English Bay, Vancouver (Pentax K-1000 film scan)

Creativity is paradoxical. To create, a person must have knowledge but forget the knowledge, must see unexpected connections in things but not have a mental disorder, must work hard but spend time doing nothing as information incubates, must create many ideas yet most of them are useless, must look at the same thing as everyone else, yet see something different, must desire success but embrace failure, must be persistent but not stubborn, and must listen to experts but know how to disregard them.
– Michael Michalko

maintenance building - Central Park, NYC (Pentax K-1000 film scan)

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Glasgow, August 1999 with Joe (film scan)

After digging out my scanner to lend to someone and testing it to make sure it still worked, I decided to scan a few photos while it was plugged in to my computer. I do not recommend doing something like this when you’ve got lots of worked piled up, because it’s an inevitable time-sink. The ultimate distraction. You get sucked into looking at old photos and the next you know, hours have passed. Yikes! But I can think of much worse ways to spend time.

Anyway, the photo above was taken in Glasgow in the summer of 1999. (That trip was legendary — oh, the stories! In fact, it came up again when I was in England in November. Remind me to tell you in person one day, I can’t write about it on the internet.) My godson Joe was a year old in this picture, and this is him now, more than a dozen years later…

England, November 2011

One thing I noticed while looking at my old point-and-shoot photos is how terrible they are in so many ways: bad composition, poor lighting, out-of-focus, no focal point, colours washed out, the list goes on. Most of them are not even worth scanning, I just like to look at them. But that’s the reason why I let my clients pick the photos they want to print — because people choose photos for emotional value not for technical value, while a photographer can’t help but see the technical merits or mistakes (unless it’s their own photos, in which case the emotional values kick in).

It’s also interesting to see how time marches on for technology, since digital cameras weren’t around when my godson was a baby — everyone was shooting with film cameras. Now everyone is shooting with digital cameras and film is getting rare to the point of near extinction.

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Humber Bay Arch Bridge, Etobicoke (Toronto)

I picked up the roll of developed film from the Chinon CE-4 at Toronto Image Works on the way home this evening, wondering how many shots turned out. I read somewhere recently about a guy who shot digital the same way he shot film: he turned off the LCD so he couldn’t chimp preview his shots, and he shot exactly 24 frames at a time. I applaud this approach as it makes for a much more disciplined photographer and not one who “sprays-and-prays”, where good shots happen statistically from the law of averages.

That said, this roll did produce some interesting images. Unlike the last roll I did apply some editing in software, but unfortunately in a couple of cases it was because the person who developed the negatives left streaks that are visible in the scans. I’m basically covering up the streaks because it’s too much trouble to clone them out. I’m tempted to take it back to complain, but since this is a hobby roll and not for work, it would sure take some of the fun out of the process of shooting film if I tacked on the trouble of following this up with the folks at Toronto Image Works. However constructive it would be, I’d much rather give the developer the benefit of the doubt that this doesn’t happen on a regular basis.

Let’s get on with the images. First, some from December 26 in New York City.

I much prefer the way film handles full-on sun compared to digital.

Battery Park, New York City

New York Harbor

Battery Park

Backlighting also has a different effect on film.

Battery Park, New York City

Irish Famine Memorial, New York City

The whole set is best viewed as a full-screen slideshow (film shots at the end).

The Toronto film images were shot on January 8, just a few to finish off the roll. My favourites are of the Humber Bay Arch Bridge, especially the one at the top of this post.

Humber Bay Arch Bridge, Etobicoke (Toronto)

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the Chinon CE-4 in High Park

For the past few years, one of the top keyword searches that land a reader here is ‘Chinon CE-4′. I don’t know if there’s a resurgence in popularity for this camera or maybe there aren’t many blogs that feature it, but every time I see Chinon CE-4 in the stats it’s a little reminder to buy some film and click that heavy shutter!

It’s also mildly embarrassing that my blog gets so many hits for it when I haven’t shot with the Chinon for more than a year. The last time it’s been out in the wild is the trip to Maine in September 2010. So I decided this afternoon to bundle up warmly and shoot off a roll of 400ASA in High Park with the 50mm f/1.9. I shot the entire roll in about 20 minutes, got it developed and scanned to CD at Wal-Mart (because Shoppers Drug Mart doesn’t develop film anymore, not even C-41).

I purposely did not edit any of the photos in this batch (aside from cloning out a few dust particles on two shots) to show what the Chinon CE-4 can do. Also, because I don’t have time. But the important part is that I feel I can totally let go of the editing when it comes to film: no colour correction, no adjustments to contrast or saturation, nothing of the sort… these photos are straight out of the camera.

One thing I really like about film is the way it handles full-on sun — digital cameras just can’t compete. Take the photo at the top: this is the flare I love and I can’t get this with DSLRs, not even a filter would make it look like this. View larger.

This shot below is the last on the roll; you can see the end of the frame on the right side. It looks more like a painting than a photo — that’s film emulsion for you, it trumps pixels! View larger.

the Chinon CE-4 in High Park

There are obviously a couple of downsides to shooting film: the expense and inconvenience. Film is not sold everywhere and the number of places that develop film are shrinking, which means additional time getting to the lab for drop-off and then either killing time before it’s ready (in today’s case, it was two hours) or returning the following day. I use a pro lab for my clients’ digital prints, but for hobby shooting I stick to cheap and fast. I only ever develop the roll and scan it to CD, but it still works out to $8 before tax and a roll of 400ASA film averages about $5 per roll (of 24), so you can see how costly it can be — and this is before printing anything.

What that means, however, is thinking more and clicking less. More thought and effort goes into each frame, which I feel is what photography should be. I’m not a trigger-happy photographer, I try and make each frame count, even in digital. When I see photographers take multiple frames per second in situations of low activity, it makes me cringe a little… after all, this is photography, not videography!

The other thing about shooting film is the necessity of being able to read the camera’s light meter properly, because unless you’re very diligent about writing down your settings (which I don’t), you will not remember what settings you used for each shot if you get it wrong. There is no EXIF in film! Thankfully, film is much more forgiving than digital if you slightly under- or over-expose.

Out of 24 frames shot this afternoon I uploaded 20 of them, which is a pretty good ratio considering my average of keepers in digital is usually less than that AND I edit them before uploading. For me to upload a photo without editing is very rare, which shows how much of a film fan I really am. And now that the Chinon CE-4 is dusted off, the Pentax K-1000 will need to get some action soon, too… stay tuned!

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I was going through the film photo archives and came across this one of the landmark Sam The Record Man sign that was removed in 2007 when the flagship store on Yonge Street shut the doors on June 30, 2007, after 46 years of business and now, bankruptcy. I took this photo with the Pentax K-1000 film camera the day before the announcement was made that the store was closing.

Here’s a nightshot, taken with my first DSLR, the Pentax K100D.

What got me to think about Sam the Record Man is a conversation I had with someone recently. When she told me that she isn’t good with change, I wondered if she realized that change is what got her to the here and now. We undergo change our entire lives, and change happens around us whether we like it or not.

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For the first month I dog-sat two raucous Irish setters who barked incessantly and drove the neighbours mental while their owners were in England. During my lunch break I’d have to race down to the house to walk them and sometimes I’d have to chase them in the woods to get them to come back. They never listened to me! It was a tough gig, the dogsitting. I was also quite isolated and my mobile phone had spotty reception and mostly no reception at all. I missed seeing my friends in Vancouver whenever I wanted and it bugged me that I couldn’t call them except from the house landline. With all the free time I suddenly had, I spent it at the gym — that’s about the last time I was a dedicated gym rat.

On the upside, the house was new and spacious (I had the whole lower floor to myself) and there was a great beach below the house. I spent a lot of time down there with the dogs:

One day I happened to have my camera with me and encountered the biggest jellyfish washed up on shore that I’d ever seen. This thing was so enormous I preferred to believe it was an alien life form that hurtled to earth and went SPLAT. You can see a dog paw print for scale.

I also lived in another house after this one, but I’ll save that for another day when I’ve got more time… I’ll leave you with a picture of me taken by my friend Marc on a camping trip less than a year before these pics. That was one of the best camping trips ever… and now looking at these old film scans I’m really missing the scenery of BC!

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Spring Point Ledge Light Station

Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse was constructed to mark a dangerous ledge which is now covered by the breakwater. Numerous ships had struck the ledge and local ship owners had petitioned the Lighthouse Board for many years before funds were made available for construction.

Although it is basically a standard design similar to many other caisson lighthouses, Spring Point Ledge Light is different in several respects. The first floor, used as a cellar for storage of tools and fuel, is actually within the cast iron caisson below the veranda. This makes the structure appear shorter than other similar towers, however, the caisson is built higher than average, putting the focal plane at a height of 54 feet.

Another unusual facet of the lighthouse is the fact that it is one of the very few lights of this type you can walk around. Nearly all other caisson lights are fully surrounded by water, but the breakwater built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1950-51 permits Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse to welcome thousands of pedestrians every year.

There’s also a blog dedicated to Spring Point Ledge Light Station.

Cape Elizabeth — the “bones” on the right side of the photo are what remains of an emergency cargo vessel that was built in South Portland, which was a major shipbuilding region for World War II.

Director John Ford is from Portland. He directed 140 films between 1917-1971 (many of them were from the silent film era), but the only one I’ve seen was part of a high school English class: “A Quiet Man” with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara.

No saturating or editing to this one — the pub is actually that bright red!

Fort Preble

Casco Bay

The digital photos from Maine are next… I had to sort out an issue with Nikon Capture NX2, which is how I process all my RAW files (yes, I shoot RAW all the time, even for my personal photos, not just client work).

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What is it about trains that make me stop and take photos? Is it the Old World charm? A nod to the power of the Industrial Revolution? The singularity of a journey on one track with no traffic or real intersections? The steadiness, the speed low enough to take in surroundings (excluding the TGV in France and bullet trains in Japan, of course)? All of the above?

Whatever it is, I sure do take a lot of train photos. These three were all shot on film in Wakefield, Quebec, last Saturday.

http://www.steamtrain.ca/

This is (one of) the last steam-powered train left in Canada and there are only 1-2 scenic rail departures a day, so we were very lucky to be near the tracks at all when it went by, but we were doubly lucky to have cameras at the ready. Thanks, H!

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“God Knows What” is the name of this bluegrass band that was playing in the middle of a covered bridge in Wakefield, Quebec, last Saturday, just when we happened to come by. I looked for a website for them, but couldn’t find one. I thought it was a funny name for a band; maybe they’ll Google themselves and find this post.

I was going to name this post “It Just So Happened…” because plenty of funny things happened on Saturday that made me think there are some peculiar forces at work in the universe to make my life more colourful than it already is, but somehow “God Knows What” stuck.

Anyway, we were on this covered bridge shooting film when the band started to set up and announced themselves as performers for “Mo’s Birthday”. Of course we’re thinking, “Who’s Mo?” Then a woman came up to us and invited us to join in the dancing.

“Who’s Mo?” we asked.
“That’s me!”
“Oh! Happy Birthday!”

Isn’t that a great thing to do on your birthday? Dance with your friends to live music (and invite strangers to join in) on a covered bridge over a river. As someone who makes an effort on her birthday to do memorable things such as travel, I think this is a novel idea!

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Home from Ottawa.
Ridiculous hour.
Driving patient to chemo for 7:20. Bed is calling.
Posting one film photo, one of my faves from Wakefield (Quebec).
Would’ve made this a haiku, but brain shutting down in 3, 2, 1…

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