… and all I got were these lousy pics.
Okay, seriously though this was a bizarre and fascinating experience. Someone in my online world recently posted a few pics taken with a Holga and some Fuji Velvia film. I’ve read several times about how Velvia has this astounding color and so I figured what the hell, I have a film body, I’ll go take some film shots.
This isn’t anything I haven’t done before, except in times previous I was shooting C41 black and white, or real B&W, but never color film. I figured, “What’s the point? If I’m going to shoot in color, well, let’s make it digital color.” Well, the colors from someone else’s Velvia shots convinced me.
The problem was that it’s very much a daylight film, so I had to find big bright sunny days on which to shoot. I definitely wanted blue sky days, because I know my Sigma 15-30mm lens has a bit of a vignetting “problem” when zoomed all the way wide, and that would only add to the richness of the skies. So yeah, I eventually abandoned my new 5D for a few days and shot only with the old crappy film Rebel that I have.
I got the slides back a few days ago and it was an experience that bordered on magical. It seriously transcended anything that has ever happened to me with regards to photography. I got a sheet of 36 miniature pictures, all of them in plastic slides in one big sleeve, and all of them radiating gorgeous color. I couldn’t begin to comprehend this one long sleeve of white squares with blues and oranges and reds and greens popping out everwhere as I held it up to the light.
If you have never shot slide film I say to you right now get off your butt and go do it. It’s been a few days now and I’m still fascinated with and transfixed by these slides. They are amazing.
Unfortunately the scanner at my new photo place of choice didn’t capture the true vibrant nature of the colors. The scans all feel a little bit flat, not as lively as the physical slides themselves. Still, I wanted to present to you the pictures as they came out of my camera, not with any post-processing in Photoshop.
So if you want to see more, here are the rest of the good ones from this roll. 17 decent pics out of 36 exposures ain’t bad.