Los Angeles Photo Essay by Reza Rostampisheh

This week, we’re featuring a stunning series of images from film photographer Reza Rostampisheh. Captured throughout Los Angeles, Reza photographed everyday moments and brought them to life through composition and color. Scroll down to see the series and read a photo essay from Reza about his journey with film photography.

Analog cameras and films used: Horseman VH (Find at KEH Camera or on eBay) | Kodak Ektar 100 (Find on Amazon)

Connect with Reza: Website | Instagram

Los Angeles on Ektar 100

A Photo Essay by Reza Rostampisheh

Like many, I started taking pictures using my father’s old camera, a hefty Nikon F2, and a super-fast 55mm f/1.2 back in the late ’90s.

And again like many – drawn by the instant gratification of seeing the results right away – soon I switched to a digital camera (Leica Digilux 1). While stunned by all the technological advancements the digital world had to offer, for years, I kept shooting digital.

Choosing MFT format as my weapon of choice – mostly because of the camera body size – I fell in love with street photography and taking pictures of everyday people, trying to capture them in moments that contained little stories. People were my favorite subjects, strangers moving around, interacting with each other, and doing mundane tasks.

Over the years as the digital revolution took over the world and with the rise of the internet, I realized my strangers were becoming lonelier in the frames, disconnected from the moment, and buried deep in their cell phones.

As time passed, I started capturing this disconnect, and although there were both the subjects and me involved in creating the photos, it felt it was only one of us that was really present in the moment. Over time, the lack of awareness of the moment by my subjects became harder to bear and eventually drove me away from street photography, and I almost stopped taking pictures.

After losing interest in street photography and not taking pictures seriously for almost a year, I started noticing and appreciating Los Angeles itself, without the people.

I’m a city guy, grew up in Tehran, with over 10 million people and only one-fourth of Los Angeles in size. While used to crowded environments where the people obscure the city, Los Angeles with its flat architecture and vast area offered a lot more to see.

This city – like a lot of other urban areas – is full of overlooked beauty… colors, lines, shapes, and shadows.

As the urge of making images was still there, I felt it was time to take a different approach in my photography, an approach that didn’t rely solely on capturing a moment, an approach that wasn’t all about the result, not like street photography.

And that’s how I was drawn back into film photography, and this time, from a technical angle, heavily focused on the process rather than the result.

I wanted to put as much time as possible into each frame (by my standards) and enjoy every single step of the process so the result wouldn’t matter that much anymore.

While it was becoming more clear in my head what kind of pictures I wanted to go after, I started doing research on gear and process. I was looking for a setup that gave me more real estate than a 35mm frame and more flexibility in terms of lens movements, while manageable to develop negatives in my apartment.

That’s how I landed on a Horseman VH technical camera with a 6×9 roll back and a couple of lenses; Schneider 90mm f/8 Super-Angulon and Nikon NIKKOR-W 210mm f/5.6.

For developing, I got myself a lab-box developing tank with the 120mm module, using Cinestill C41s liquid to develop (currently I’m using powder as they’ve run out of stock).

For scanning and post, I used an Epson V600 with Silverlight Fast software. I scan my film as positive (48bit DNG) and convert it in Lightroom using Negative Lab Pro.

The images here are the result of countless hours of driving around LA, looking for mundane and obvious beauties we overlook every day as Angelinos. They were shot on Kodak Ektar 100 120 film using my Horseman VH technical camera with Nikkor 210mm f/5.6 and Schneider 90mm f8 Super Angulon, which I truly enjoy shooting with.

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