If you are reading this article, you are a keen film photographer and have most likely experienced the joys of film photography across a range of film types, such as monochrome or colour negatives and colour transparencies. But black and white “slides”? Whoever heard of that? Go back 55 years to the time when I […]
Category: Featured
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Fallen grace: The beauty of fallen leaves
When Photo Clubs announce a contest named “Fallen Leaves”, most participants will think of autumn. Images of red maple leaves floating in a still pond come to mind, as well as stands of birches, their yellow leaves and white trunks brightening the reflection in a dark mountain lake, and the list goes on. This is […]
Rant: Analysing analogue grandpas. Or, sucking the joy out of photography online since Jan 1st 1983
I was recently the victim of a “cruel” and “brutal” online slaying of my self-worth, my photographic ability, knowledge, dress sense, and the weird shape of my head. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I was even told I was ugly and I smelled. Ok, so I might be projecting a little, and some of […]
A month in the South of Italy on a Leica M4 and ILFORD HP5 PLUS
I always assumed people romanticised Italy; there is no way a country can host that much history, culture, and natural beauty without any drawbacks other than excessive tourism. However, in the brief time I spent in Sicily and Puglia in the summer of 2021, I was proven wrong. Leica M4, Voigtlander Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5 PII […]
How-to: Convert an automatic Polaroid pack film camera to use manual shutter speeds
Back in 1960s, automatic exposure was an amazing advance in photography. Polaroid, in its quest to make a really easy-to-use camera, made most of its cameras with only automatic exposure. I mean, who needed anything else? Fast forward to today and it seems automatic exposure has lost its mojo. Complete control over shutter and aperture […]
An ideal match: 120 roll film cameras and the square format
In this current age of the so-called “full frame” digital camera, with its 2:3 proportions, the square format, or 1:1 proportion, is somewhat of an outlier and perhaps even disparaged as a remnant of the age of 120 roll film. Even Instagram, which started as an emulation of square format instant photographs has opened the […]
My RA-4 reversal journey: Shooting and processing colour paper negatives
I got bit by the RA-4 reversal bug a few weeks back, diving deep into chemistry, filtration, processing, and rinsing (more on the rinsing a bit later). The RA-4 development process is used to produce a color print on (you guessed it) color paper in the darkroom. In this article, I cover my RA-4 reversal […]
What can you do if an idea seems “too big”?
I’ve been experiencing what I consider to be an issue in the current bodies of work I am working to produce. I spent most of summer 2022 photographing customs, celebrations, rituals, and practices mostly in the South of England. These are part of ongoing documentation with my collective, New Exit Group as we are working […]
How-to: Shoot Fujifilm Instax on a Polaroid BigShot
Released in 1971, the Polaroid Big Shot was a funky, green plastic camera built for one thing: portraits. The plastic behemoth is simply designed, using a fixed focus 200mm, single-element plastic meniscus lens. The grip has a stereoscopic rangefinder integrated in it, which makes framing and achieving focus easy. The focus point is fixed at […]
Review: Kodak Pocket Instamatic 10 + Lomography Tiger CN200 film
I recently picked up a Kodak Pocket Instamatic 10, it’s a 110-format film camera that produces tiny negatives. Since then, I’ve been obsessed with it. What made me fall in love with this pocket 110 camera was its uncommon visual appearance of it — it immediately attracted me. The second thing was the simplicity of […]
New film cameras from PENTAX / Ricoh Imaging? “Film Project Start”
Some great news to help round out the year! Pentax (now a division of Ricoh Imaging) is starting the development of new film cameras. Announced through a collection of videos, a mini-site and a press release today, the company states the project involves the “research and development of new PENTAX-brand film camera products” and is […]
Documenting Sport Is Your Gang (SIYG) and social outreach in Colombia
I have been documenting sports, specifically Muaythai, for over a decade. During this time, I have earned wonderful opportunities to document some of the best athletes from around the world, and watch high-level contests in the history of the sport. I have also had the privilege to witness this small sport expand globally to Europe, […]
Film stock review: Santa Color 100
I’m one of those people who, if a new film stock comes to the market, I’ll be the first to try it out, and Santa Color 100 certainly caught my eye. A little background online info gave me some first-hand information to start with, and as soon as I saw these first few images of […]
Film Stock Review: CineStill 400D
Like much of the film photography community, I waited with bated breath for my backer rolls of Cinestill 400D to arrive so I could jam it into a camera and start etching that sweet acetate. How would it look? Was it special in any specific way to pull people away from the bulletproof Kodak Portra […]
Street photography in 1974: Shooting a hand-me-down Leica llla in Paris – by Gerard J. van den Broek
“School’s out for summer” sang Alice Cooper a few years earlier in 1972. Well, in our case, school was out forever, entirely. We got our diplomas and summer was way back in our minds. A friend and I wanted to do something different. I had gone to mandatory military service in September, but with the […]
How-to: Shoot 120 & 35mm film in a Polaroid pack film camera
After using a Polaroid pack film camera to shoot paper negatives, I was wondering how easy it would be to shoot other film types. The closest size native to the Polaroid is 120 film, so it made sense to explore that option. I’ve seen other conversions to 120 using existing commercial 120 backs adapted to […]
The Pure Land: Mexico – by Willem van den Heever
Mexico, or perhaps more specifically, Mexico City – the Pure land. Pure not in the sense of not being mixed with any other matter or free from dirt, but pure in the sense of honest, real, unobscured, and unobstructed, something quite scarce in this modern day and age. Maybe unknowingly and unconsciously I was drawn […]
Camera review: Loving Lomography’s New LomoApparat 21mm wide-angle camera
I want to start off by thanking Lomography Philippines for lending me the LomoApparat after some dramatic pleading. I don’t know about you, but it’s always exciting when Lomography announces a new product. Even with avid, long time film shooters like us who have been exposed to a wide variety of tools – dirt cheap to […]
A few thoughts on overcoming photography blocks
I am finding myself in a transitory stage with regards to photography. I haven’t picked up my camera with a decisive thought or the motivation to go and photograph something in a few months now. Everybody hits a wall at some point. I am only five years into my photographic journey, which is not much […]
EMULSIVE Secret Santa 2022: Registration for year 8 is open until November 13th
Welcome to the 8th annual EMULSIVE Santa film and traditional photography gift exchange! Registration is officially open until November 13th, 2022. A huge thank you to the 850-ish players in over 50 countries who came together to participate in 2021’s 7th annual EMULSIVE Santa. It was a strange event following a stranger year but we […]