Images shot on Oriental Seagull 100 in the Yashica Electro 35 GSN
If there’s one thing I like doing when I shoot a roll of film, it’s squeezing as many photographs out of it as I can. It’s not unusual to get multiple essays on here from the 36 exposures.
When I shot my first roll of Oriental Seagull 100 in and around Shanghai, I remember picking the Jing’an Sculpture Park as a place to deliberately cover.
The subsequent set from the marriage market came more from simply wandering into it afterwards, but it was still good for an article. And was actually, in my opinion, a better bunch of photographs than from the sculpture park anyway.
Back when I was sorting out the images after getting the roll developed, the ones that didn’t fit either of the essays above went in a desktop folder called Seagull Stragglers. I wasn’t sure how to present them. So I guess I’ll just present them as that.
The cityscape stragglers
As far as I remember, this first set of stragglers was taken on the same day as those mentioned earlier. It would make sense that they were, thinking about the geography of the city.
After walking from the sculpture park to the marriage market in People’s Park, it’s a short stroll up to Suzhou Creek, where you can head east towards the Bund. It’s the same walk I took for part of the Shitty Camera Challenge and the #leesixtyfive project.
I don’t often – i.e. never – shoot architecture but I thought I’d give it a little go here. A very little go, as it turned out. I managed to get one of my very favourite Shanghai buildings, though. The imposing Broadway Mansions.
A set of photographs wouldn’t be complete without one street shot either, so it’s fortunate I grabbed one on the way back to the subway station too. The light was good that day.
The spiritual stragglers
The second section of this set of stragglers was certainly shot on a separate day. I remember having a few exposures left and really wanting to get through them so I could get the roll developed.
I’m quite lucky to have a temple very close to my apartment. I’ve shot a little there before, on colour film, but decided to go there and see what I could come back with on the Seagull 100 anyway.
What I found was a whole load more lanterns than last time, so concentrating on them seemed the easiest way to get some photographs with a consistent theme. It was also a nice chance to play around with a shallower depth of field than I usually do.
And again, just like earlier, I had to grab a shot of some people in amongst the environment too.
Show your own stragglers
There’s a simple saying that I’ve been aware of since I was a young boy. It goes ‘better out than in’ and is usually – in my experience – heard after someone passes wind.
It’s also applicable to your photographs; even your stragglers. Actually, no. Especially your stragglers. It’s great to create photography essays and projects around a theme or a location, but those images are definitely getting shared anyway.
If you have a bunch of unrelated images left over, they don’t have to go unused.
Think of it like the bloopers that play during the credits of a film. They’re often as entertaining as anything you saw in the previous two hours. Depending on the film, sometimes more so.
If you’ve shot a project, the leftover photographs that don’t fit the idea enough to be included may be every bit as good as the ones you do use, in their own way.
Put them together. Show your outtakes. Show your stragglers. It’s just another way you can #shootfilmmakesomething 🙂
A superb film with low grain and high contrast, made for the Japanese market by the very people behind the fantastic Ilford stocks.
… p.s. if you want to learn more about the Oriental Seagull 100 used in this essay, check out the review here
… p.p.s. if you’ve enjoyed this post and think others will too, why not share or pin it?
