These 5 photographs were taken on my birthday this year on a Pentax MX with an Asahi Pentax SMC 50mm f/1.7 lens. I shot the photos on Fujifilm Industrial 100. I had been saving the last roll of this film that I had for a special occasion since this is one of my favourite film stocks and it is hard to find.

Shooting this film felt more special than usual, after a year of mostly going from my bed to my desk and my computer and photographing the same things every day. The photos were taken on the Uetliberg in Zurich during a hike that my dad and I did. The light was bright and Switzerland is warmer and greener than Sweden which at that time of year is gray and cold.

Fujifilm industrial is at its best in bright daylight around nature, the greens are fresh and colours are vivid and muted at the same time. My aim with the roll was mainly to capture the things that I saw that interested me, I was overwhelmed by the light and colours of the world outside of the every day of life in the pandemic.

I like the way the pastel and light colours that this film shows in combination with a flatness of subjects captured reminds me of paintings and the backgrounds used for landscapes in the 2014 film “The Grand Budapest Hotel” by Wes Anderson (this is my favourite film and one of my special interests). I photographed the horizon, signs and nature.

My Pentax MX is the first 35mm film camera that I bought in 2019 when I was learning to shoot film. I can’t say if it is my favourite camera since I also have a Hasselblad 500CM but it is one of my favourites and I am so comfortable with it that I almost don’t have to think about when I am adjusting the settings to take a photo.

This, in combination with a film stock that I enjoy, made taking these photos a relaxed, almost mindless experience aside from the focus I put on the compositions. When leaving the house I considered shooting digital instead but chose 35mm film instead because I am more focused on the composition and what I am photographing rather than if the photos are good when I cant see the photos on a screen.

I am not sentimental for a lot of photos and I think this is maybe a part of taking a lot of photos, even good photos lose meaning. These photos have value because they document my 22nd birthday and the things that I remember seeing during the hike, from a technical point I think they are good but they are more than that, they are like all photos and particularly photos on film a moment in time, in this case a birthday celebrated during a pandemic.

~ Astrid

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2 responses to “5 Frames… Of my 22nd birthday at the Uetliberg on Fujifilm FUJICOLOR Industrial 100 film (35mm Format / EI 100 / Pentax MX + Asahi Pentax SMC 50mm f/1.7)”

  1. Simply great!
    Thank you.
    Great gear too

  2. Wow, I also was shooting with a Pentax MX and 50mm f/1.7 when I was 22… back in 1980!

    I always felt that it was the Leica M of SLRs. Cloth shutter, same shutter speed range, same basic size. It is nice to know that this many years later, is still letting people experience real photography.

    Thanks for sharing.

 

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