film is not dead.

I don't usually shoot film. I think it is beautiful, I love the tangibility of film, but I'm just not patient enough for it. The instant gratification that my digital camera offers me is hard to beat. I can see the shot right away, and start editing as soon as I can upload the files onto my computer. No sending the film off to a lab, waiting for them to developing it and scan it (or scan it myself), and then seeing the images. The last time I shot film was for my darkroom tech class which was almost a year ago. But last week for some reason I decided I wanted to take film to Europe. When I shoot film I use my dads old Canon AE-1, which is probably over 30 years old. It has a few glitches so I was hesitant to haul it. Friday in class I realized the answer to my problem! Travis was asking if anyone wanted to check out a tripod for the trip and I remembered the school has like 10 Holgas. I would take a Holga!

see the blue thing in the bottom? That's my Holga!

Now that I had my new toy I needed film to go with it. How many rolls of film would I need? Black and white or color? I didn't want to run out, but I didn't want too much either. When it comes to camera stuff I can be rather impulsive... So I figured I would cover all of my bases. I bought 5 rolls of Portra 400, and 5 rolls of Illford HP5 Plus. I had some 35 mm film hanging around so I rigged up a set up with rubber bands and foam so I could use that as well. All in all I'm taking 13 rolls of film. b'm really excited for the Portra since I've never shot color film before!


p.s. I think I scared Travis a little bit when I posted the above photo on instagram. He thought all of the film was 35 mm (Holga's take 120). Don't fret Travis I'm smart enough to buy the right kind of film for my camera.