The First 10 Frames

About a year ago I took a long stride out of my comfort zone. A leap. A dive. A plunge. I took a step toward a goal that I’d been putting off/avoiding for some time. That goal was to start shooting portraits on film.

Armed with my Pentax 67 and a roll of Portra 4OO; I organized a shoot with a local model. Before that day I’d had no experience what-so-ever with facilitating portraiture shoots, had very little experience in framing human subjects and had no real skill in communicating with a subject to achieve a desired outcome. I decided to throw myself into the deep end in order to see just how much I could learn from the experience.

Our chosen location was the New Farm Rose Garden in Brisbane Australia. The rose garden is normally a place full of gorgeous blooms of all shades, however, leading into winter all the bushes had been pruned right back and the field was largely flowerless! (Perfect timing on my part. Time of year was definitely the first lesson of the day)

My goal was foremostly to practice shot composure in and around the shoot location. In order to maximise this I decided to lean a little on the experience and skillset of my model. I left the outfit entirely up to her (merely suggesting a few different colours that would pop on film!) and also any poses she wanted to explore while shooting.

After the initial ‘what am I doing, I’ve never shot a model before!’ nerves wore off; my model and I established a relaxed groove quite quickly and were able to chat about photography and pop culture whilst scouting locations and shooting frames. The model had a knack for posing herself very naturally from the get-go but was always open to tweaks, which I rarely had to suggest. Despite the garden being almost rose-less it still hosted plenty of backdrops with a good mix of shaded and sunny patches which we made full use of.

An hour flew by and we were done with the roll! We exchanged details and I zoomed off to my local development lab to hand in the roll and pick up some negatives that were waiting!

Even without having seen the final scans from today I felt like my time with the model had been an incredibly rewarding experience. From connecting and working with a living being to scouting locations on the fly to discussing pinterest mood boards; I feel satisfied that my goal to learn as much as possible had been realized and I’m a better photographer for that deep-end experience! I awaited the scans to see if we’d snagged any portfolio shots and where there was room for inevitable improvement.

Here are a few extra important tidbits I gleamed from the day;

A smaller aperture is a necessity when shooting portraits, I know that much without having to have shot a million models. While shooting the roll of Portra 4OO I found for the most part that; after maxing out the shutter speed at 1/1OOOth I could still only open my 67 lenses up to f8 while shooting in the sun! (Rarely do film photographers complain about having TOO much light). I’m obviously going to have to test this theory, but, I feel that when shooting in direct natural sunlight the Pentax 67 system will have more of a chance to really shine with a slower film loaded up. Such as Kodak Gold 2OO or even Kodak Ektar 1OO. This would allow for wider apertures and thus greater bokeh effects and background separation. Next time, I’m arming myself with some sweet Ektar nectar!

An interesting topic of discussion that came up at the end of our shoot was just how different an experience it was for the model. She had never been shot on film before and was used to the fluid poses she’d have to move between while a photographer captured every moment en-masse digitally. No moment spared. In stark comparison, being restricted to just 1O shots on the roll, I was constantly saying ‘hold pose’ while I triple checked my settings and nailed focus. She was able to do this no problems and had no issues with holding for a minute or two, but at the end said she found the process quite a nice change from what she was used to. My model also mentioned receiving upwards of 15O touched shots after a digital shoot, after 6 weeks of editing at that! That fact blew my analogue mind a bit. I shoot solely on film and haven’t touched a dedicated digital camera for subject photography for probably a decade, thus I’m always limited to however many exposures on the roll. I also tend to forego any editing of scans except a little cropping when necessary. But I guess that says more about my confidence in the lab that develops and scans my work.
I’m rambling a bit at this point but the topic of digital vs film never ceases to provide an interesting perspective on the art of capturing moments!

One week later, my scans had been returned to me!

My initial reaction; okay! I’m not blown away but overall they’re good. There are definitely a couple of tidy photographs amongst the 10 shots, which I’m very pleased about. I’m feeling proud of 75-80% of the yield, and on second thought that is nothing to sniff at for my first time photographing a model! With some cropping most of them will scrub up nicely (as you can tell from some of the images included from that shoot)

After looking over the shots a few times there are some clear gems but also some clear points for improvement;

Framing. There are three or four shots that could have been subjectively better or more eye-catching if I physically moved myself or the camera’s angle slightly. In those shots I’ve either caught some distracting geometry in the background or on the side of the frame that distracts the eye and draws attention away from the model. Some of the shots have lopsided or otherwise uneventful backgrounds that I think I could have paid more attention to when capturing the images.

Shadows; turns out even mid-morning sunlight creates some pretty contrasty lighting! I misjudged the timing of the shoot, however I must say I like how Portra 4OO handled the shots in full shadow. The shots in full sunlight are nice and vibrant but I need to pay more attention to how shadows fall on faces and bodies because, again, sunlight can be pretty contrasty and lead to some strange renders.

After the dust had settled and I’d cropped all the images to my liking, I must say; I feel like there are some great shots on this roll to be happy with. I’m really proud of my work and how much I achieved through it. I feel like I’ve learnt a lot from that experience with a live model and am grateful for her input, her skill and her time. Since that first shoot I have worked with this particular model again in a more urban setting and the shots from that shoot turned out magnificently! You can even see a few on my portraiture portfolio page!

Thank you so much for making it this far. Have a smooth day and may all your shots come out perfectly exposed!

Til next time,

Benjamin