Film Photo Essays

Fishing for Eyes in the Good Light [Kodak ColorPlus 200]

Not the clearest article title there, is it? But it does describe what you’re about to read pretty well if you give it a chance. And that is a 3-step process for shooting the kind of images I like to shoot.

It’s not a hard thing to get your head around and you don’t need to do street photography for it to help you. It can be useful whatever you shoot.

Want to know what the process is? Then come take a read as we go through it from its logical beginning to end, and all illustrated with a bunch of street photographs shot on film using it.

The First Roll from the Yashica Electro 35 GSN [Fujicolor Industrial 100]

Rangefinder film cameras aren’t always the easiest to get to grips with when you’ve never used one before. As you can see from the title, I’d never used one before I shot this roll in my Yashica Electro.

If you’re wondering how it went, you’re not too far away from what I was thinking while shooting. I had no idea how it was going either.

The short version is it finished better than it began, which is understandable as you get used to a camera. The long version is inside. Come read it.

Chasing Light in Qibao Old Town [Fujicolor Industrial 100]

qibao temple pagoda

Sitting out to the west of the city centre but still absolutely in Shanghai, Qibao old town makes a lovely day away from the shiny skyscrapers of China’s biggest metropolis.

If you’re going to go there, try to pick a day with fewer people. So neither a weekend nor a national holiday. Try also to pick a sunny day. Then you can take advantage of the light and get better photographs.

Trust me. I shot parts of Qibao – on Fujicolor Industrial 100 film – on both bright and overcast days. Come see the difference good light makes to your photography here.

A Few from the m50 Art District, Shanghai [Fujicolor Industrial 100]

m50, at Moganshan Road in Shanghai, is one of the city’s most iconic art districts. It’s also one of the only places in town you’ll find genuine street art.

I went there with the old Olympus Supertrip and a roll of Fuijfilm Industrial 100 to get a few shots, which you can see in this short essay.

Come take a look, find out how the m50 art district came about, and how you can get there if you’re in Shanghai and want to check it out too.

Shooting for the First Shitty Camera Challenge [Rollei Retro 400S]

shitty camera challenge

The Shitty Camera Challenge was pretty much as the name suggested. That was… to shoot with a shitty camera. You could use any film you wanted and then were to post the results to Twitter.

There was a suitably bad first prize, which I don’t know who won right now but I hope it wasn’t me, and lots of fun to be had on the #shittycamerachallenge hashtag.

For me, it was an excuse to get out again with the Canon Sure Shot AF-7 and try some Rollei Retro 400S for the first time. This is how it went. Come take a look.

A Failed Photography Trip to Nanxun Water Town [Fujicolor Industrial 100]

Nanxun water town sits not too far from Shanghai, which makes it a good getaway from the city. It’s also a pretty photogenic place, if that’s what you’re into.

And if you are, you won’t want to make the same mistake I did which led to coming back with just four photographs – shot on Fujicolor Industrial 100 – to show for it.

Come read what happened, see how to avoid the same happening to you and why, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t really a failed trip at all.

Shooting Ilford Pan 400 in Shanghai

More film photography, right here. And this time we’re shooting monochrome.

Ilford Pan 400 is a film available in Asia. It’s not expensive, but does that make it worth buying if you’re in the area? Or even getting some shipped if you’re not?

To find out, I shot some Shanghai street photography with it. Here, in this very article, you can come see how it turned out. Come one, come all. Come on. Come in.

Yuhuan – a Film Photography Essay [Ilford Pan 400]

Yuhuan is a small, industrial city on China’s east coast. I don’t think many people go there for the sightseeing.

I went there for a Chinese New Year and took my charity shop film camera and two rolls of Ilford Pan 400. I wanted to tell a story. I wanted to present Yuhuan as I saw it.

This film photography essay is the result of that. Come take a look.

Testing the Olympus Supertrip in Shanghai [Kodak ColorPlus 200]

Another new old camera, bought cheap in an English charity shop, and a roll of the only film they had in Tesco. Taken to Shanghai and tested out in the winter sun.

The images I got are presented in this article. There aren’t that many of them but what is here is worth seeing. I wouldn’t have shared them otherwise.

So come take a look and see how a camera that cost less than the roll of Kodak ColorPlus inside it fared on its first outing (I presume) in China.

Testing the Canon Sure Shot AF-7 @ Airport Square, Chongqing [Kodak ColorPlus 200]

We need to be honest here. Chongqing’s Airport Square is in no way a place you should ever visit. Chongqing the city certainly is. But spend your time seeing the good stuff in the city centre.

That said, Airport Square was good to me. It provided a nice little location to test out my new old camera – the Canon Sure Shot AF-7. The question is, how did the shots turn out?

The answer is in this post. So maybe you should come on in and find out. Please. Thanks.