Tuesday, September 30, 2008

making a case for film photography

So I was recently looking at some medium format negatives that I recently developed at the MJC photography lab where I've been volunteering a few hours a week every semester for the past 8 years. These rolls of black and white Ilford Delta 100 speed film had been sitting in my camera bag for the course of the past few seasons where they've been slowly accumulating. Not really having any time to make prints from them yet, I decided to scan a few negatives to see what the exposures looked like.

With the constantly evolving realm of digital photography, many disregard the 150 years of photographic technique that preceded 'digital's' recent introduction to the playing field. But black and white print out processes, were really the only way things were done up until the late '60s and early '70s when color photography made its way to the scene.

There are still film techniques such as the zone system, (a scientific photographic process designed by world renowned photographer Ansel Adams) that amaze me to this day. I use the zone system as often as I can for my film photography.
This shot was taken north of Vernalis off of Hwy 33 during a foggy/overcast day in Winter '08.
These two were taken of the McShane corp. building going up in the West Patterson Business Park.
I like to show the black border of the edges of the negative, whenever possible. It shows that I didn't crop the image at all, and that the original image that I previsualized, is exactly what you the viewer sees. Alot of documentary photographers in the 60's and 70's printed in this matter to really emphasize their credibility.
Here's a shot from the north eastern corner of California up on the Modoc Plateau.

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