Tag Archives: FPP Walking Workshop

October 21, 2015

Film Is Alive!

If you don’t follow Utah Film Photography on Pinterest, you should. I was one of those people early on that complained about Pinterest. Now I see the value to pinning all of my favorite camera brands and types in one area for reference. One of the boards I keep on Pinterest is for Film Camera Clothing & Accessories. This board inspired me to create my own Utah Film Photography shirt last spring. It’s a black button-up Red Kap work shirt, something you’d see a car or motorcycle mechanic wear. I had a company create a custom Utah Film Photography patch, and found the vintage Pentax patch on eBay.

The 2015 Film Photography Project Walking Workshop at The Darkroom in San Clemente, California Photo by Michael Raso Canon T60 / Canon 24mm f2.8 lens Kodak E100gx Color Slide Film Processed E-6 at The Darkroom

Shaun Nelson at the 2015 Film Photography Project Walking Workshop at The Darkroom in San Clemente, California. Photo by Michael Raso. Canon T60/Canon 24mm f2.8 lens. Kodak E100gx Color Slide Film. Processed E-6 at TheDarkroom.com

The latest patch additions to my shirt are from ShootFilmCo.com. I discovered these patches while following San Francisco based photographer Mike Padua’s film work on Instagram. Mike has created a new line of patches and stickers that express the humorous and enthusiastic side of film photography.

ShootFilmCo.Com – Film Is Not Dead Patch

Mike says, “Growing up as a kid, and being in a number of punk rock bands and also loving photography at the same time, I thought it would be cool to have something that kind of brings both worlds together. I always thought that the artwork on vintage patches and stickers were amazing.” ShootFilmCo.com is where you’ll find Mike, designing, selling and shipping his expanding line of products. Mike’s original item, the In Grain We Trust embroidered patch and sticker was released earlier this year. And just in time for Halloween, ShootFilmCo.com has created two glow-in-the-dark patches. Working with Illustrator, Andrew Denholm in the U.K., one features a skeleton with a TLR camera, and the other, Frankenstein with a large format camera.

ShootFilmCo.Com – Film Is Not Dead Patch (Glow-In-The-Dark)

Along with the groovy artwork, the vinyl stickers and patches are made from quality materials. These are not cheap items you would buy from a drugstore gumball machine. The patches are worthy of your favorite camera bag, jacket, shirt or hat. And the stickers would make a valuable accessory to your car, laptop or forehead. All of ShootFilmCo.com patches are made in the USA by CustomPatches.net in New York. Mike isn’t afraid to share who he collaborates with and feels that artists should share and support each other as much as possible.

I’ve added the Film Is Not Dead and In Grain We Trust patches to my Utah Film Photography shirt. Instead of sticking the vinyl stickers to something, I decided to cut some flexible magnetic sheets and mount them. This makes them into perfect magnets for the office or my film fridge (also called the kitchen refrigerator by my wife and kids).

ShootFilmCo.Com Vinyl Stickers – Made Into Magnets

Make sure to visit ShootFilmCo.com and pick up some items before they sell out. Mike says, “It’s so much fun and ever since I started this endeavor in March, the absolute most rewarding thing that has happened is that I have talked to, and am now connected to more amazing film photographers than I ever thought possible. So many people are still shooting film, or coming back to it, or discovering it for the first time, and I’m really excited for film and the community to keep growing.”

Mamiya m645 Super

By Shaun Nelson

My real interest in medium format began during my visit to San Clemente, California, in March for the Film Photography Project Walking Workshop 2015. On the second day of the workshop, Mat Marrash covered medium and large format film and cameras. Up to this point, my experience with medium format, 120 film, was with my Holga, Debonair, and Yashica-A. After seeing some of the medium format cameras at the workshop, I added a few to my wish list, like the Pentax 645, Mamiya 645, and of course a Hasselblad. My heart wanted the Pentax, my eyes wanted the Hasselblad, but my wallet led me to the Mamiya.

The Mamiya m645 Super is a medium format SLR camera made in 1985 by Mamiya in Tokyo, Japan. It features a Mamiya-Sekor 80mm f/2.8 lens, and shutter speeds are bulb, 4 through 1/1000 second. Like other medium format cameras, it’s a modular system, meaning you can add different components like a waist-level viewfinder, prism viewfinder, manual winding crank, powered winding grip, 120, 220, or Polaroid film back. One of the great features about using a medium format camera like the Mamiya is the ability to change the film back at any time using a metal dark slide to block the light from exposing the film.

These are some photos I captured on Kodak Tri-X 400 Black & White 120 Film, developed at home with New55 R3 Monobath, and scanned the negatives with an Epson Perfection V600 Photo scanner. The photos were taken at the Ogden Union Station Restoration Shop in Ogden, Utah. For more information about the shop and the restoration of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railway locomotive No. 223, read my guest post at IndieOgden.com.

I really enjoy shooting with the m645 Super. The camera and grip feel good, solid in my hands. What don’t I like about it? The shutter on this camera is loud. The mirror slap and powered film advance make a sound loud enough to set off car alarms and register on a seismograph at Utah State. Yes, I’m exaggerating, a little, but this camera is loud. And while the lens is sharp, stopping down makes it very dark in the viewfinder. On a roll of color film where I was shooting outdoors (100 ISO), I found the best solution was to focus, stop down (f/16 or f/22), check the meter, set the shutter speed, and then take the shot. Even outdoors in bright sunlight, f/22 is very dark through the viewfinder. Most of my images at the restoration shop were done at f/2.8. The 80mm lens is a great choice for portraits, which was my intent for this purchase.

There’s something very satisfying about shooting medium format film in an SLR. To me, I like knowing that my image is going to yield a large negative. I actually surprised myself, being new to souping my own film at home, the larger negative was easier for me to position and feed on to a Paterson spool than 35mm film. I’ll be sharing some additional photos from this camera in the near future.

3 Comments | tags: "FPP Walking Workshop 2015", 120 Film, Black and White Film, Epson V600, Film Photography Project, FPP, FPP Walking Workshop, Indie Ogden, Kodak Tri-X, Mamiya, Mamiya-Sekor, Medium Format, New55, Ogden, R3 Monobath, UT, Utah, Walking Workshop | posted in Medium Format

March 30, 2015

Film Photography Project Walking Workshop – Part 1

By Shaun Nelson

Two weeks ago, Scott Smith and I flew from Utah to San Diego, California, and drove up to San Clemente for the Film Photography Project Walking Workshop at the headquarters of TheDarkroom.com. We arrived a day early because we knew we wanted to take our time getting to our hotel in Dana Point, and find some good photo ops along the way. We spent some time walking around San Clemente, stopping at various small shops including Arcade Camera. At six o’clock we went down to the pier for some photos at sunset. I took five film cameras with me, one of them was the Minolta SR-T202 that I had purchased earlier in the month. This was my first opportunity to use this camera, so I loaded it with some Kodak Ektar 100 film and casually walked along the beach. One of the shots I wanted to get was the lifeguard stand with the pier at sunset. This is the first time I’ve done any real landscape photography in several years.

Minolta SR-T202 – Kodak Ektar 100

The next morning at the workshop, we were greeted with a big smile and handshake from Michael Raso and Mat Marrash from the Film Photography Podcast. One of the first people in the group I recognized was Brian Moore, a knowledgeable photographer from Huntington Beach. Another was Mark Dalzell also from the Film Photography Podcast and Smoove Sailors. Mark gave me some advice last year on cleaning my Argus C3. We talked about what a great indestructible workhorse the C3 is.

The entire staff at The Dark Room deserve a big thank you. From myself and my fellow FPP friends, thank you! Keith, Phil, and Joe, the tour was fascinating. You opened your business doors to a bunch of strangers and customers (and some strange customers), answered countless questions and made sure everyone was having a good time. Again, thank you so much.

As the afternoon progressed, Michael and Mark spoke about unique, unusual, and hand-rolled films. One of the more entertaining presentations was Michael’s commentary about Svema film from Russia. They don’t respond to email, but will accept a purchase order, accept money, and ship film to the FPP in New Jersey. I believe the repeated remark from Michael was, “Hey! You don’t know what’s going on in Russia!” After completing the roll of Kodak Ektar in the Minolta SR-T202, I loaded it with Svema Color Negative 125. Photographers that have purchased it from the FPP Store have nothing but positive things to say, so I’m very optimistic. After the discussion on film, Michael gave away some unique film from the FPP Store, including some color infrared, 620 film and the new FPP 620 film spools.

Each FPP workshop attendee received a ticket to be part of a camera giveaway. Everyone had a chance to browse through several tables of cameras, select one, and enter the raffle to win that camera. I won a beautiful Minolta 7s rangefinder. Along with the camera came a printed instruction manual, a contact sheet displaying the test images from the camera, and a letter entitled, “To the new owner,” along with details and specific information about the camera. The Minolta 7s has a battery-powered exposure meter that originally required a mercury battery. The letter explains how the updated battery uses an adapter with a diode to step-down the power for the meter. Thank you FPP listener and contributor Johnny Brain in Iowa for this outstanding camera!

In the late afternoon, everyone boarded the FPP Big Yellow ~~School~~ Bus and went to the San Clemente Pier for a photowalk. The weather was beautiful. I took my time walking along the pier, occasionally stopping to ask random people if I could take a photo of them. When I have a camera in my hands, I have no hesitation talking to people. This is something about me that makes my friends and family uncomfortable. I know it embarrasses my kids when I stop and photograph this way. Whether its candid street photography or street portraits, a smile and a positive comment can usually produce an interesting image. The day ended with a bus ride back to The Dark Room where we spent more time talking with other photographers while sharing our newly won cameras.