Long live film
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be gifted a film camera. Throughout my time with photography I’ve always shot digital. I started with a Nikon 3400 then fell in love with the Fuji XT20, switched to the XT3. I currently shoot with the Fuji X Pro 3. I was given not only a film camera but a medium format film camera, the Bronica ETRS.
Last Friday I meet up with a good friend of mine and we did a little portrait shoot in Central Park. I’m still in the process of learning about film and correctly exposing for a scene, it feels like learning photography all over again. With medium format film you have to buy “120 film”. 120 film only has 15 shots but because of the big size a lot of detail is captured on each shot.
After a few technical mistakes we finally got around to taking pictures. These are my favorites from my very first roll of 120 film. The film stock I used was Portra 400. I also edited them very lightly once I got the images back.
Warm weather street portraits
This January cold has me wishing for warmer days. Going through my photos I realized I took a lot of portraits on the street last September. I never shared those so I’ll show a few of the ones I liked the best. Hopefully the sun and lack of clothing bring you some warmth.
I think this portrait has the most impact artistically. His hair is loud he has a full sleeve but contrary to what that may suggest he looks very reserved and the gate adds to the lonely feeling in this shot.
Which you prefer? Color or the black and white?
Shoot Day (1/16/21)
Yesterday I was able to meet up with Kya for a dope photo shoot. We meet last summer and spoke briefly but never got to actually shoot. I had a studio booked and was going to shoot with someone else but unfortunately they couldn’t make it so I messaged Kya and she happened to be free.
This was one of the easiest shoots I’ve done. Kya is a natural and made all the shots come out amazing. She had two different outfits and we used three different background colors. Honestly almost every shot came out amazing but I’ve got 10 favorites for you guys to look at and enjoy.
If it’s up to me we’ll definitely link and shoot again and thanks to Kya again for coming in to shoot last minute.
There was a lot of smiling in this shoot but this photo, I think, made the biggest one between both of us. Definitely my photo of the day.
Kya is actually a nail tech so in some of the shoots we wanted to try and incorporate her nails.
Final street photos of 2020
2020 was a crazy year all around there’s no denying that. I was thinking about doing a “best of” but since I have some new photos that I took recently this post will be about the final photos I took in 2020.
Because I put some of my best work here it seems like I only take good shots but these didn’t come easy for me. I took a lot of bad shots (in my opinion) and a few good ones. Through the whole time I felt like I was doing terrible.
When I’m away from shooting I feel like I lose my “eye” and my reaction to situations isn’t as bold or quick. The key honestly to liking your work, and I think this is anything you do, is repetition. Practice as much as you can and eventually you’ll figure out how to get things how you want it.
These photos might feel a little different but I hope you guys enjoy.
This was taken with my 23mm f2 lens (they all were!) so it’s 35mm equivalent. I have a love hate relationship with this focal length sometimes it feels too wide and other times it’s perfect. This was perfect.
One of my favorite. The lady to the right was nosey.
Only could have been better if she was walking towards me. (This was actually taken with my 50mm f2)
The (artistic) shot. I wanted to get a kind of safari vibe going unfortunately it was too dark out to really get the look I wanted but I think it came out pretty good.
Definitely my favorite photo I love the lady behind the glass (in red) and how she’s illuminated by her lights. It feels like peeking into something personal.
Where’s the owner? He looked sad, it’s crazy the emotions in dogs eyes. (50mm f2)
We established that I love red right? Also love when shadows cut the face.
Shoot day (12-30-20)
I’m really lazy so I think all my post about shooting a model will be titled “Shoot day”. It’ll be a little series within the blog. Today I had the chance to meet, hang out and shoot with Iniko. We took some really cool pictures (shout out to Calvin Klein ads) and had a good time. Hopefully we do it again sometime. These are my favorites. Enjoy, thoughts always welcome.
