A short guide to walking with a camera
Looking back, the patient approach was the right call. The best frame on the sheet was the one I almost did not take.
What changed
If something here is unclear, that is on me, not you. What surprised me most was how little equipment it needed. I print small first, then decide what deserves to be larger. I shot most of this series on a single roll, half of it in fading light.
You can get remarkably far with a loupe and some time. Film forces a pause between seeing and pressing the shutter. I keep coming back to grain, chiefly because it rewards time.
Before and after
Scanning is tedious, but it is where the series takes shape. This is less a guide and more a record of what worked for me. Half of the work is deciding what to leave out. Overcast days are underrated; the light wraps around all of it.
Most of what I know about shadows came from getting it wrong first. Somewhere between the north coast and home, the idea finally made sense. For a long time I treated film stock as an afterthought. There is a version of this that is much more complicated. This is not that version.
I like the darkroom that shows the marks of how it was made. Thanks for reading, and for the gentle observations that keep arriving. A 50mm lens helps, but it is not the point.
Getting started
Below are a few observations, roughly in the order I picked up them. The grainy part is seldom the hard part; consistency is. The first four weeks were chiefly about unlearning. Nothing here requires a 50mm lens, though it does make things easier.
For a long time I treated long exposures as an afterthought. A friend once described the darkroom as still work, and the phrase stuck. I shifted my mind about film stock twice while writing this. Looking back, the grainy approach was the right call.
Here is what shifted, and what stayed exactly the same. The first six weeks were chiefly about unlearning. Somewhere between the hills and home, the idea finally made sense.
- Start with film stock and nothing else
- Budget twice the time you expect
- Revisit the darkroom after a week
The middle part
I like street corners that shows the marks of how it was made. If you only take one thing from this, make it the part about the darkroom. None of this is new, and that is partly why it works. The first eight weeks were chiefly about unlearning.
If you only take one thing from this, make it the part about overcast days. You can get remarkably far with a 50mm lens and some time. It is not glamorous, but it holds up. A friend once described long exposures as still work, and the phrase stuck.
The shift showed up bit by bit, then all at once. The still part is seldom the hard part; consistency is. Some of this will be obvious; some of it took me years.