Madison Hyer

Interview: Victoria Oliver

“I long for tangible connection and the creation of physical art from my heart and hands. This is why I love film. It is magical, chemical alchemy.”

Victoria is a film photographer living in the Blue Ridge mountain area. Her work is beautiful and often inspires me to get out, explore, and shoot more often. Her instagram dedicated to her film work can be found here and, in addition, her instagram showcasing all of her work both in front of and behind the camera can be found here.

JM – Tell me a bit about yourself.

VO – I live in the Appalachian mountains, just below the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in a small town surrounded by forest service and national forest areas. I have always laughingly called myself a Jill-of-all-trades, because my mind never wants to settle with only one project. I am always restless and ready to go. Seeking to reconcile my day job with my desire to be a gypsy born in another century.

VO – Want to hit the open road, climb a tree, or spontaneously take off to hike a mountaintop? I’m your girl! But I will also spend hours reading a good book, working in my garden, or cooking plant-based recipes in my old sun soaked kitchen, surrounded by orchids and houseplants. With good music, always. I am a jewelry artist, hiker, writer, painter, art model, and have only recently felt comfortable adding “photographer” to that list. As an artist I find it hard to credit my own work for fear of sounding too self-absorbed… but I was recently published in a magazine, so I guess it’s actually real now, right??

JM – For being somewhat new to film, your body of work is very impressive on both sides of the glass. What made you move towards expressing your work with film?

VO – Thank you so much! I am incredibly honored and excited, because I respect your work so much. Your website and interviews have been one of my most consistently read sources of inspiration since I started shooting film. I think honestly it comes down to 3 things: budget, depth of connection, and nostalgia.

VO – Have you ever read about the differences your brain undergoes when you are immersed in nature, and away from modern technology? I am very fascinated by this, and love getting away from digital devices and screens, but still documenting the beauty I see around me. I have always loved old photographs. As I tried to decide which fancy new camera I wanted, and frankly couldn’t afford; I realized I edited most of my photos to look like film anyway, and I was starting to follow film photographers, so why not shoot film? I was so excited by this realization. Then, my first film camera was a gifted Nikon FM10, and I just grew really inspired with that.

JM – How would you describe your style?

VO – I long for tangible connection and the creation of physical art from my heart and hands. This is why I love film. It is magical, chemical alchemy. I think that my style is a fledgling thing right now. It changes depending on the light, the subject, and whether or not I am traveling. I am incredibly influenced by mood, and the feeling of the place I am in. I would say that I am seeking to create work that is impulsive but thoughtful, adventurous, feminine, strong, and experimental.

JM – What is your favorite film? Do you have a favorite camera?

VO – My Nikon FM10. My fascination only grows as I experiment with the differences a new film stock can create; so that may be an ever-changing preference for me! At the moment I prefer Kodak film, because I prefer a warmer, less saturated tone to my work. I am very fond of Kodak Pro Image 100. That stock is always in my camera bag! Even though it is a daylight balanced film, it has shown incredible flexibility for my shooting style. Also Kodak Gold. I know it is a cheaper, consumer-grade film, but the colors are just beautiful. Recently I have been shooting Kodak Portra 800, Ilford HP5, Kodak Ektar, and Kodak UltraMax as well.

JM – What drives you to photograph?

VO – I have modeled for artistic projects sporadically since I was a teenager, and I started realizing I had ideas that I wanted to create for myself. As a jewelry artist, I wanted to shoot portfolio images, and as a hiker, I wanted to document the beautiful places I traveled through. Creating photographic art (especially with film), is almost like creating a painting. Learning to manipulate and capture the light based on the film-stock you have chosen; visualize and pose your subject to convey a story, and then capture the angle and the composition to create drama and a sense of connection. It is about creating something just a little bit MORE than the physical scene in front of you. And sometimes you throw all of that out the window and shoot just to capture a candid moment! For me it is about capturing a feeling. Does that make sense?

JM – What is a personal goal you have for your photography?

VO – One day I hope to complete a book or travel ‘zine. As such, a huge goal for me would be to shoot enough film work I am proud of to sit alongside my words and complete that dream. To build a compelling portfolio of work and the aesthetic to present my own jewelry designs one day, and to learn to develop and scan my own film.

“I tend to shoot what I connect with, and most of my photos hold stories and emotion for me. So, “best” or “most beautiful” photo would be one thing, but ‘favorite'”

JM – Do you find yourself more comfortable as a model or photographer?

VO – Honestly, when I model I feel like I wear an alter ego. That alter ego is someone a lot more graceful and evocative than my down-to-earth, introverted self! I can find a place of being very comfortable there, but I am more empowered and fulfilled as a photographer.

JM – What is your favorite shot you’ve ever taken? What’s the story behind it?

VO – Ohhhhh, picking a favorite photo is very hard for me. I tend to shoot what I connect with, and most of my photos hold stories and emotion for me. So, “best” or “most beautiful” photo would be one thing, but “favorite” probably has to go to a really special photo I took for my brother. When he and his wife welcomed their second baby, they were deeply involved with starting their own business, and could not afford professional infant/family portraits. It was winter, and shooting film indoors was completely outside my experience. But I did a lot of reading, picked a great film stock (Portra 800), and went for it. Keep in mind manual focus with a 2 year old and a 1 week old! I am incredibly proud of this image, and it means a lot emotionally.

JM – In what ways has your photography grown and improved since you started shooting film?

VO – My photography experience pre-film mostly consisted of detail shots for my jewelry work, snapshots on trips, and hiking photos on my phone. I started working very hard to make my hiking photos just a little bit different and capture a unique style as I told my stories for a growing social media account. Since I started shooting film, I feel that I actually have something of quality to offer, and that has given me the confidence to reach out to other photographers and models to collaborate, so practice, practice, practice. Film is both effortless, because it is naturally beautiful but also incredibly hard! There are so many variables, and it really makes me slow down and focus. There are no screens to check, no bursts to make sure you caught the movement, and each shot literally costs $$, so I take it a bit more seriously. But I also shoot a lot of experimental work just to see how it turns out, or to push the expectations with a specific film, and that has led to a lot of valuable lessons.

More of Victoria’s work can be seen below:

Innsbruck, AT: New City, New Film – Acros II & Ortho Plus

If you’re wondering why I decide to take my annual trip to the mountains between March and April, the answer is simple. It’s generally still very cold so the summer tourists haven’t shown up yet but the height of skiing and snowboarding is past. As a result, the area is bit less packed out and the trails have started reopening (if they were ever closed). Not to mention that at the times the airfare is a good deal less expensive as are the hotels.

Anyhow – on this particular trip, we left for a couple week trip in Germany and western Austria just as the novel corona virus was troubling northern Italy but before it started being so widespread. On the day we were flying back, we learned there were several documented cases of COVID-19 in Innsbruck and luckily for us we were able to be screened a couple days after being back. With the self quarantine that we are still currently in, I’ve been able to get all the B&W and C-41 developed and scanned. On the trip I was able to try out the new Acros and Ilford Ortho in 120 and 35mm.

Fuji Neopan Acros II

I think this emulsion was the best film stock of all the film I went through on my trip. The rolls in 35mm were quite gorgeous and capable of producing some wonderful prints – I shot all of those in the Friedberg and Frankfurt area. The 120 was shot in Innsbruck and man, are the resulting frames just beautiful. Very low grain and high acutance made for some spectacular photographs that I’m very excited to make prints of.

As I mentioned above, I shot 2 rolls of 120 and 2 rolls of 35mm. The 2 35mm rolls were not shot in the Alps but I thought they were splendid. I’ll share some of those frames below.

Ilford Ortho Plus

What an interesting film. If I’m being entirely honest, I was very nervous to shoot this stock. I was excited by the build up around it and some of the 4×5 work I had seen but have heard mixed feelings about the 120 and 35mm emulsions. I can see why too. For an 80 ASA film, the grain was quite a good deal aggressive and very weird. I cannot say that I’m in love with the stock nor that I intend to buy it again any time soon. Of the 2 rolls of 35mm that I took, we only shot through one of them and even that one was shot by my buddy Brandon. To start, I’ll go through some of the 120 shots.

I actually prefer the shots from the 35mm. Perhaps it was the focal length (45mm) or Brandon’s eye that caught such nice frames. Either way – the results were intriguing.

Interview: Monika Murren

“I like to document moments and places that feel both intimate and otherworldly and magical.”

Monika is a photographer that I met on Instagram like many of the other people I’ve interviewed but her body of work is uniquely personal. The work that she publishes on her instagram is inspiring and she even sells some of her prints on her website.

JM: Tell me a bit about yourself.

MM: I am was born and raised in Poland but have spent most of my adult life now in the US. I currently live in the Hudson Valley, about an hour north of New York City. I feel lucky to live in such a beautiful place, surrounded by incredible nature and yet so close to a big city. It inspires my photography daily. I have always been curious about the world having grown up in back-then communist Poland and not having access to the rest of the world. I knew there was a greater world outside and it motivated me to learn to speak other languages and then to travel and eventually photograph the world.

JM: Why do you shoot film?

MM: I started shooting digital first but quickly learned that if you wanted to truly understand photography, you had to go back to the roots and learn about film and manual exposure as well as using manual lenses. I fell in love with the process of shooting photos that way, it required more planning, focus and attention to composition.

JM: How would you describe your style?

MM: I like to document moments and places that feel both intimate and otherworldly and magical. I want to be able to look at a photo and instantly feel transported to that place and be able to imagine the light, smell and sound in the scene. in other words, a photo should be able to activate your senses and your imagination.

JM: What is your favorite film? Camera?

MM: Without question, my Mamiya 7ii medium format 6×7 is my favorite camera. I have been shooting with it for over 12 years and can’t imagine my life as a photographer without it.

JM: What drives you to photograph?

MM: I love the process of creating each photo, it’s both very exciting and carries an element of surprise, especially when you shoot with film.

“I am aware that our natural world is changing around us, many landscapes forever lost and documenting those places to remember them as they are now is so crucial and there is an urgency in that for me here are my images”

JM: What is a personal goal you have for your photography?

MM: I would love to be able to have my own gallery one day where I could display the photos. They look beautiful when they are printed large and framed. It’s a shame that we mostly look at tiny images on instagram nowadays.

JM: What do you look for in a photograph? Is what you find compelling in a photograph different when it’s one of your photographs compared with one from someone else?

MM: I look for beautiful composition, light, harmony of colors or black and white tones.

JM: What is your favorite shot you’ve ever taken? What’s the story behind it?

MM: It’s very hard to choose one, but one that’s very special for me is my image from the White Sands National Park in New Mexico. I was very much inspired by the work of Gary Winogrand at the time and this image combines both such a beautifully striking landscape with a modern picnic bench. it just looks like it’s from another world and the light and the colors are so vivid and warm in spite of the freezing morning temperatures in the high desert of New Mexico. It feels very timeless to me now.

JM: In what ways has your photography grown and improved since you started shooting film?

MM: I constantly try to improve my technical skills as well as my composition. Photography is ever evolving and changing. I think I am more deliberate in what I photograph now. I used to photograph people more and I still love it, but places and landscapes inspire me more. I am aware that our natural world is changing around us, many landscapes forever lost and documenting those places to remember them as they are now is so crucial and there is an urgency in that for me here are my images. the last one is the one from White Sand

More of Monika’s work can be seen below:

Review: Kodak TMax 100

Kodak’s TMax 100 has quickly become my favorite black and white film I’ve ever shot. The slow speed of ASA 100 does prevent me from using it much of the winter here in Ohio so I started using it more in a studio environment and that’s where I’ve really fallen in love with it.

Tone

Being that this is a black and white film, there isn’t anything to say about color but there’s a lot to say about the tones of this film. Compared with some of its more muted tone Ilford counterparts, this film does a great job of covering more of the zone spectrum. My first experience with the film was in Banff in 2019 when I shot a few rolls of it along side a surviving roll of Acros. At the time I don’t think I truly appreciated the quality of this film. The lights are so bright and the darks are so strong – the contrast have been truly wonderful.

Portraits

This is where I’ve really taken a liking to this film stock. This film in my RB67 performs so well, I wonder why even get out the 4×5. Honestly – as much as I zoom into the photograph, all I get is detail, detail, and more detail. All of this without any grain I can notice. Even though I would say this has become my favorite portrait film, I’ve continued trying out other films – most recently Ilford’s Delta 100. Thought to be Kodak’s TMax 100 counterpart, I went into the experience with my hopes up that I would have found a new film I like just as much but at a fairly significant lower cost. Instead, I found myself pining for TMax 100 more.

Pushing/Pulling

I do not have any experience pushing or pulling this film as of yet. I could see myself pushing it at some point if the situation was right but I cannot imagine a time or place when I would want to pull it.

Conclusion

I will continue to buy this film and shoot it as one of my favorites for the foreseeable future. The price hike Kodak implemented in 2020 was frustrating at the cost of this film rose enough to push me towards trying other films. As you probably read in the section on Portraits, one such alternative film I tried was Ilford’s Delta 100. For whatever reason, it didn’t dawn on me at the time that Ilford’s alternative is just as expensive if not more so. So, I will continue to shoot and give other 100 ASA black and white films a go just to see how they compare but I think I’ve found my home with TMax 100. With that said, I’ve yet to shoot through any of Acros II (I have some ordered but am saving them for a trip to the Alps in a month) which I may love even more; however, it is nearly double the price of TMax 100 so the odds of it becoming my everyday B&W portrait film is very unlikely.

Interview: Ioana Lungu

Ioana is a film photographer from Bucharest, Romania currently living in Ethiopia. Her work has a great personal touch that inspires me. Her instagram can be found here.

JM: What got you into photography?

IL: I’ve always been searching for moments that feel like home, and tried to make them stay. Mostly these were times spent with my friends, we were all a bit lost and trying to reconcile our full-time jobs and studies with a deeper yearning for moral and aesthetic ideals. This, and urban spaces or light-soaked afternoons spent at home, reading, talking or making food for loved ones made me want to reach out for the camera. There’s a quiet, muted poetry in mundane moments and I wanted to capture that in images.

JM: Why do you shoot film?

IL: I got my first film camera as a gift and started using it because buying a digital one was, to put it simply, too expensive for my broke student life. The first rolls of film I shot were a disaster – getting used to a rusty 1970s Fujica without a functioning light meter wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. However, I kept shooting out of lack of alternatives and gradually fell in love with the look of film, but also with the meaningfulness of it all. Shooting film allows me to capture each moment consciously, and the fact that I only have 36 shots makes me think twice about what’s worth shooting and what not. Film feels like a craft, one that takes perseverance to master.

JM: How would you describe your style?

IL: Personal, unplanned, impulsive.

JM: What is your favorite film? Camera?

IL: Portra 400 and my old Fujica ST701.

JM: What drives you to photograph?

IL: I want to be able to capture intimacy, whichever form that takes.There’s nothing more touching and fascinating to me than people, the way they interact with each other and the space around them, the bonds we have and the way we relate to the world. That is why I am not interested in staged shots but rather aim to capture spontaneous moments of magic.

JM: What is a personal goal you have for your photography?

IL: I want to photograph more, something I don’t always manage to do due to having a full-time job. I also want to overcome my shyness and ask people to let me photograph them more. Especially in East Africa, that’s not always an easy job, as people tend to be reluctant to have their picture taken by a stranger on the street.

JM: What do you look for in a photograph? Is what you find compelling in a photograph different when it’s one of your photographs compared with one from someone else?

IL: I mostly look for emotion, the photograph has to stir something in me. Often it can be the colour scheme, the light or the subject. What draws me is a certain look of authenticity, a dreaminess that looks natural. I’d say I’m looking for the same things in my photography as well.

JM: What is your favorite shot you’ve ever taken? What’s the story behind it?

IL: I took this photo after a long absence from Addis. I’d been gone to Europe for 1.5 months, officially expatriating myself and erasing all traces of my previous life in Vienna. I was a bit afraid of what it would feel like to arrive back in Ethiopia and if it would still feel right to commit the next years of my life to being there. When I got home at 6 AM, completely exhausted after a night flight, everyone was sleeping. I stood by myself in the living room, the sunrise light quietly flooding everything, and took a picture of this one solitary rose stuck in a bottle of wine. I knew then and there that this is home, that there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be.

JM: In what ways has your photography grown and improved since you started shooting film?

IL: I’ve grown more patient. I am more open to accidents, to pictures not turning out quite the way I wanted them to. I’ve also grown more confident in my style and have identified the direction I want to go in. I’d say my photography has become more purposeful, I’d rather take my time and shoot something that feels right to me than aimlessly produce images just for the sake of doing something.

More of Ioana’s work can be seen below:

Superstition Mountains: New City, New Film – Ilford FP4 & Fujichrome Velvia 100

This past trip to Arizona was my third time visiting and every time I go, I grow more and more in love with the environment. Last year when we went, we visited Flagstaff but this year we split our time between Sedona and the Superstitions.

Prior to heading out, I picked up several rolls of Ilford FP4 and at a camera shop in Phoenix, I picked up some Velvia 100. In Sedona I was shooting through a lot of Ektar and Provia and didn’t manage to load up the FP4 or Velvia until we rolled into the Superstitions.

Admittedly, I didn’t particularly love either of these film stocks. Since the trip to AZ, I’ve shot through some 4×5 sheets of FP4 and didn’t much care for them either. That said, I’ve started developing my own B&W at home and have found that for some reason I’ve getting a lot more grain than I’m used to getting from the Darkroom so it may well be my own fault for not liking it.

In general, I expect 100ish (it’s 125) ASA film to have extremely fine grain. While I know that FP4 is a traditional grain structure and not T-grain, I still expected a bit less grain than I felt I was getting. In total, I’ve only gone through 3 rolls and 1 box of 4×5 sheets so I know I still need to give it a bit more practice before making a final judgement.

The Velvia produced my least favorite shots of the whole trip. Perhaps I’ve become accustomed to Provia too much and the difference wasn’t to my liking. It’s also possible that I was just shooting it in the wrong lighting. I started/finished the roll in the afternoon started with high sun and ending during the golden hour. There was a HUGE difference in the saturation and tones between those two situations. Perhaps if I shot the entire roll during the golden hour, I’d be singing a different tune. Either way – I’ve since picked up another roll and intend to give it another go.

Interview: Carl Fehres

” I absolutely love the process of shooting film, not seeing the results for days or even weeks. I love the slower pace of manually focusing and the limit of photos per roll causing me to really think about every frame, every image before I press the shutter button.”

Carl is a really talented portrait photographer out of Houston, TX. His polaroid work is the best I’ve seen and his other incredible work uses several other cameras including a Mamiya RZ67, Pentax 67II, and Leica M6. His website can be found here.

JM – Why do you shoot film?

CF – Man, how do I answer that… There’s so much I love about shooting film. I love that I’m getting the look I’ve been wanting with almost no editing after I get the images back from the lab. I absolutely love the process of shooting film, not seeing the results for days or even weeks. I love the slower pace of manually focusing and the limit of photos per roll causing me to really think about every frame, every image before I press the shutter button. The best part has to be scan day… getting email from the lab with a link to the files. Lastly, I love not spending hours editing digital files to try and make them look like something organic and natural.

JM – What is your favorite film? Camera?

CF – Unfair question – that’s like picking your favorite child. I would have to say the Leica M6 and Summicron 35mm lens with Portra 400 if I had to pick just one combination. The view through the Mamiya RZ67 is absolutely dream like and the results are incredible. It’s just not a camera that you can use every day.

JM – Of the film stocks you use, is there any rhyme or reason as to when you use one over another?

CF – I like Portra because it’s available in both 35 and 120 format. I’ve been trying Kodak Color 200 recently on shoots where I want more color pop, but unfortunately it’s not available in 120. I’ve used the Kodak Color 200 for all of the double exposure and most of the underwater work I’ve done recently.

CF – I shoot a lot of BW as well. I shoot a lot of BW when color will be an issue due to uneven or bad lighting. I also love using BW when shooting in harsh light. I use Kodak Tri-X 400 when shooting 120 and TMAX 400 for 35mm. The Tri-X has too much grain for my taste when shooting in 35mm format

JM – What proportion of your shots turn out as you hoped (or better)?

CF – I’ll normally shoot 80-120 Images on a shoot. I’ll typically post 80% of those for the model to review and pick from. I’m pretty selective with what I post to my portfolio and I’m happy if 2-3 images are portfolio worthy.

JM – How often do you find yourself doing a shoot with your car? What makes the difference between those shoots when you use it and those when you don’t?

CF – I don’t shoot with cars that often but it’s fun when I do. I like going into a shoot with some type of theme or style. Adding a fun vintage car or a really interesting location gives me something to work from.

JM – Would you say that your style has changed since you’ve started shooting film? What was the catalyst for this change?

CF – I like the quality of my work better now that I’m shooting film. I used to struggle with color more when I shot digital. I know I can change colors really easily in post processing with digital but you can spend hours trying to find the color pallet that matches your style, I don’t have that struggle with film. I don’t think my style has changed too much but the overall look and feel of my images is more organic and natural.

CF – As an experiment, a few months ago I shot with a medium format digital camera along side my normal film gear. I could hardly stand using the digital camera, shooting with it just felt so awkward to me compared to shooting my Mamiya RZ67. I got the images back on the computer and the digital camera raw images had insane amounts of dynamic range and detail. The digital camera had almost too much detail and the colors were uninspiring. I spent 30 minutes editing the the digital file to look as good as my film shot was straight from the lab. Once I was done I still preferred the look of the film file. It had less detail which I actually prefer when shooting portraits.

JM – What is a personal goal you have for your photography?

CF – Photography for me is a passion and a creative outlet. I’ve never considered myself creative. My person goal is to continue trying new things and learning and to work with as many creative people as I can.

“I’m drawn to photos that capture something unique and special, something that evokes an emotion or feeling.”

JM – What do you look for in a photograph? What do you look for in a photograph?

CF – I’m drawn to photos that capture something unique and special, something that evokes an emotion or feeling. I like a photo that tells a story, like a frame from a movie.

JM – What is your favorite shot you’ve ever taken? What’s the story behind it?

CF – My favorite changes every few months. Right now it would have to be the double exposure photo of @kim.vandageraad. It’s a shot that I could never have fully planned or imaged. I’ve been shooting flower exposed film from my friend Chase Hart @myfridayfilms. I don’t know how the first exposure was taken before I shoot the second exposure so results are a bit random and sometimes magic.

JM – If someone told you they were thinking of getting into film, what would your response/advice be?

CF – Just do it! Grab whatever camera you can pick up for cheap and go shoot a roll or two. It’s easy to get caught up with all the gear (and I love gear) but all you really need is a decent and cheap 35mm SLR and cheap fast lens to go make some magic.

CF – Start with black and white and get the process down. Black and white is actually pretty easy to develop and scan yourself so you can do this cheaply if you want to keep the costs down.

CF – Color is more tricky. Most film is daylight balanced so start by shooting outside or next to a window with natural light. Find a good lab you can work with and talk to them! Send them examples of work you want your final results to look like. Scanning color film is an art form and the lab needs to understand what your vision is.

More of Carl’s work can be seen below.

Interview: Nevin Johnson

“I want to make photographs that inspire people. I want to be an inspiration for those who have 9-5 jobs and can’t be travel photographers.”

Nevin’s work is an exceptional example of just how beautiful the east coast can be. His work includes film photography, digital photography, as well as some drone work. If you didn’t know he was just recently get into film, you would never know. His instagram account can be found here.

JM – Why do you shoot film?

NJ – This is a tough question to answer. Like most people my age, I learned the basics of photography on digital cameras. It wasn’t until later on that I picked up my first film camera. By that time, I had seen a lot of really good film work. The tones, the colors, and the variation between film stocks is what really got me interested in film. The added challenge of shooting a finite number of shots mixed with the style that one can achieve using film is what attracted me to shooting analog myself.

JM – I know you started out your serious photography endeavor shooting digital and have been increasingly moving into film. Is there a particular reason why? How much of the time are you shooting film vs digital?

NJ – This is exactly right. From the moment I shot my first roll, I knew there was something special about film. Set aside the fact you basically don’t need to edit your photos (minus highlight adjustments, tone curve, and minor details), film has a lot of attractive qualities to it. I find it helps me be a more intentional photographer. Given there are a finite amount of shots you can take makes me really think about a specific composition. I also really enjoy trying new film out…its kind of like trying out a new “preset”…each film stock has its own unique characteristics. Those characteristics can play into a given composition if you plan it right. This adds another challenge to the mix, but I look at it as an opportunity to learn which film stocks work well for which situations. As for how much I’m shooting film vs digital, most of the time I’m going out to shoot I have at least one form of film. That is my primary camera, I’m only using digital now as a backup… God forbid something goes wrong with the film, I don’t want to totally lose the composition. My preference is certainly film. I feel the results I get from shooting film achieve a level that my digital simply cannot replicate.

“Given there are a finite amount of shots you can take makes me really think about a specific composition.”

JM – What is your favorite film? Camera?

NJ – I’d say my favorite film stock is Portra 800. I gravitate towards the higher speed films because I like the grain. There’s something about Portra 800 that really speaks to my style of photography. Portras 400 and 160 are great as well (the whole portra lineup is wonderful), but 800 really hits it home for me. I like to shoot both 35mm and 120, but recently I’ve been gravitating towards shooting more 120. My camera of choice for this is my Hasselblad 500c.

JM – Would you say that your style has changed since you’ve started shooting film? What was the catalyst for this change?

NJ – Absolutely. Its pretty cliché at this point, but I find it to be true- film makes you think much more about your compositions. You have a finite amount of shots and there aren’t any do-overs. It makes me think twice about my composition and settings. I find this really benefits my photography as a whole.

JM – What is a personal goal you have for your photography?

“Composition aside, I feel that a great photo invokes emotion. For me that is through nature, but I know this can be done several ways. I find that most compelling photos tell a story.”

NJ – To be honest, photography is a hobby of mine. I don’t have any aspirations of quitting my day job to do this full time. I do however want to make photographs that inspire people. I want to be an inspiration for those who have 9-5 jobs and can’t be travel photographers. I recently started describing what i do on the weekends as “weekend wandering”…9-5 normal job during the week, and adventuring on the weekend. I live on the east coast so it isn’t quite as glamorous as living in the PNW or the rockies, but I try to find the interesting spots that are within a day’s drive. Inspiring those to find joy in shooting local to where one is, that is my goal.

JM – What do you look for in a photograph? Is what you find compelling in a photograph different when it’s one of your photographs compared with one from someone else?

NJ – I’ll say that I’m not a trained artist. I’ve never had any formal training in art or photography. My mom is a painter though and I have picked up some tips and tricks from her regarding composition. I try to follow most of the basic motifs- rule of thirds, foreground/middleground/background, etc….But recently I’ve been trying to focus on minimalism and minimalistic photos. If you can make a photo compelling without a whole lot going on in frame, then that is a pretty great photo in my opinion. I enjoy shooting and viewing this style of photography. I don’t feel that I judge my photos any differently than I would critique another’s. I believe it is pretty evident (for the most part) if a photo is compelling or not. Composition aside, I feel that a great photo invokes emotion. For me that is through nature, but I know this can be done several ways. I find that most compelling photos tell a story. So the final note i’ll say about what I look for in a photograph is the story it tells.

JM – What is your favorite shot you’ve ever taken? What’s the story behind it?

NJ – To be honest this is an extremely tough call.I’ll break it up into digital and film.

NJ – Digital: sunrise at East Point Lighthouse. I got up at 4am and booked it to the lighthouse. It looked like the sunrise would be a bust, but the sun poked through the clouds and lit up the lighthouse in such an incredible way. I was the only one there at the time so I had the moment all to myself. This one sticks out to me as my favorite.

NJ – Film: After a long exciting day of shooting with my wife in Newport, RI, we were on a sailboat for sunset. The wind died down and we enjoyed just floating in the bay, watching the sun go down. This was also my first roll of Portra 800. I snagged this one and it was instantly my favorite. The colors, grain texture, and composition speak to me. It brings me right back on that boat, watching the sunset with my wife.

JM – If someone told you they were thinking of getting into film, what would your response/advice be?

NJ – Dive head first! Shoot as many rolls as possible and experiment. Be deliberate about what you are shooting, you only have 36 exposure (or less if you shoot 120). Film has changed the way I shoot and continues to inspire me to improve as a photographer. I would hope that film could effect other photographers like it has with me.

More of Nevin’s work can be seen below:

Experiment 2: Kodak Portra 160 vs. Portra 400 vs. Portra 800

This article is going to compare Kodak films Portra 160, Portra 400, and Portra 800. For exposure testing data on Portra 400, Portra 400 shot and developed at 800, Portra 800, and 8 other film stocks, please refer to this article. For an additional reference of Portra 400 shot and developed at 800, please refer to this article.

To ensure consistency throughout the experiment, all of the shots were taken using the exact same camera/lens combo. To accomplish this, 3 different film backs were used, each loaded with a different Kodak Portra film. The control conditions were as follows:

Camera: Mamiya 645 Pro TL
Lenses: 80mm f/2.8 N, 150mm f/3.5 N, 300mm f/5.6 N-ULD
Lighting (Portrait Only): 2 Profoto B1X with diffusers
Light Meter: LUMU Light Meter iPhone app

All films were developed at a local lab here in Columbus, OH and scanned at home using an Epson v600. All provided images were the converted negatives straight from the scanner software included with the v600.

Results

As perhaps could have been expected, I didn’t prefer one film over the rest in all contexts. Overall, I preferred Portra 800 over 160 and 400 in most situations with a strict exception to portraits.

All told, we took 3 different sets of portraits (though only posting one) and in all 3, Portra 800 was far too saturated. To a level that I, personally, looked jaundiced. I honestly expected Portra 160 to shine here but I honestly thought all of the scans turned out equally as pale. So much so that they looked a bit distasteful. I do expect that I could have remedied a good deal of that in settings in the scan or in PS after but again, all of the presented images are straight out of the scanner’s software.

Probably the only example series where I personally preferred Portra 160 over 800 and a little over Portra 400 was in the library. Portra 800 had a tendency to be too saturated in a situation when the color palette was fairly white. Similar to the portraits above, Portra 800 tends to turn whites yellow in a fairly unattractive way. Portra 400 was right in the middle but in a scene I would have preferred to remain bright and airy feeling, I preferred no yellow tint.

As for the other 3 samples, I did strongly prefer Portra 800. In the vines sample, I think 800 blew the other two out of the water. The colors are intense but in a way that accentuates the present colors without changing them into something undesirable. For the tower, all three returned a pretty distinct color palette – so much so that I went back and rescanned each with the expectation of getting more uniformity then but the scans came back virtually the same as the first pass – that all 3 are distinctly different. Finally, for the vertical tunnel at the OSU campus, I really think the saturation of Portra 800 shined. I loved the way those colors turned out.

Conclusion

I’m not sure that my opinion between the three is really going to change. I will continue to shoot more and more 800 in and around Ohio (or at least on trips where I’m not flying) and I will shoot Portra 400 as an old reliable.

Thanks

Special thanks to Matt Seal for being generous with letting us use his studio, Dr. H for being an uncomfortable model, and Nevin Johnson for his help with the scanning.

Review: Kodak Portra 160

To see reviews of the other films in the Portra family, go here for Portra 400 and here for Portra 800. To see a more formal comparison of Portra 160 with the other two members of the Portra family (Experiment 2), go here.

In all honesty, I have a love-hate relationship with Portra 160. Every roll I’ve shot through is almost entirely full of shots I don’t much care for if not some of my least favorite I’ve ever taken. That said… The shots on a roll that I like are some of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken. So where do you go from here? I would really like to shoot through some rolls in a studio environment where I have much more control of the lighting. Perhaps there I will have more consistently desirable results…

Color

Compared with the other two films in the Portra family, it is by and large the least saturated when properly exposed. Even slightly overexposed and it gets a sort of a nasty looking warm tint to the shots – sometimes it’s seems a bit yellow and sometimes it has pink/red undertones. Properly exposed and the color rendering is unlike any other film I’ve used. The colors are delicate while still being intense. By that I mean, it picks up colors better than most films stocks up doesn’t render them with as much saturation.

Portraits

I’ve not used Portra 160 in a studio but I feel like it could shine in this context. As for portraits in natural light, I’ve not been too pleased. In the middle of the day, they come out looking so yellow, I could be convinced they were jaundiced. In the evening, at dusk, there’s a distinct pink/red tint to skin tones that make people look sunburned. With this said, my experience has been somewhat limited to a couple friends, my girlfriend, and my father – all of whom share a lack of pigmentation in their skin so it may well be that this stock may be more flattering for others.

Dynamic Range

The dynamic range is not particularly good in my experience. As mentioned before, this stock does not quite the flexibility of its 400 and 800 cousins. Even just a little under or over exposing and do not turn out to my liking.

Pushing/Pulling

Given the already slow nature of this stock, I doubt there will be a day where I’m pulling it. As far as pushing the film is concerned, I have no experience nor do I see myself doing it.

Conclusion

I suspect that I will one day find that I haven’t been using this film properly and that there’s a trick to getting it exposed just so that it the results are consistently great. But with all of the errors in the trail/error process, I’m not inclined to give it a regular place in my film stock rotation. I will, on the other hand, plan to give it a go in a studio and additional attempts here and there.