Renaissance Woman

Never stop learning.

Film Photography

by philosofishcomics

I’ve talked about photography before.  I saved up bought myself a digital camera when I was in middle school.  When we went to Yosemite I pretended I was Ansel Adams.  I really love photography, but I’ve never taken a class in it before.
This semester, I enrolled in a photography class just to bring myself up to 12 credit hours so I would qualify as a full-time student.  The class came recommended, and I was super excited to finally learn about the only form of visual art I’m any good at.  Even better, this was a class in black and white film photography.  What could be classier?
This class is quickly becoming one of my most difficult.  Art is inherently tough because you never know how someone else will react to your work.  In my engineering courses, I can usually tell when I have the right answer.  Art scoffs at the very idea of the right answer.  And even if I knew what the right answer looked like, it takes a very long time between when I take an exposure and the point where I know what my print is going to look like.  It’s really frustrating compared to the instant gratification of digital photography.  But I’m loving the process so far.
So far I’ve only taken pictures.  The process is mostly the same as what I’m used to, with a few changes.  In digital photography, I used to set the camera in manual mode and fiddle with the settings until I got the exposure I liked.  With film, I lost the luxury of checking my work.  I had to start trusting my light meter, the built-in device that basically measures the amount of light coming in through the lens and determines whether the picture will be over or underexposed with the current settings.  That exposure can change depending on what film is loaded, but luckily the camera I’m using is smart enough to read the film speed and adjust for it automatically.  Otherwise I’d need to do even more mental math.
Can’t wait to see how these pictures turn out!