Based on popular demand and also on personal observation, I’ve decided to lose those cheesy borders that I was using for film photos, in favor of, well, less cheesy ones. I am still keeping a distinction between photos taken with digital and those taken on film by using different borders. Well, enough border-talk…

Instead of writing a line or two on each photo in this series, I will instead try to make something clear about the main purpose of my film photography. I will start by stating that photography consists of many different types and the line between these types is very blurry to say the least.

Why do people take pictures (or photographs)? In order to answer this, I should point out the obvious: there are different types of people with varying skills, who take photos. There’s the ignorant type who generally uses a cheap point-and-shoot to take snaps of his family, his cat/dog and whatever catches his fancy while he’s on vacation. This type doesn’t know a thing about exposure, composition, lighting and so forth. Nor does he know much about how his camera operates. Why would he? After all, that’s what the Auto setting is for.

At the other end of the spectrum is the professional photographer but the term “professional” in itself contains a wide variety of nuances. There are news photographers and sports photographers. There are fashion/studio and product photographers. There are all kinds of freelance photographers who tackle all kinds of subjects. There are wildlife photographers. There are industrial photographers. There are wedding and event photographers. There are so many types of professionals that listing all of them would be pointless. Among these, their skills also vary. Some are more technical, others are more artistic, and still others are revolutionary, original and inventive. There are even some whose photographs suck but somehow they still manage to sell their work.

In between these two extremes are the advanced amateurs with moderate to serious skills, who enjoy photography for the hell of it. In general they lean more towards the artistic side; however, the reasons why they shoot are their own. I am one of those.

Myself, I am always trying to explore the artistic side, especially with my digital photography. I enjoy shooting a wide variety of subjects, from nature/landscapes to macro, to street, to sports. The only thing that I don’t really like is fashion photography. Maybe it’s the fact that everything seems staged or that I am rather shy around people.

Then, there’s film. Since I got my Canonet, I’ve been using it mainly for street photography but not necessarily in an artistic way. Rather, I am simply trying to document what I see around me. I have always been fascinated by old photographs from years ago, showing how a certain town or city looked like back then. For me, this is simply amazing. It doesn’t matter how well that photograph is composed or exposed because its documentary value simply transcends all that crap.

For that reason, I won’t claim anything regarding my film photography. Some may like it, others may laugh at it but I just have a fantasy that maybe one day, fifty or one hundred years from now, someone will see these images and remain spellbound at how the world looked like back when their grandparents were but little children.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 at 11:08 pm and is filed under Canonet QL17 G-III, Fuji Superia 400, Street. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.