The moment when I truly fell in love with photography was about 8 years ago while taking my second photography course at Asbury University in Wilmore, KY. I had learned the basics, truly understood how to use my little 35mm camera and now I was beginning to process and develop my film on my own. The entire process was therapeutic and there was nothing like seeing my images come to life on paper. I looked forward to class each week and whenever I became stressed with my other courses I would head to the lab and work on my images; dodging, burning, immersing the sheet of paper in the chemicals and watching the image emerge. From then on my love of photography grew.

Like everyone else, I transitioned to digital. I still remembered my roots but my use of film quickly dwindled for the nicest DSLR. It would be several years before I would pick up my 35mm again, just for fun, and actually, I never developed the film. I started following other film photographers’ work, swooning over the skin tones and the dreaminess of each moment captured. While I do love digital, there’s something about film that makes you feel the moment rather than see it.

After a couple of years of following several film photographers’ work and photographing our own weddings with digital, I decided to register for Perry Vaile’s The Lively Workshop and relearn film. Not that I wanted to become a film wedding photographer but so that I would fall back in love with creating images again. I packed up both my digital and my film cameras and headed to the workshop where I learned so much, photographed three stunning shoots and made new friends. On the last day of the workshop I took her film intensive class. For this shoot I photographed the entire thing in film. I used my 35mm along with a Maymia 645 that another attendee graciously lent to me and I shot away! I didn’t have my own light meter, but the others were more than willing to help me out and while I was photographing the details, the models and the moments I could feel that this is what I had been missing in my own photographic journey. I had lost the intention behind each image. I had become so accustom to firing away the shutter on my digital camera, I forgot to be intentional; to breath and capture a moment. While using those two cameras for the workshop shoot I noticed that I was thoughtful before pressing the shutter, I paid attention to my composition more and paid attention the looks on the models faces. Something that I quickly realized I didn’t do as much while using digital. After I left the workshop I felt challenged, inspired and I had a passion that I didn’t really know was gone.

Within the next couple of weeks all of the film was packaged up and shipped off to Photo Vision Prints in Portland, OR for processing and scanning. The waiting was so hard as I really didn’t know what to expect from my film. Then a couple of days ago I get the little email letting me know that my scans were ready. I was too nervous to look at first, so Matt looked for me, and to my surprise they actually turned out well. Thanks to the help of Perry, Stephen of PV and the other attendees I produced some images from that shoot that I am truly proud of and can’t wait to share. I’m only sharing three at first because I can’t share the whole shoot just yet but these three I am so excited about.

This post is the first of many that I’m going to call “Film Friday”. This is to share my love of film and my journey with this medium. While I don’t intend in the near future to incorporate film into our wedding experience, I do intend to use it as a personal project to help me grow. Thank you for following me on my journey to fall back in love with photography.

 

I brought my 35mm with me to our dear friend’s maternity session and fired a few frames. While I just used the in camera light meter, I am pretty happy with how they came out!

Photo direction by perry vaile
Styling, floral design, creative direction, and paper goods by rebecca rose creative
Hair and makeup by lindsey regan thorne
Venue the graylyn estate
Ring by trumpet and horn
Ring Boxes by the mrs. box
Ribbon by silk and willow
Gown by bhldn

Thanks to Perry for taking this little photo of me on our last day!