First Film Shoot

January's almost over, and already I've had a lot of firsts in 2013: my first 16x20 print of one of my photographs, my first time on a train, and yesterday I did my first photo shoot on film instead of digital. It was also my first completely manual shoot (manual focus, ISO, aperture, and shutter speed).

I'm taking Intro to Photography this semester and in the class we have to do shoot a roll of film each week and develop our pictures in a darkroom. I've been wanting to take this class for years. Both of my sisters who are into photography, Joy and Kerry, have taken it in the past, so it almost feels like a tradition now.

Our assignment was to use what we had learned in class (how to shoot in manual on a sunny day) and use that knowledge to make pictures with the theme of "shadows and light." I kind of lost sight of that almost immediately, because I'm not used to having a theme, but I hope my professor likes my pictures anyway.

I knew I wanted to do something really out there for my first film shoot. Our professor had showed us some examples of the "shadows and light" theme and a lot of the pictures shown used the play of light over water. That made me think of a beach, and my recent reacquaintance with Linkin Park made me think of song lyrics. I'll save the specifics for when I have the actual pictures (hopefully I don't ruin the film somehow - this is too nerve-wracking!) but I'll show you some behind the scenes shots my sister Joy took.

10 am - Katie arrived at my house to get ready. We decided what she would wear and what kind of makeup to put on. I drew out a sort of storyboard to show her the pictures we would be taking and she gave a lot of creative input.

11 am - We got our stuff together, woke Joy up and convinced her to come with us, and looked up directions to the beach (don't judge me for not knowing! My beach is closed because the bridge is under construction). We had to drive through Lake Worth so of course it took forever to get there.

12 pm - We ripped up Katie's stockings and I wrote the lyrics all over her body. We had an audience not only from the people around us, but also from a crowd on the boardwalk above us.

12:30 pm - I posed Katie, looked through the viewfinder of the camera, focused the lens, fiddled with the settings, and... decided it wasn't good enough. I reposed Katie, re-focused the camera, looked in, and... nope, still not it. It took me forever, but finally I took my first ever film picture. Film cameras make the most satisfying sound when the shutter is released!

I took a few more shots of that pose, then we moved on to the second. For this one, Katie had to be farther away from me. The wind was blowing, waves were crashing, people were yelling, and Katie couldn't hear my instructions. Joy had to relay my words back and forth until finally she just said, "Well how about something like this?" Katie did the pose she suggested, and I whooped in excitement. It was perfect! There are no digital pictures of the pose, so you'll just have to wait to see it on film. :)

12:39 pm - We spent so long on those first few poses that we only had a few minutes to do the rest. And things only got worse. For the next four poses, Katie had to be in the water, not just standing on the shore. The waves were of average size when we arrived, but I think the tide was going down and they were getting bigger. They smacked my poor Katie around like a rag doll as she valiantly tried to hold on to her poses. They beat me up as well, and at one point I actually fell into a sitting position in the water and only managed to save the camera by holding it high above my head.

12:45 pm - We were on pose 5 when I checked to see how many shots I had left. It said 29, I took four more pictures, and suddenly it was at 36. There are only 36 exposures in a roll of film, and I was heartbroken because we had one more pose to do. We decided to try it anyway. Katie laid down in the sand and so did I, I focused the shot, and click, took the picture. It worked! The film began to rewind all on its own. We had done it and we were finished!

It seemed like a long time to me, but looking at the meta data from the digital pictures Joy took, we were only shooting for 20 minutes.  I can hardly believe it! It was a good thing we finished when we did, though, because Katie had to get back to her college.

1 pm - We packed up, threw towels over the car seats, and took off. I have a little bit of a sunburn and Katie will probably be choking up sea water for days, but I hope the pictures will prove to be worth all the fuss!