LET'S USE SOME FILM! - How about a National Get Out and Shoot Day?

We interrupt your favorite channel to urge you to do more of what you love, and do it now!

Alas, another lab, A.I.M. Pasadena bit the dust last month. They did black and white plus E6. No word of rats leaving the ship or anything like that. This seems to be the case with most operations going away - we just get the bad news, after the fact.

And sure, film is around to last 5 years more if they stopped making it today, provided someone pays the fridge bill. But whoa, I never thought that the labs would eat it so quickly.

While certainly, a few LF E6 shooters, making an exposure or two every three months won't make up for the trends of the time, if we all get out there and shoot more, or stay home and shoot, perhaps there will still be some labs that will find it worthwhile to develop color. It's true, one can do E6 at home ( but how long will those kits be around, eh? ), however a good lab does a good job. Perhaps we should as a group consider consolidating some lab services to ensure adequate cost benefit to keep a good line going somewhere?

If you've had your cameras idle for more than a month, get out and shoot some more! If you spend more time on this forum than you do shooting or making prints, or whatever - how about taking 1/5th of that time to capture more images? Been really into B&W lately? When was the last time you made a totaly juicey, E6 masterpiece to oogle over with your loupe?

How about an E6 LF shoot out? We could suggest a set of say, 7 themes, or to keep it simple, a very simple set of option themes, subject to the interpretation and expression of the LF user, who could use any LF camera they wish. How about a set of 7 colors, not nec. the primaries either, but nice to include them? A sort of "Iron Chef" shoot out, where the theme ingredient must be featured, yet it is okay to include other ingredients in harmony or contrast? ( fine with me if you include Uni too, but watch out on that squid! ). Hmmm, I've got two boxes of Fuji 64T Readyload 4x5, fresh enough, to pitch into the pot. Maybe we could have a donated set of prizes, from say 3rd to 100th place with no prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place and a special prize for second to last place?

I'm headed up to the desert to take in big sky, deep earth, and gentle meditation plus a bit of Americana this weekend - that's going to zap a couple boxes of 8x10 color for sure, as well as put a small dent in the trusty Efke supply. And while I'm at it, What are YOU gonna do, sit here on this board and wax philosophical about the good ol' days - or make some good new days right now?

And shoot some color too! Ahhhh, that rich, juicey, razor sharp, fine grained image with the marvelous pop to it no digicam knows. Instead of blobs where there should be trees, lovely leaves.... or instead of pixels, smooth out of focus areas, or even marvelous bokeh for those with barrel repro lenses and all the iris blades. The poetry of it. Mmmmm tastes so good!

Ask not what LF can do for you, ask what you can do for LF. It's National Get Off Your Arse Shoot Film Now Weekend, starting at 1800 hours TODAY!!

Back to your regular channel...

Ed K.

The 5x7 Speed Graphic will accompany me on 'dawn patrol' at 0400hrs tomorrow morning---plenty of holders loaded with FP-4+ at the ready! Tally-Ho!

I'm shooting mostly B&W this summer on Moloka'i, but today was an E-6 day--three rolls of 120 and two sheets of 4x5" (I only brought one Kinematic holder with 9 sheets of RAP as something of an afterthought, so I'm using it sparingly).

Afraid I've never shot a piece of color sheet film - negative or transparency - in my life. I wouldn't even know what to do with it.

But I wish you luck anyway - hope everyone who does know what to do with it will join you...

Oren - it's Get Out and Shoot Film Weekend, which means that film, any film, is just fine, or for that matter, even glass plates.

Remember the sound of the shutter, or the smoothness of slipping the velvet lined cap off, or squeezing the bulb? The nuance of covering / uncovering a lens with your hat?

It's all good! Ah, the feeling of a dark slide in hand and the wind stopping long enough to expose, or the crisp *!POP!* of that Speedotron, or the smell of freshly burnt powder and the watery eyes of your subject(s) as they recover themselves from the old-time exposure!

Or a series done with a flashlight only, or moving slit spiral profile photography, astrophotography. LF Photography from a moving platform, at night, in the morning, in the evening. Or, to beat any cliche - photographs at high noon but done right! Film noir, 70's revival, still lifes, and since it's summer, at least you can eat the fruit if you shoot that. Photos of photos being made, photograms, multiple exposures, mat shots masking in camera, compositions of hand colored B&W, photos that celibrate life, that criticise it, that capture the memory of friends and family for the future, that show how and were we lived, what you drove. Photographs to share your feelings, to portray other's feelings, that explore.

Self portraits, art shots, landscapes, theme shots, portfolio work, snapshots, cliche', anti-cliche, da da, Beaux Arts, grand, small - whatever! Documentary, representational, interpretive, abstract, statement of mood, study in line, temporal expansion/contraction, technical, indoors, outdoors, and, one suitable for a show: "In my back yard". Contact print, enlargement, you name it, but expose some of the light sensitive stuff and to honor the weekend, "write with light", while, if possible, record to show us!

Make an image this weekend, shoot film! And well, if you guys help out by shooting color, then selfishly, I can enjoy shooting it a bit longer too! :)

It's all good.

I shoot Velvia almost every weekend.... This one will be no different. Great idea.

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Originally Posted by Ed K.

Oren - it's Get Out and Shoot Film Weekend, which means that film, any film, is just fine, or for that matter, even glass plates.

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Hey, if those are the ground rules, I don't need any convincing. Afraid I don't have any glass plates, but I could expose some whole-plate sheet film loaded into glass plate holders with film-sheath inserts if that would further the ecumenical spirit of the occasion.

Ed,
I've been lazy over the last few weeks with the heat wave, other events, yada yada....but feeling the nudge. My holders are loaded. I'll get out tomorrow, and life will be good.
Thanks for the inspiration.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ed K.

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How about if we all just fog a few sheets of film? That would be so much quicker and easier and wouldn't require any processing.

Don Bryant

[QUOTE=Don Bryant]How about if we all just fog a few sheets of film? That would be so much quicker and easier and wouldn't require any processing.

I thought the idea was to do something different than what we're already doing. : - )

You're thinking too small.

This is an international forum - make it the International Get Out and Shoot Day!

I'm off to Cape Cod with 12 loaded 5x7 film holders and my recently acquired Moskva 5 and five rolls of film.

I too was saddened at AIM's passing, as I showed up there a week ago with some Velvia to process for client. The doors were still open but the managament was there saying they were closing and weren't taking any more film. Now, it's gonna be mail in to A&I in LA.

I guess the students at the Art Center weren't using them as much as I would have thought.

I don't shoot large format every week, but I develop a roll or two of 120 or 35 mm every week -- in a good week, I develop four or five.

The bad news is, the only way I can afford to keep that volume is to shoot cut-price B&W film and process it myself, so far as possible in chemistry I mix myself (Parodinal and home-mixed plain hypo costs me about a dime a roll using home filtered water, not counting the distilled water for the PhotoFlo rinse). The good news is, I can still buy E-6 and C-41 chemistry if I can ever afford them, though printing the C-41 may be problematic (though I expect RA-4 materials and chemicals will be around for a long time yet, given they're used in most digital printing kiosk setups).

As much as I like the idea, and I plan to do it, the way to make this effort noticed to the manufacturers is to get out, and buy some film!

I have enough film stockpiled that I could work for a couple of years before buying some film, but I worry that not being a consumer of films (despite the fact that I bought all that film a year ago) for a few years would be detrimental. Fortunately, I'm exposing more TMAX-100 these days, so I can buy film.

So, I suggest that in addition to getting out and making photographs, get out there and buy several boxes or bricks!

John Clark
www.johndclark.com

Ah, 746.8 miles later, there are exposed sheets from good 'ol friend Dorff ready for the soup and hectic drive to the lab, a marvelous road warrior weekend with 8x10. 150mm, 360mm and 450mm got into the act and there is both Efke and Velvia now exposed. Feels good.

Yes, indeed this is international, and thanks for the suggestion. Let's make it International Get Off Your Arse and Shoot Film Week, (IGOYASHOFILWEE) retroactively starting Friday August 4th, 2006, and this coming Friday, let's all post one thumbnail here for the fun of it.

I have a suggestion if there are any other "takers". How about if we all syncronize our watches to a particular GMT hour, minute and second and then take one shot then, of whatever and whereever we like, yet at the same time, then post thumbnails. For those who fog film, you still have to scan it whether you intend to develop it or not, and you would have to fog it at the right moment! Anybody wish to suggest that time for this week?

Indeed, buying some film is a good thing, as would using some of the lab services before they go away, or to help prevent them from doing so. I thought that with more shooting, those things would happen anyway. Who knows.

And more good news ( but really, this part is for another topic ). Few, if any mosquitoes in Pine Creek, plus very nice mules and packstation people there. A ride is reasonable, less than Sabrina, and the upper areas will have nice colors in Fall. Also, very very nice scenery at the end of the road at the top of Rock Creek Canyon ( all of this around Bishop, California ). Many flowers, streams good days ahead still. We shall take those big half draft mules up then, and Dorff will go too - for that day.

Spiritually speaking and all of that, thanks so much to all who shot film this weekend, enjoyed it so far, and either developed or about to do so. And thanks in advance to those who plan to do so this IGOYASHOFILWEE. And for the shot that clicks around the world, the same moment ( or nearly so as we can make it ) exposure, thanks and advance, somebody propose the best moment and we can all second it and do it.

Hmmm, IGOYASHOFILWEE is too silly, need a better one.

for our part, myself, bob mccarthy, and eugene singer made it out for an early morning shoot of the old theater in historic downtown grapevine texas.