Tech Tuesdays: Adventures In Analog

Long ago, when the world had never heard of a megapixel and anything digital belonged in science fiction more than in our daily lives, photography was analog.  Cameras were essentially light-tight boxes.  Photographs were captured on film, not on a memory card.  Prints were made by hand in baths of chemicals in a darkroom.

I've decided to dip my toes into this pre-digital world and see what happens.  I know that I'll never replace my digital equipment with film, but I'd like to be able to use analog processes at appropriate times or for the right projects to, as my wife would say, "add a little glitter" to my work.

My cameras du jour are the Yashica-D and Polaroid SX-70 (you can read my mini-review of it here).  The Yashica shoots medium-format 120 film and I've been playing with color negative film as well as color transparency film.  I've got a few rolls of B&W film that I've yet to shoot.  With the Polaroid, I've only shot a few packs of PX 70 Color Shade Push!, but I can't wait to get my hands on some PX 100 Silver Shade and even some PX 680 Color Shade (all new films made by The Impossible Project).

I'm not going to claim I'm an expert at shooting with these cameras, so expect to see some, how shall I say it... interesting results.  I've already discovered that I can hook up my Pocket Wizards to the Yashica (see the photo above), so I'm really looking forward to shooting some film in the studio.  There's going to be a lot of trial and error, but in this case it's not really about the results as much as it's about the journey.  I hope you'll come on the ride with me!