It seems that everything eventually has a resurgence … fashions, hair styles, long playing records and …. film… I’m seeing more and more photos tagged #35mm or such to indicate that actual film was used in creating the image.

Having started my photographic journey with black and white film at school in the 70s I was eager to have a crack at this emerging trend that seems to have been mostly embraced by the young folk..

So utilising an old Canon AE1 35mm that I was given a few yeas ago and my mother’s even older Russian made Leningrad 4 light meter, I loaded an Ilford black and white film I was given for my birthday, and as a companion to my DSLR took it away on a weekend down south at the Donnelly River Village.

It had been a while so in the days leading up to going away, I had some research and learning to do on how to use a light meter.

And not only how to use the Canon but also how to load the film (something that was a little more fiddly than I remembered) … Now I could have used the inbuilt light meter in the camera and I did take some shots on Auto.. but because I shoot using manual mode on my DSLR I find that I have become very distrustful that the camera will give me the exposure I want.

So anyway it was a fantastic weekend away with good friends and I got some great shots.. with my digital camera … as for the 35mm I had no idea ?

I took about 30 frames on the roll of 36 over that weekend and found it an interesting experience. For a start having to use the light meter to get some exposure options and then having to dial them into the camera took way longer than I would of liked.

I did find that I would take a photo with the DSLR and if it looked good I would then take the same shot with the 35mm.

I found it hard to get used to having to wind the film on before taking a photo and probably missed some great shots as a result (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it) I also learned that looking at the back of the camera (chimping) after taking the shot serves absolutely no useful purpose what so ever.

Once I had put the film in to get developed ($67.00 thank you very much) I was a little excited in having to wait to see them, a feeling I hadn’t experienced in a long time, and even more exciting was picking them up from the post-office half a week later, and rushing home to have a look.

I was a real trip down memory lane opening the package and catching a glimpse of the prints along with the contact sheets and those negative thingies.. and the smell .. I haven’t smelt the fixing chemical smell in decades but it was just sooo familiar.

Then came the looking at the results … to be honest I had high expectations, It was a good camera I had used a high quality film and the place that processed it was probably one of the best in Perth.

Having to use manual focus I had expected to have a number of soft shots so that was OK, and I was happy that the exposures were all really good but one thing I didn’t expect was the amount of grain that was in the photos for a film with a ASA of only 125.

What follows is a selection of the photos I took and although they have been digitised there is no editing.

I love black and white photography and always look at my colour photos for the right image that will look great converted to Black and white … but shooting a B&W film is a different ball game completely and you really have to be able to understand what makes a great monochrome photo before you take the shot .

When my partner Fiona was looking through the photos she got about half way in and exclaimed “Black and white photos are so boring” I certainly don’t subscribe to that point of view but anyway ….

I better get coluorizing….