As the summer draws to a close I’ve been thinking about how things have gone this year. So far its been a year of ups and downs with both my photography and personal life. My wife and I are in the process of relocating to Inverness which is proving to be taking much longer than either of us imagined. Laura got a job in Inverness pretty quickly and so far I’ve had no success, the job market has pretty much dried up especially in the world of IT Support. I’ve had a couple of interviews so far and I’m currently waiting to hear if I’ve been successful with the most recent interview. Laura also took very ill in June and baffled the medical profession for some time, thankfully she seems to be on the mend now. Hopefully she’ll be able to go back to work soon.
My decision to start using film again has proved to be a good one and has yielded some of the best images I’ve ever taken so far. There have been numerous mistakes along the way, partly down to lack of familiarity with the medium format gear I’m using and partly down to me forgetting to check things. Modern digital SLRs are impressive and the results that the latest generations are yielding seem very good, however for me there is something missing from the final image (and no its not the lack of grain!). Its really hard to describe the difference but put simply I feel that the colours and tones you get from film are better. Medium Format digital backs which record in 16-bit colour get pretty close in many respects but the cost of switching to such a system is prohibitive for me.
So the big question is, will I continue to use film or will I simply go back to digital? I’ve thought about this for a while now and film is the winner. Ok so there are going to be running costs i.e. film and processing and I won’t get to see the results instantly but for me the quality of the final results are more important than either of those.
Please note that I’m not saying digital photography is bad – I’ve been shooting digital for the last three years! I’ve just reached a point where I find the results from film to be more satisfactory, its a personal thing.
Here are three images that I’ve taken on film this year. The first image was taken on my Mamiya M645J with a 45mm Lens. The last two were taken on a Mamiya RB67 with a 65mm lens. All three were shot on Velvia 50.
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The one thing that I’ve not mentioned for a while is my charity calendar. Unfortunately I’m not going to be producing a 2010 calendar as I’ve simply not had the time to get all the images that I wanted. Providing that I manage to get a job in Inverness soon I do hope to be able to start working towards a 2011 calendar, this will also depend on whether I can find a sponsor to cover the printing costs. I will keep you posted on this.
That’s the end of my update, I’ll try and post more regularly to the blog from now on. Until next time… take care!
