OK, so I have and often still do shoot digital camera’s and have nothing at all against them, the process, the convenience or the ability to view and share the images digitally. I completely understand the benefits that digital photography provides. The vastly more efficient workflows, the commercial efficiency, the ease of incorporating the images into other materials. Digital simply makes sense. Is it superior? Well that is the wrong question in my mind. It is certainly different. It is in its own way a technical improvement as photography was a technical improvement form human capture of images by sketching or painting. But sketching and painting are what they are. They are human and interactive. They are different. Analog film photography is much the same. It is a medium like sketching, or printmaking, or painting. But so is digital photography. It is a medium. It is a similar medium and yet a different medium. Digital photography is derivative of the algorithms the digital camera makers build into their cameras. Film is derivative of the formulation of the film and the chemistry that is used to develop it, to print it.
Over the past few months I have been assembling tools, camera equipment, to again dive into film photography. In some ways this is return pilgrimage to where I started with this so many years ago and to a place I have returned to at several times along this life journey. This has been an on and off relationship with film photography that has interested me, drawn me back so many times before and does so again. I have been over the time assembling various 4x5 camera gear and lenses. I have also been looking at cameras that are a bit more transportable. 120 film cameras that fold up and fit into your pocket. The common man folding cameras that shoot 120 film. A Ventura 66 Deluxe, “US Zone, 6x6 format and an Ansco Viking 6x9 format folder. They are simple. Lens, shutter, aperture, bellows, and film advance winding spools. No built in meter, no automation, just photographer, simple camera and film. Then to be processed and printed in a darkroom. Now we would likely scan the negatives to allow it to be shared and viewed online. Another, even simpler camera is a plastic 4x5 camera outfit without a lens but instead a pinhole. The camera obscura. The simplest of cameras. Instead of 4x5 film holders I equipped it with an old Graflex Graphic 22, 120 film holder 6x6 format film holder. So now we are off on another simple journey. Another adventure in film photography. Focused on the images. Not the technology or the convenience. The simplicity. The human interaction with subject, simple device, light and film. Not easy. the real raw image capture system.
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| Ansco 6x9 and Ventura Deluxe 66 |
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| Ventura 66 and Ansco 6x9 |
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| Chinese Plastic 4x5 Camera with Graflex 22 |
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| Chinese 4x5 with Pinhole lens |
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| Chines Pinhole camera with Graflex 22 120 6x6 film back |
