My Journey Back to Film Photography Posted On 24th September 2024 To Magazine & Stories

My K1000

I began taking photographs in the late 1980s as a teenager when my dad bought me a Pentax K1000. Both my dad and grandpa enjoyed photography, were big influences on me, and my dad wanted to share the excitement of photography. We enjoyed taking photographs, mainly of landscapes and of places that we visited, me with my K1000 and my dad with his Canon AE-1. When digital cameras became the standard in the early 2000s, we drifted away from film and instead became enamored with this quick and comparatively inexpensive new way to take photos. We filled up memory cards and hard drives with all manner of photos.

Discovering

After my dad’s passing in 2021, I discovered several old cameras that he and my grandpa had collected as well as several shoeboxes of old negatives and slides, among them, several photos of my dad as a youngster and my grandpa as a young father.

They were real to me

Those film cameras and the physical photographs made me realize the importance of these analog treasures. They were something that I could hold in my hand…photographs that both my dad and my grandpa had captured a lifetime ago. They were so much more to me than digital photos stored in the cloud or on a memory card somewhere, they were real to me.

Discovered photo of my dad that inspired me to begin shooting film again Photo taken by my grandpa around 1955

CiroFlex TLR

I found an old CiroFlex TLR in my dad’s things that had belonged to my grandpa. I ran a couple rolls of 120 film through it, had my local camera store (@kanabcameraco) develop them for me, and was immediately hooked. Those beautiful, large, square negatives were so different from anything I had ever shot before, and I had created them.

Mamiya RB67

I started researching and found a Mamiya RB67 on eBay. A couple of weeks later I was a medium format guy, packing around that heavy RB everywhere I went, staring down into that amazing waist level viewfinder as I learned how to manually expose film.

Birdhouse, Southern Utah - Mamiya RB67 - HP5 Plus

Primarily black and white

When I started with the RB, I was mainly shooting color negative film, trying to duplicate, on film, what I saw in the landscape. It didn’t take me long to put the color film aside and begin to use primarily black and white. I didn’t need to try and copy what was in the landscape, I wanted the finished photo to show what I saw as important. The textures, the patterns, the clouds, the stark contrasts between shadows and light. I started to understand how the color in my photos was distracting from what I really wanted to show.

The red rock desert

My wife Nicole and I live on a cattle ranch in the red rock desert of the southwestern United States. We are surrounded by old barns, cabins, broken-down farm machinery, old cars and trucks, windmills, livestock, dilapidated fences and corrals, and all manner of things that I felt would be so good captured on black and white film. In those first few months, I shot a lot of film, always searching for subjects that I felt needed to be captured in black and white.

Schoolhouse, Southern Utah - Mamiya RB67 - HP5 Plus

Mamiya C220 TLR

Several months later, a Mamiya C220 TLR was my next purchase. I needed something a bit more portable that I could slide in my backpack and take on hikes. That C220 became my go-to everyday carry camera. Besides, that square format photo was so good.

Ancient Cliff Dwelling, Southern Utah - Mamiya C220 - HP5 Plus

Learned to develop

I finally got my small darkroom set up and learned to develop my own film. The excitement (and anxiety) of pulling that developed film from the tank and hoping something was on it was so rewarding. As I progressed in the darkroom, I found that I could control the look of my negatives even more by adjusting the variables. That made it even better.

Seed Drill, Southern Utah - Mamiya C220 - HP5 Plus

What a great community we have

I scrolled through Instagram and admired the beautiful film photography that others were creating and posting. I was able to reach out to other photographers and ask questions about cameras that they were using, a certain developer or film stock, or even a technique that they were using. What a great community we have to help each other learn and improve. YouTube has been a photography classroom for me. So much great content from so many photographers with a wealth of knowledge. Almost any question that I’ve had, from calculating exposure to how to load film in my developing reels, I was able to find the answer from fellow photographers on YouTube.

Selling Her Dolls, Mexico - Canonet QL17 - Kentmere 400

Learning to See Square

Sharing my photographs on Instagram was great, but I became more and more interested in seeing my work on paper, something that I could hold in my hand and share with friends and family. I spent a couple of months gathering together what I felt were some of my best square format photos that I made in 2023 and put together a simple photobook called, “Learning to See Square”. It has been a very satisfying project and I encourage everyone to put their work into print. Opening that box from the printer and thumbing through the pages was really rewarding.

Wista 45VX

As I continued to mainly shoot medium format and post my photos on Instagram, I began to notice beautiful large format photos that people were posting and I researched how they were controlling the plane of focus and depth of field. I just had to give it a try. I did my research and purchased a Wista 45VX, a bit heavy, but durable camera that had all of the movements that I needed. I’m still tackling the learning curve, but thoroughly enjoying it.

Detroit Riprap, Southern Utah - Wista 45VX Fujinon W 5.6/150 - Delta 100

I love the process

I’ve often seen people with their easel setup along a country road, painting a landscape, and I’ve admired it. For me, large format is much the same. It is my easel and canvas and my slow methodical capture of the landscape. I love the process. The fact that it takes me half an hour (or more) to setup and expose a sheet of film brings me joy. I enjoy the evening that it takes me in the darkroom to develop it and to see what I have created. Sometimes the photo doesn’t really turn out the way I was hoping, but sometimes it's incredibly beautiful. Either way, the whole experience is why I do it.

Approaching Storm, Northern Arizona - Wista 45VX Fujinon W 5.6/150 - Delta 100

Images ©James Holland