Photographer colleague Kent Kirkley, commented on my post yesterday, “You’re on a roll”. Thanks bro.
As a romantic photographer, with a strong analog history, I couldn’t help but think, lovingly and reflectively, about my days in film.
I ended my professional, analog photography career shooting the Mamiya RZ67-a medium format single-lens reflex system camera manufactured by Mamiya.
The camera accepted 120 and 220 film with film backs, configurable for 6×7cm, 6×6cm, and 6×4.5cm exposures.
But, by far and away, for the bulk of my editorial, corporate, stock, and personal career, I shot 35mm film.
Like so many other photographers of my day, my favorite film stock was Kodachrome- the brand name for a color reversal film introduced by Eastman Kodak in 1935.
Kodachrome was the oldest surviving brand of color film on the market until its discontinuation in 2009
74 years of history and production! Amazing!
“They give us those nice bright colors
Give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away”
Kodachrome, Paul Simon
Other popular film stocks I still fondly remember using often were Kodak Tri-X, Fujifilm Velvia, Ilford Delta, and Kodak Ektachrome.
I loved those days.
I exclusively shot 36-exposure rolls and it wasn’t at all uncommon for me, on assignment, to buy 5-10 “bricks” (20 rolls per brick) and bring them wherever I went.
Shooting with an iPhone, with three built-in cameras and 3 separate optical focal lengths (13mm, 24mm, 77mm), and, most importantly, no film stocks to load, unload, process, and edit on a light table, with a loupe, is flat-out dreamy, fun, thrilling, fantastic, all the things
“So mama, don’t take my iPhone away”
Kent, you are so right, I’m still on a roll:)
Click
Jack
