Harnessing Unpredictability - Roll 117
Since joining the analog community in 2018 I have heard a number of responses to the question "why do you shoot film?" Some say that the colors and tones of film are unmatched, while others appreciate the more intentional process of shooting, developing, and scanning, a workflow that helps them slow down and give weight to the choices available to them at each stage of the process. I am partial to the answer "film is unpredictable," but not necessarily in the way I've heard it used before. When analog photographers say that, they often mean that there is an unpredictability to the physical components involved in shooting film; maybe the film is expired and will give wildly different colors than expected, or maybe the camera will have a light leak, leading to sun-drenched images by mistake. These kind of issues are partially what I'm talking about, but when I say "film is unpredictable" what I really mean is "film makes me unpredictable" by limiting the ways in which I can photograph and pushing me to consider options I might otherwise dismiss as I create.
In the shoot I described in my last post I had used a roll of expired 220 film, Kodak Pro 400 MC, for the third time ever. Color film looses sensitivity (ISO) over time according to a number of different factors (among them how well it was stored and whether it was exposed to heat or humidity), and I had been having trouble getting consistent exposures with this film throughout the year. In that shoot I bracketed two exposures for every shot, rating the film at 400 and 200 ISO for each one. The 200 ISO photos came out better, but I felt that I was still underexposing the shots; a few days later, then, I went out to test another roll, this time exposing at 25 and 50 ISO. I was able to find five photos to take that evening, but couldn't push myself to finish the roll, ending the day with half the photos unshot. This is where the unpredictability comes in—I decided to get up super early the next morning and drive to Niles before the sun rose, in the hopes of taking some night photos to finish out the roll. Without the pressure of the unshot roll I wouldn't have chosen to go photographing at such an odd hour, but I'm glad I did; I managed to take several interesting photos that feel different from things I've done before, adding something new to What My Left Hand is Doing.
When I arrived in Niles I parked behind the Hot Wok Chinese Restaurant, not far from where I had photographed the last time I visited. Hot Wok made an ideal subject, and I took two photos here, out of which one is successful. The straight-on composition is enhanced by the lines of cracked blacktop snaking toward the foreground, and the cluster of yellow posts to the right add tension to an otherwise nearly-symmetrical photo. This shot helped me understand the nature of long-exposure night photography; despite the exposure being well over a minute, most of the photo (any part not illuminated by direct light) is still quite dark, while the highlights have long since gone past their limits and blown out. In other words, as long as I don't mind having very bright highlights, I can expose for as long as I want with no realistic limit! This was a good lesson to learn, and has helped me utilize my tools in a more intentional way since then.
Night—Hot Wok, Niles, Michigan.
Walking around further (undoubtedly an strange sight with my large camera and bulky tripod, stalking the streets before dawn) I found the subject for my last three photos, the storefront of the Four Flags Antique Mall, which was almost entirely covered from the inside with pink cloth. Lights behind caused the fabric to glow beautifully, and I knew that there was a perfect photo in there somewhere. I found it with my second composition, framing the window by itself and divorcing the scene from its surrounding context. In doing so I crafted my most perfect abstract photo yet, a flat plane dominated by pink and white, with blurred reflections of the street in front and distorted tree branches hazily poking through from behind. If I didn't just describe the content of this photo it would be difficult for the viewer to know what it is; I have therefore achieved a level of abstraction that I had not reached until taking this shot. I am immensely proud of this photo, and I probably wouldn't have taken it if I didn't shoot film. The conditions under which I got the shot—needing to finish the roll, thus going shooting at an odd time, and the challenge of getting the correct exposure on a tricky film—allowed me to grow beyond my original vision and make something satisfyingly new in that moment, another facet of the Ordered World revealing itself to me!
Extraction—Niles, Michigan.
Although most of the storefront was covered by the fabric, not all of it was, and I was able to find one more distinct photo to finish the roll. This composition is all lines and rectangles, which divide up a frame packed with vintage objects—signs, marbles, even a water cooler. In contrast with the previous photo, which is strong in part due to its softness, here each element stands sharply defined, up to and including the dust-riddled cobwebs that hang in the window. There's a metaphor here, about the way we sometimes allow our own histories to become nothing more than a discarded display of memorabilia, but I prefer to see it in a positive light—our dusty pasts, full of things we once loved but no longer care for, can be something inspirational for someone else if they choose to perceive it in the right light. I chose in that moment to find meaning and value in this scene, in the darkness and quiet before the work day, and I'm so happy that I did; that morning is now a fundamental building block in this body of work, an example of what I can do when I push past my inhibitions and try something new!
Four Flags Antique Mall, Niles, Michigan.