every frame count, and every frame has to be good - no it doesn't. You can fuck up gloriously and learn so many more valuable things from those fuck ups than if you were to shoot perfect frames every single time.
And I know that because I’m a perfectionist myself, and I have the muscle memory now because I’ve taken so many photos - I took way too many photos and too many portraits within a 12 month period, - that I can just look at a scene and know the exact settings I need to do, and I know exactly how to make that portrait come out - pin sharp.
Sometimes I don’t want to though…. Because there’s more joy in the mess ups and the experimenting and having fun with it than there is with being technically perfect.
Film is supposed to be a journey, film is supposed to be a way of expressing yourself. And there's a concept I want you to think about and it's called:
Primary Source Documentation.
[An example of this kind of documentation - Here and Here ]
You are the primary source of your life, and you can use whatever medium you want to record your life and document things and have a record of who you are in this world. Whether that's just for you, or you want to leave a legacy for future generations. Or you want to explore something that maybe your ancestors already explored. Maybe you come from a long line of photographers and you just want to carry on that legacy too. Whatever it is.
[This concept is one I recently learned during my writing practice of poetry and have found a way to apply it to my photography as well.]
For me using film as a medium is a way of documenting my life and my creativity and the ideas I have in my mind, and the way that I see the world. And I have no fear of sharing my knowledge and my skill, because I know that at the end of the day - I could give you the exact things that you need to take photos like me, and you never will, because we are all unique - and the way that I see the world is different from the way that you will see the world.
[Jordan’s image can be found here ]
Even if technically we took almost identical photos - in that sense of using the exact same settings, the exact same film, almost the exact same angle - it’ll still come out different. Because my eye will be looking for what makes me feel something, and what I feel like will communicate my thoughts and feelings best through it. And yours will do the same.
I think that’s why it’s really interesting that whenever I do duo photoshoots with people - we could be standing right next to each other and take the exact same photo like I said - but it’s completely different.
When you look at the sets of images side by side, they’re so different - it doesn’t even feel like you were with another photographer on that photoshoot. [Meaning it doesn’t feel like you were competing or copying one another, and both walked away feeling like it was ‘their shoot’ as both know the other person will not have the exact same images.]
[Jordan’s images can be seen here ]
I think that’s a really cool thing that no matter what medium you are given, no matter what skills are shared, no matter what you are taught, no matter what sort of thing you master and someone else might master almost the exact same thing - your work is still going to be completely unique.
I think that’s really beautiful and I think that’s something that should be explored further.
I think that’s something that people often forget about and everyone is so caught up in how to be better, how to go above and beyond, how to be the next big thing.
I know that I get caught up in that sometimes as well. I absolutely end up falling into that trap of - ‘How can I be better than my last shoot?’ - And sometimes you don’t have to be. Sometimes you can just have fun with it. Sometimes you can fuckin snap a photo of a telegraph pole and be done with it. It doesn’t always have to tell a story in a way that is expected on social media for example.
But whatever you do, whatever medium you use - whether it’s photography, or maybe you’re a makeup artist, or maybe you’re a painter - Primary Source Documentation is what you should be trying to lean towards I think - of just trying to document your creativity in a way that makes sense for you and is something you can look back on and draw further inspiration from and further experience from moving forward.
Until next time!
Okay I think I rambled enough so, let’s wrap this up - This has been something a little different for me. I kind of just set up a voice recorder - I dug out my old university one and kind of jerry rigged a little shotgun mic to it so hopefully the quality is a little bit better than just recording my voice on my phone. And if you’ve enjoyed the concepts I’ve discussed - about primary source documentation or just some of my thoughts of photography and the experience of it in general - please let me know in the comments, I’d really love to hear from you what you thought about it and if you agreed with anything I talked about here today.
In the next newsletter, I’m going to probably go back to normal - long rambly text with lots of photos. I made a little educational Instagram Post about Macro Photography, and it’s really nice to see that coming back around again in the community, and I kind of want to dive a little bit deeper into that and share some more photos so I think that’s what the next newsletter is going to be about.
If you would love to support me there’s a few ways you can do that. Subscribing is free, sharing and commenting is wonderful and a great way to engage with my work helps me see what you like about these newsletters.
If you’d love to work with me in person I’ll be diving into in person workshops in hopefully November or December in my local area - I’m up in Warragamba near the blue mountains - there will be more details to come soon about that.
I’ll also be creating paid subscriber newsletters in the near future, I think you can try a free 7 day trial to try before you buy so to speak, and if that’s of interest that’ll be available within the next month or so.
Otherwise if you just want to tip my work, I have a donation link, and every dollar goes straight back into my film practice so I can bring you more educational goodies and lots and lots more rolls of film.
Thank you so much for joining me here this fortnight. This has been fun, I hopefully won’t cringe too much over my own voice. And I’m sure I’ll do another one of these podcasty style newsletters soon.
Have a great few weeks ahead.
Until the next roll, take care.
Xoxo, Josie.
I love this format and having the voice over! It made me feel even more connected to you!
Lovely shots, that 'Romantic Escapism' image is a real banger!