B&W film is over!

The above photo is one of my favourites from my most recent wander around West Norwood Cemetery; I just love how the fallen cross contrasts against the dark tree, which is so much older and yet so much stronger than the man-made object that it’s juxtaposed with.

I have still only visited two of the Magnificent Seven – West Norwood and Nunhead. Last year I had a very loose project to photograph all 7, and to emphasise the connection of life and death, nature’s never-ending life cycle, and the insignificance of man, with my photography. However, the project never really got off the ground.

When I attempted to begin the project at the start of 2018, I was determined to shoot the project on film, but I never found a film that seemed right for the purpose. Then, as spring came along, I gravitated more towards the flowers that I so love to photograph. Maybe the same will happen to my Magnificent 7 project this year, but I feel that after the last few weeks of cemetery shooting, I am starting on a more solid foundation than before, so I am more likely to keep at it. And I have decided that I will no longer be using film photography for this project.

Using my Panasonic Lumix GX7 again after a brief hiatus has really been eye-opening. Its black and white preset, paired with my Helios lens, has been giving me exactly the look I’ve been after, so it no longer makes sense (to me) to shoot this project on film, especially when I have little experience with black and white film.

In addition, I haven’t really felt like shooting any film lately; I seem to have lost my patience with it, or maybe because it feels like there is not much colour in the world right now (colour film photography is my jam). In winter, I have always tended towards b&w, and my GX7 is just perfect for that. I still love my Nikon FM, but lifting it up no longer brings me joy (a little KonMari reference in there for you since she’s so on trend at the moment!). As for my Yashica, I need to buy a light meter to use with it, but have not even started looking. The GX7 is enough for now!

I’m sure that once the blossoms start coming out, I will end up shooting film again. In fact, I’m already looking forward to all the cherry blossoms coming to life in Kew Gardens, and have already decided which films I’m going to use on them! If you couldn’t tell, I adore colour film over digital colour, particularly films like Lomochrome Purple, Kodak Portra 160, Kodak Ektar, and Fuji C200 (in fact I have 20 rolls of the latter in the fridge right now!).

So, most likely, I will learn C-41 developing this spring/summer because that’s when I’ll probably have lots of rolls to process! In my humble opinion, it really doesn’t make sense for me to learn b&w processing!

So make sure you stick around so you can follow me on these new adventures – finally giving my Life After Death project a kick-start, and learning C-41 developing (probably)! 🙂

As always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my images. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter, if you’re interested in cat photos and political rantings!