the things i love: film

In honor of Valentine's Day, I'm going to celebrate all week with a mini-blog series, "The Things I Love." The first one, of course, is film! But not film as in the movies, I'm talking about the physical celluloid film.

FILM: a thin sheet of cellulose acetate or nitrocellulose coated with a radiation-sensitive emulsion for taking photographs

Although digital photography has come a long way, it still does not compare to the quality of film. You can't get the same subtle variations in the shadows and highlights with a digital camera as you can with a roll of Tri-X or Kodak Kodachrome. Luckily, Kodak still makes and sells Tri-X, and hopefully it won't go away until long after I'm gone. Digital comes close with the capability to shoot RAW images... but you still have to edit the photo afterwards to get anything close to what is already on the film negative.

Another thing I love about film is the process. There is just something about waiting in the darkroom to see what you've got that makes you a better photographer. I love that shooting film is a chemical process and part of the art of photography is the science.

Kelsey - December 2010

photog friday: man ray

This was Kyle's idea and I like it a lot. Photog Friday starts today. Every Friday, I will post about a photographer that has inspired me, along with a photo of mine that was influenced by their work.

Man Ray. If you ever forget who he is, just remember Man Ray, X-Ray. Some of his early work on light-sensitive paper looks like an x-ray, or "rayograms," as he called them. Literally an American in Paris, he was a significant contributor of the Dada and Surrealist movements in the 1920s moving forward. Here is a link to some of his work.

This is one of the first pictures I ever took. It was shortly after my dad taught me how to use a film camera. I went off experimenting, forcing my sister to model for me. I love the ghostly affect the over exposure gives to her face. It's not quite as Surreal as some of Man Ray's photos, but it does remind me of one of his photograms, where there is a very small latitude for the exposure, accentuating the contrast between white and black, leaving very little room for gray area.

Lindz - El Paso, Texas

self portrait

I'm never too fond of posting or taking a self portrait, but this one caught me by surprise -- like most things the past month. I was lucky enough to get hired as the AV Multimedia Specialist at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum! I am their official photographer, but I also get to work with the Audiovisual Archives -- which includes about a million photographs. No joke. A million photographs. LBJ's personal photographer during his stay at the White House was Yoichi Okamoto, who was the first photographer to have unprecedented access to the President. The negatives and prints resting in the cold vault of the archive are incredible. They are true treasures -- American history preserved on thin strips of celluloid. I'm a lucky lady. Inspired, I ventured out to start my own stockpile of digital images for the Library -- and came across my reflection in the window.

Self portrait - LBJ Library and Museum - 2012