S006 EP136
This past semester I took a alternative process photography class. It started off making using pinhole cameras, cyanotypes, tintypes, liquid emulsion etc. A bunch of process from the past that aren't often used. During that time period, I've been shooting more film like Polaroids and 35mm. The reason surge for me as of lately is because I wanna step out of my comfort zone from shooting digital to film. I will still shoot digital for weddings, events, and lifestyle blog entries of course.A few years ago, Youtube's popular Digitarev did an alternative yet inexpensive way to get film scanned by taking your DSLR and taking a photo with it. At the time when they released the video, I wasn't shooting film, just collecting old school cameras. Now that I'm getting more into film and shooting film, I stumbled across the video yet again. Many other Youtube videos show various and similar ways but have the same effect. Check out the video below.
After watching many other videos, I decided to try it last night with some old film negatives at Disneyland before I was born. After some trail and errors, I found out the correct setting along with my set up. I used my iPhone, as a lightbox source by using this flashlight app and set my screen to the brightest setting. I used a glass placed above my iPhone and placed the negative above the glass. I used my Nikon D700 batteries to keep the film negatives flat. Very similar to the video above. Here are some examples of what they looked like before editing them.
After converting and editing to my liking but still having that vintage tone/effect, I kept a few things how they were.
These were originally photographed by my dad with a Nikon F3 with Kodak film CA 100 5095. I found out that my dad also did photography as a hobby but more for family photos and family trips. Unfortunately, his camera was stolen a long time ago. If it was never stolen, that Nikon F3 would of been my camera and I probably would of been shooting film more or started this photography career earlier.
A few days ago on Instragram in one of my photos, I stated, "One of the greatest things about photography is how life freezes for a moment and you remember everything in that photo." The last image is a photo of my grandparents. Although I wasn't born just yet or maybe I was a year old in that photo in Disneyland, my parents told me they took care of me a lot before they passed away.
I don't have too many memories that I can remember but one of them is with my grandpa. Living in San Francisco at the time, he would always take me to the local supermarket and I would always ended up with some kind of candy. It's a reminder to myself why I love photography and the memories it holds dear to my heart.