flowers | Watching The Photo Reels Go Round And Round…

STEP ONE: pull up the rewind knob to open the back of the camera.

STEP TWO: load the film

STEP THREE: turn the rewind knob until film is locked into place.

STEP FOUR: close the back door of the camera.

STEP FIVE: set the aperture.

STEP SIX: press the shutter button half-way down, read the light meter and set the shutter speed.

STEP SEVEN: Manually focus the lens until it’s at its desired point.

STEP EIGHT: Press the shutter.

FILM PHOTOGRAPHY IS A WHOLE NEW WORLD TO ME!!

Dew Drops and a Fallen Fall Leaf. Polly Nance. 2012.

For my 30th birthday, my husband gave me a black Canon AE-1 camera with a 1.8 50mm lens!! Greatest birthday present ever! I have been dying to try my hand at film photography. I told him I wanted some kind of SLR from the 1970s/80s and this is what he came up with. Along with the beautiful camera, were a variety of film rolls to choose from. These photographs were my very first roll of film I ever shot with my AE-1 and they were shot with a 3200 Black and White roll of film. My experience? I LOVED it! I love the nostalgic clicks and clacks that accompany this camera. It felt great in my hand and, although these shots didn’t turn out perfectly, it was fun to experiment. There is no turning back!! There is no looking back to check and see if the exposure was set correctly. It’s all inside waiting to be developed. And I thoroughly enjoyed passing my film off to be developed and waiting in anticipation to see my prints. Anyways, I signed up to take a darkroom class at a local camera store. It doesn’t start until January. And I can’t wait because there are things I wish I could do differently to the prints if I could develop them myself. It’s going to be an exciting adventure for me. I am also looking forward to being a part of a community of photographers. And I also look forward to sharing my film process with my readers as I delve deeper into this new world! Let me know what you think of my first roll…