An exercise in my search for the film-look

 The tools:

Minolta 7000, loaded with Kodak Gold 200, set to ISO200, aperture priority at F4, no exposure compensation afjustment for the snow scenes. Film was processed by Grainnation, and they're shown here without any adjustments: straight from the scans.

Sony A99: 24MP, known for it's creamy rendering. set to ISO200, aperture priorrity at F4, exposure compensation adjusted for the snow scenes. The digital files were adjusted for brightness and contrast to match the film files. Very little adjustment was necessary, since the exposure compensation applied in shooting worked quite well.

Lens used by both cameras: Tamron 20-40 F2.7-3.5

The top image is digital and the bottom image is with film.

Jimmy Carter: an imperfect perfect man

 Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood at Jimmy Carter's Funeral

"It's rude to stare"

 

Sony A99 with a Minolta Maxxum 35-70 F4

My take on the Film-Look

Film Simulation: the process of obtaining the film-look from images obtained by digital means.

There are two  kinds of film-looks: the cheap-lens look and the expensive-lens look.

The cheap-lens look can be found in old family albums, pre-2000 snapshots. Typically, these photos were taken with consumer cameras with plastic lenses, using film of varying quality, film-processed in  chemical soups in different states of freshness, in thousands of developing labs where film-processing protocol weren't always followed. Finally, cameras were used with primitive focusing systems. So-called auto settings  were imprecise, let alone accurate. A decent lens inaccurately focused is a lousy lens.

The expensive-lens look is what is found in publications and photo exhibitions.. The tools used were not accessible to the average consumers. Films exposure had a narrow latitude, which necessitated accurate metering. Lenses were colour corrected and sharp (read: expensive). Films went to Labs with  precise processing. For example, Steve McCurry used Kodachrome that could only be processed in a handful of labs in the United States.

Paediatric Compassionate Photography (PCP), Part 1 of 4: Definition & Purpose

Part 1: Definition and Purpose

PCP is documentary photography specializing in paediatric patients with serious illnesses potentially leading to poor outcomes. There are two types of PCP, differentiated by their proximity to potential death:

• photos taken weeks, or even months before potential death, as in a patient who is scheduled to undergo a high-risk procedure. There is less urgency for the photo session, scheduling is flexible, and the atmosphere is relatively relaxed. Location may be away from the patient’s bed, in a non-clinical setting such as a sun-lit playroom or in a garden.
• Photos taken immediately before and/or after the withdrawal of life support. Although the photo session may be scheduled anywhere from a few hours to days ahead, the actual shoot is subject to the patient’s condition on the advice of medical staff and parents' wishes.

PCP is not a record of a clinical procedure. Melding craft and art, the aim of PCP is to document the physical presence of patients with their families (craft), and to capture the emotion and the atmosphere of the moment (art) in images that will be, at the least, bearable, even pleasant to look at in the future.

The wide latitude afforded the photographer to interpret these finals moments come with the immense responsibility to render a poignant occasion worth remembering in photos.

In my estimation, PCP is 25% photo technique and 75% preparations to get to the point where parents/guardians are comfortable enough that photos may be taken.

The aim of the photographer is to capture the beauty  of the patient, with the love and support of family members. Through a combination of judicious framing angles, lighting, and selective focus and depth of field, the clinical setting can be minimized and attention focused squarely on  people. 

Here is a link to the principles of design in photography.