Film Photography #1 – Cascade Mountains & Oregon Coast

Recently, my friend James O’Shea convinced me to try out film photography. It makes sense since my fiancé and roommate are both professional photographers. I’ve had an interest in film in the past due to the intentionality of it. The film photography community in Portland is also wonderful and Blue Moon Camera{:target="_blank"} is a great local shop that is supportive of people of ALL experiences.

James pushed me into the film world by thrusting preloaded BRANCA into my hands just in time for a guys backpacking trip at Opal Creek in Oregon over the weekend of January 5th – 7th, 2018. I was nervous, really had no idea how to set the exposure and aperture properly but had a guide (James) to help me out.

When I picked up the developed film, the studio told me they wanted to use one of my photos for their social media account. I immediately thought all of my shots were gold and I was hot shit. More accurately I just got lucky. Below are the results.

Here is the first shot I took with the camera with help from James on January 6th. We were camping down river about 1000 feet from here.

Camera: Bronica ETRSi
Film: 400TX (120)

Next I decided to venture off and try some photos on my own. The forest was so dark I adjusted the shutter speed SUPER low on some of the shots to compensate and it shows.

Here is the money shot – the photo Blue Moon wanted to use for their social media account. My friend Kyle wanted to dip his face into the creek. Mind you, it was only barely above freezing outsize and the creek was crisp. I decided to try to capture this moment on film. I myself was precariously on the edge of the creek and set the camera on a rock, set the aperture / shutter speed to a guess, and took the photo from my hip. I got very lucky.

I love this next shot from January 7th. This is the famous James with his Hasselblad. I took WAY too long to take this shot (probably about 3 minutes).