Shooting shadows on a light meter
Overcast days are underrated; the light wraps around all of it. What surprised me most was how little equipment it needed. The best advice I got was plainly to slow down.
Where it started
The best frame on the sheet was the one I almost did not take. I print small first, then decide what deserves to be larger. Film forces a pause between seeing and pressing the shutter. Scanning is tedious, but it is where the series takes shape. Below are a few observations, roughly in the order I picked up them.
There is a version of this that is much more complicated. This is not that version. Some of this will be obvious; some of it took me years. I keep coming back to film stock, chiefly because it rewards time. I keep coming back to shadows, chiefly because it rewards time. I shot most of this series on a single roll, half of it in fading light.
- Do less shooting film, more scanning negatives
- Budget twice the time you expect
- Compare against last autumn
- Leave room for quiet mistakes
- Give printing a full summer
What I would do differently
You can get remarkably far with a loupe and some time. Somewhere between the ferry terminal and home, the idea finally made sense. The unposed part is seldom the hard part; consistency is.
In practice
None of this is new, and that is partly why it works. You can get remarkably far with a 50mm lens and some time. Nothing here requires a light meter, though it does make things easier. You can get remarkably far with a film scanner and some time. I like film stock that shows the marks of how it was made.
Here is what shifted, and what stayed exactly the same. There is no single right way to approach walking with a camera, but some ways are kinder than others.