scenes from belle isle|film

I’ve been intrigued with the idea of going back to shooting some film for a while now.  So, in March I finally pulled the trigger and bought a used Canon EOS3 35mm film camera.  Well, I guess just about all film cameras are “used” now, but anyway…the advantage of starting with this camera is that it’s compatible with all of my lenses.  So, in theory, I could just load in a roll, slap on a lens, and go.  It’s funny how foreign it felt to load in a roll of film.  Up until about 7 years ago, it was the norm for me.  No big deal.  But now I felt like I was somehow going to screw something up terribly, and I read my camera manual over and over before I even attempted it.

Luckily, shooting film is kind of like riding a bike.  Except that now, I am not doing anything on any automatic settings…and so, I had to wait an agonizing several weeks after I sent off my first few rolls of film to even see if I 1) had captured anything at the proper/desired exposure, 2) gotten anything at all in focus and 3) if what I have learned about shooting digital would transfer to film.  I was so nervous to open up these first scans, convinced I’d see nothing but either horribly under or overexposed pictures…and every time I snap a picture with my film camera I still try to check the back LCD screen (that isn’t there of course!).  Old habits die hard.  Film is a great experiment for me.  It’s forcing me to sloooooow waaaaay down and think much harder before I shoot.

So, we were in Detroit about a month ago.  I was scouting Belle Isle for a session location.  I love it there, such a fascinating mix of things that are beautiful and functional and things that have been left behind, many of these pictures are of the little zoo that was shut down several years ago, and some from the conservatory.

So here are a few shots from my first roll of black and white film.  Canon EOS3 + 50mm + Ilford HP5 400.  Processed and scanned at Indie Film Lab.