Through My Eyes
Things I see, I am inspired by and like to share. About my life in London, my work and travels. By photographer Gesine Garz
Out of the Darkroom into the Light…
” There are dark shadows on earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast”
After a long time of doing only digital photography, I recently went back to the roots and shot my first analog film in about 10 years. I wanted to develop the film myself and produce my own prints in the darkroom.
Shooting with my old analog SLR was a little strange at first as I kept looking for a display to check my settings and initial images…well, and there was none… funny how used I am to having this option.
It felt a bit like I was working without a safety net…which is odd as I used to do nothing but film photography until digital cameras became affordable in the early 2000s.
So, I shot my first film, which wasn’t great, as I took a number of shots in too low light, didn’t use a tripod and had a lot of camera shake. Also, my auto-focus kept focussing on the ‘wrong’ part of the picture (entirely my fault!). I wasn’t used to how dark the view finder can be in analog cameras. But hey, the second film was much more successful and produced some nice black and white images I shoot around London.
I then decided to try another route and had some of my digital images converted onto film by a photographic lab. I sent them the images on a CD, and I received an Ilford Pan 100 b&w film back, which I processed myself in the darkroom. I then proceeded to enlarge and print with very good results.
I printed a series of eight pictures which I had taken in Dungeness and on the Sussex Coast near Bexhill.
Especially Dungeness with it’s bleak landscape and abandoned fishing equipment lends itself beautifully to black and white photography with an slightly grainy vintage feel.
I printed my photos on Ektalure warm tone paper, which is sadly not available to buy any more and has a lovely ivory tone. I dry-mounted the finished images on off-white mount board with a dry mounting press and presented them in a custom-made box.
