The [AP] Blog

So, welcome to the completely revamped AP Blog. Hosted on it’s own, running on WordPress, hopefully this will be an exciting rebirth for the blog.

This first post is going to be on a thought I had the other day, about how since I bought my AE-1 I have rediscovered photography, (the AE-1 being a film camera, as aposed to Digital). So, here it is. It’s a story/article that I hope you will find interesting.

Nowadays, photography is becoming numbed, by it’s own evolution. The digital age, and your cheap digital cameras are flooding this art form with so many new ‘artists’ that it’s touch is being lost. People are firing off their cameras thousands of times and maybe leaving themselves with one or two likeable shots. I see this as a problem, purely because it’s in essence destroying photography, whilst aiding it too. So, I think there is also hope in this problem.

Film photography is becoming scarce, because, for the most part people just use a camera to record their lives, their family and friends, but to photographers, digital has managed to force newcomers to the art form to lose all basic training, instead of working out what composition would be best for a single frame, they take a hundred photos and see which one turns out best. You and I both know this can’t be a good thing.

A shot I took with the AE-1 (click for flickr page)

So, I’ve decided to follow my own story, and share it with you with a method that I think will change your whole view on photography. I feel it has helped me, and that it is something all new photographers should do.

I decided that a 35mm film SLR would be the next thing I would like to purchase. I looked around on Flickr and asked various people, and came up with a short list of SLRs that I thought could work:

• Canon AE-1, AV-1, A-1.
• Olympus OM10, OM20, OM30, OM40.
• Various Nikon film SLRs

This is by no means the complete list, and there will be plenty of other options by many brands, Pentax for example. You may have a brand preference, but I went by what was a reliable camera, and a popular camera, (thus meaning there would be lots available to buy, that were reliable).

I ended up buying a Canon AE-1, an SLR from the late ’70s which had a semi-automatic, Tv/S shutter speed mode, or fully manual, (manual focus of course). It works perfectly, I’ve run black and white, and colour film through it, and it set me back £21.

Photo of the AE-1 (click for flickr page)

If I can just put that price into perspective, I have got a Camera, with a lens, (battery too), that was £21, when I got my Canon EOS 400D, it was retailing at £500, and already from the rolls of film I’ve done, I am loving the work I’m doing with it. So, the investment for this fun really is minimal.

So, what am I really rambling on about here, well, it’s about photography, and your skills in that area. I feel that having a film camera will really connect you with photography, it all becomes much more real when you know there are slides of celluloid in your camera with images waiting to be seen on them.

A photo of my dog, from the AE-1 (click for flickr page)

The inability to look at your picture straight away and maybe delete it will put you in a completely different mindset. You will want to make sure that that picture you are about to take will be right, you don’t want to waste a frame of that film, you contemplate composition, lighting, you think about the exposure, everything. And I have noticed this in my own photography, with the AE-1, I find that my pictures are so much more ‘classically’ correct in terms of photographic technique, with my digital camera I often end up going for strange orientation, odd composition, excessive contrast, ‘incorrect’ exposure, with the AE-1 I get pure results, that are ‘right’, and they work on a much more simple basis.

Furthermore, in this time when it seems everyone and their dog has a digital SLR or at least a compact, how can one differentiate oneself in the photographic ‘market’. If you try and sell your photographs, there would be nothing more interesting to people than seeing a section in your portfolio of purely film photography, it separates you from the crowd in a big way.

Black and White film is also Lovely (click for flickr page)

Once you have used your film camera for a while, there is another big advantage: you will inherit your technique straight into your digital camera too. Of course, over time you may slip back to taking five shots of a single idea, but, the likelihood is that you would put more thought into those photographs.

If I can just slip back to what it means to use film, and people will inevitably bring up the fact that it is costly, and awkward to get your pictures etc. I mean, if we think about this for a second, if you live anywhere near a town, you can get your films processed, and printed in an hour, and nowadays you could just get them thrown on a CD as well. To start with, this quality will be fine, but after a while if you are yearning for higher quality, as you do, you could still get the film processed, but then have a film scanner, and get some high quality scans by yourself.

Furthermore, if you live away from a place to get your rolls developed, there are plenty of post based options, all over the world, you needn’t worry, you can send it away and get it back all done, simple!

The whole idea of this is to reinspire yourself for your photography, and I hope you will be able to do so. For a modest investment on eBay, you can really pick up some lovely cameras, the feel of the hefty metal AE-1 against the comparatively light 400D is also strange.

Hopefully this little article has been of interest to you, let me know if you liked it :-)

Charlie -