A couple of months ago, I decided to try my hand at film photography. I ventured into town to a camera shop to see what second hand film camera I could pick up. The guy in the shop was very helpful and helped me pick out an Olympus om-10 – a pretty good, popular camera of its time, I understand. With no idea how to use the camera I spent the next few days learning how. Although I have my digital camera and always use the manual settings, having the benefit of looking at the photo straight away allows me to adjust settings if necessary. Using film requires more skill than this as you cannot look at the photo straight away and therefore getting the setting right before taking the photo is slightly more complicated. Having done some research, I felt pretty excited to take my first photo.
It took some time to get used to not looking at the back of the camera to see the photo I had taken (I am still looking the back of the camera!). Each photo took time in the planning – what was the lighting like and the composition of the photo. The part of photography I love is the process of taking the photo and the experience involved so taking photos with film was fab. I will say it was difficult to not just snap away since I was limited to 36 photos. But I loved that. It made me think a lot more about what I was doing and what I actually wanted to take photos of. Taking photos in black and white was also a different experience and made me think about the textures found in each subject and landscape.
Then there was the wait; the wait of having finished the film, taking it to the printers to be developed and printed. The first time I felt the photos in my hand was a wonderful feeling. The downside of digital photography, I have found is that often we look at the photos on screen and on a device is where they stay. But having something physical to touch, feel was wonderful. Seeing those photos for the first time, months after each photo was taken filled me with great joy. There was nothing quite like it. The best part of seeing these photos was that you could actually see the content of the photo – they were neither over or under-exposed. A win for someone who has never taken photos on film before! Plus they had an ‘old’ feel about them – like they were taken years ago.
I can’t wait to continue on this film journey and see what else I produce. I hope you too, have enjoyed these photos as much as I did.
Capturing Simple Beauty Photography 
[…] A few years ago, during one summer holiday I bought a second-hand film camera. Now I don’t mean film as in videography but film as in photography where you have to load a film into the back of the camera and don’t get the instant feedback from the back screen like you do on a digital camera. I absolutely loved learning to use it and I was so excited to get my first film developed. I wrote about it here. […]
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[…] *https://capturingsimplebeauty.com/2022/05/13/black-and-white/ https://capturingsimplebeauty.com/2022/04/29/a-journey-into-film/ https://capturingsimplebeauty.com/2017/10/08/the-time-i-used-film/ […]
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