After 35 years as a photographer I think I have finally found the creative process that works for me.
For most of my career I have strived for technical perfection. When I began in photography I shot large format and medium format film and eschewed 35mm in a quest for the highest resolving power possible. I mastered the zone system and I can show you contact prints that have a complete tonal range. I was never satisfied with film photography however because I didn’t have the patience to get everything out of it. I learned how to make contrast and sharpening masks and still wasn’t satisfied.
Digital photography seemed to offer me even greater control over the images. As cameras have gotten better and better it is extremely easy to get a sharp photo. The craft in digital is in the editing process where again I have mastered the art of Photoshop.
Unfortunately, that quest was an invalid one as perfect images seem to lack soul and emotion. Craft is important and I have thoroughly enjoyed the journey but I still seemed to be missing something that made my heart sing.
Abandoning the medium aspect of craft I began focusing on composition and the aesthetics of depth of field. I found wide angle lenses didn’t work for my internal vision of the world. I found that my cell phone was often my favorite camera because it was always there with me. Through trial and error I have found a small compact camera that works for me extremely well. It is a digital camera however. It’s small sensor size really emphasizes the pixels of the image which is simply not as smooth as my full frame cameras. However, size and form factor wins out when it comes to my travel photography. My newest camera is the Sony RX100 VII. It’s as small as a cell phone camera and has the equivalent zoom range of 24-200mm.
I’ve written all this before so what is the new aspect of my creative process that I am so excited about? It is the patina of real film photography.
I have been conducting some more experiments with taking my digital images and projecting them on my 27″ 5K retina studio display and rephotographing the images onto ISO 3200 film using my dad’s old Nikon F2. My hypothesis was that the film grain would eliminate the predictable pattern of pixels and add a warmth and depth to the images when printed in the darkroom.
What is really fascinating is that I find myself actualy re-exploring the image with the film camera and making slightly new compositions. Sarah and I just came back from Walla Walla where we visited the bird aviary in Pioneer Park. The small lens barrel allowed me to poke my camera through the fencing and get unobstructed views in most of the chain link fencing. Only the smallest and tightest fencing caused me to have a blurry foreground element.
These images are simultaneously tack sharp and soft. The softness of film with the hardness of digital seems to really speak to me and I think this will be a process I go back to over and over again. Film grain creates a patina on digital images that elevates the final image to something more… at least for me.
