Here's a photo from my first roll of 120 FILM, as in not digital, as in ANALOG, as in NOT instagram...ok you get it..
As long as I can remember I have always had a camera of some fashion in my hand. When I was a kid it was a little film point and shoot or a disposable and when I was five I got a camcorder for christmas. Ya know, the old kind that took VHS tapes and you had to haul it around over your shoulder. Anyways, I ended up working at a camera store when I was a little older and that's where I really go into photography. I had the eye for it and I got to learn so much at the store. So I bought a nice entry level digital SLR and took a bagillion photos. But something about it never felt quite right. I used to say that it was because I was a painter and taking photos felt like cheating, it felt too easy. Just focus, push a button, et voile. Not enough soul in that for me. My paintings were labors of love, push a button and done? It seemed wrong.
One day someone handed me a Holga. A holga is little "toy camera" that takes 120 film and has a manual winder, similar to a disposal camera. For those of you who don't know, this is what 120 looks like..
So my love for film bloomed and I almost instantly put down the digital camera. What I love so much about film is it's wonderful, beautiful imperfections. Digital photography is great, but crisp and clean has never really done the trick for me. Sure you can dirty it up in photoshop, add some grain and what not, but with film you have to think more about what your doing cause you can't just fix it later, you're much more involved in each shot. Ya know, that whole labor of love thing I mentioned..
Here's a Few 120 photos I've taken..
You can also do this really fun thing where you rig your Holga, which is a medium format camera, to shoot 35 mm so that it exposes over the spokes, using some foam sheet, rubber bands etc. It looks like this...
The pictures appear "red" because the film is inside out. I'm shooting through the "wrong" side of the emulsion. You can pull all the film out yourself and turn it inside out and wind it back up in a dark box, of course) or you can buy it this way, it's called redscale film.
Also, double exposures are fun!
You can take two photos on top of each other if you don't wind the film in between exposures.
Also I should say, I respect and appreciate digital photography very much as an art form these days. It is definitely hard work, which is something I didn't realize when I switched to film. But Trevy is the greatest photographer ever and after watching all the work he puts into his digital photos, I can see that they are his labors of love. I hope we can get him to post a few of his photos too! He's so creative, you've seen the amazing photos he's taken of my jewelry, but he does a lot of other really wonderful work too!
And that's my brief 120 lesson. Coming up, 35 MM (don't worry, there will be less words and more pictures:)
