Today, we’re featuring a wonderful photo essay from Alex van Leeuwen of his time in Canada. Scroll below to read more and view the images…
Analog cameras and films used: Pentax 645NII (Find at KEH Camera or on eBay), Leica MP (Find at KEH Camera or on eBay) | Kodak Ektar 100 (Find on Amazon), CineStill 800T & 50D (Find on Amazon), Kodak Portra 400 & 160 (Find on Amazon), Kodak Gold 200 (Find on Amazon)
Connect with Alex: Website | Instagram
Canada Photo Essay
By Alex van Leeuwen
Earlier this summer, I visited my best friend who lives in Vancouver and – together with two other close friends – embarked on a road trip through British Columbia and part of Alberta for several weeks. In that time, we explored the main national parks, saw classic sites like Lake Louise and Joffre Lakes, stayed in small flyover towns, did our best to get off the beaten track and uncover some lesser known gems, and did a lot of hiking. It was a perfect trip.
I travelled with my Leica MP and Pentax 645nii, capturing 35mm and medium format frames in tandem. While the Leica was a very recent acquisition, I did feel that this trip marked a step development in shooting film for me – as regards to how right certain choices felt. I came away from the trip feeling like I’d gotten to a point of experience where my shooting decisions had become more instinctual – a feeling proven true given the results I got back were more consistent and ultimately better.
To expand this observation – a common thing with shooting film is the idea of a slower shooting style – given the stock and development costs of a single frame, shots are more considered and the moments where you choose to press the shutter are fewer and further between than with digital capture. That is far from a unique comment to make.
But one thing that doesn’t massively get discussed as a consequence of that slower style is that it takes longer to learn the intricacies of the format, and the individualities of the available stocks. Simply by virtue of shooting fewer rolls, of experimenting less, and having less of an experience base and information base to draw on – reaching familiarity takes longer, and thus it is a slower process to fully get to grips with the individual quirks and characteristics of a stock.
And that is especially true if you were like me when I started to shoot film – in that I wanted to try as wide a range of stocks as possible from the outset, and so it took quite a time for me to use certain stocks enough to know how and when to apply them in a way so as to maximize their potential.
Because, ultimately, a stock is a tool, and outside the more procedural aspect of a stock’s speed affecting when you choose to deploy it (in conjunction with your camera system’s range of shutter speeds, and your lenses’ maximum f-stops), the nuances of color, contrast, grain, and ultimately just the overall look of a stock fit certain shooting situations better than others.
This is, admittedly, a fairly deep – not to mention somewhat subjective – analysis on film photography, but I do think it’s not really a surprise that looking back on all the rolls I shot while I was still coming to grips with these learnings tended to be on the same stock – namely, Ektar100.
And so, while this was my first time properly exploring Canada, the activities I’d chosen to do, and thus the shooting situations I found myself in, had definite resonances in previous trips I’d done – e.g. the mountains and alpine landscapes of Norway or Patagonia were comparable shooting situations to a lot of the hiking and exploration we did here. Accordingly, I was able to deploy the stocks I had specifically bought for the trip and what felt like the right time.
Upon coming back to the UK, then, not only was I left with the memories of a perfect trip, but upon getting my rolls developed, I was left with the perfect feeling that these shots were a testament to how I’ve grown as a photographer.
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