Mitch Highman from DIY Photography about returning back to analog...
Mitch Highman from DIY Photography about returning back to analog photography with the help of Lumu:
I grew up using film. 35mm Canon AE-1… I know… Canon (enough of that) but I remember shooting and then having to develop the film. Having this Hasselblad in my hands and hearing the sound when you release the button is so… inspiring. Not that digital photography isn’t inspiring… its just something about film.
Lumu light meter hooks into my iPhone and has made me feel a bit better about taking the right settings and creating a well exposed shot… even though life in the digital world has really taught me to just eye it and change the settings… its nice to have a little reassurance wink emoticon
Anyways… I can now say that I have taken more pics OF the Hasselblad than WITH the Hasselblad but that will change! Love this thing!
stephenvilla: Received my new lumu light meter today after the...
Received my new lumu light meter today after the previous one I had got busted pretty bad after so much use. I’m excited to be shooting analog again!
andrewhutchinson: Summer Flowers-Zenith ET/Kodak Film #kodak_film...
Summer Flowers-Zenith ET/Kodak Film #kodak_film #kodak #IGSouthWest #zenitet #russiancameras #istillshootfilm #arizonasummer #arizona #flowers #lumulightmeter (at Scottsdale Civic Center Park)
Featured photographer #33: Wes Hodge
What did you want to become in the childhood? I was born and raised between Mississippi and Alabama. After college I dove headfirst into surf culture
which prompted a move to Hawaii in 2009 where I’ve lived ever since. Growing up, and even still today,
I’ve never really had a “I wanna be a ______ when I grow up.” For my entire life, I’ve been a “jackofall
trades”, from robotics to music to programming to beer brewing, I steadily jump from thing to thing; all of
which garners the thought of “Could I turn this into a profession?” However, one thing has remained a
constant, photography.
How did you start your photographic journey? The first camera I remember owning, which may still be at my parents house, was a Vivitar 110. I had this
camera in the 6th grade and took it to a class trip to D.C. That’s my earliest memory of photography.
I grew up in a household that really valued creativity with art-covered walls, rolled paintings everywhere (my stepdad intended to open a gallery at one time), art books galore and vintage cameras strewn throughout the house. I had always enjoyed viewing art and photography and could spend hours gazing at books and different pieces, however, I didn’t really fall in love with creating images until my latter years of college when I picked up a digital point & shoot. From then it was over, I would photograph everything!
After graduating college, I picked up a DSLR and taught myself exposure, composition, and lighting by way of Flickr groups and forums. Like any artform, experimentation is normal for creative growth, so I began to experiment with different cameras and setups and began exploring the vintage cameras at my parents house, which is when I fell in love with film! The camera I latched onto was my stepdad’s old Olympus 35S Rangefinder. During that time, I started taking continuing education classes at a local college to get access to a darkroom and began developing and printing my images while collecting materials to build my own darkroom at my parents house. But before I could set that up, I moved to Hawaii.
In Hawaii, 5 years ago, there were hardly any resources to shoot film so I abandoned film and went back to digital. It wasn’t very long ago that I discovered a dedicated film camera shop that had opened a year or so ago called, Treehouse. My obsession with film exploded again; this time with a medium format craze. In the few weeks following the discovery of Treehouse, I purchased a Rolleiflex 2.8c, a Yashica Mat 124G, a Mamiya RZ67 and a Canonet 35mm, which leads me to today.
For now, I’m a fulltime freelance photographer. I shoot a Canon 5D Mark III for client work and sometimes
for fun, but most other times, I shoot film, preferably medium format.
What do you want to achieve? My subjects seem to evolve without me really noticing until I step back and look at the path. At this time,
my subject matter seems to be more about telling the stories of other creatives like illustrators, hand
letters, and other photographers. Probably because that’s who I’ve been spending most of my time with
lately. But, I think the direction I would love to go is more of the humanitarian front and give a voice to the
voiceless, whatever that might look like. Domestic or foreign. I think I would get the most joy in that.
I’m not a great speaker, so for me, the greatest power of photography is an actual voice. Its message transcends most of the barriers that separates people.
The craziest thing you ever did as a photographer? Have you ever got in troubles?
I’ve never really gotten in trouble I suppose, but the craziest thing I’ve ever done to make a photo was to stand in the middle of the busiest street in my city to snag a photo.
What’s in your camera bag? My only vehicle is a motorcycle, so I’m quite limited to what I can carry so I try to keep it simple most of the time.
I rotate cameras quite often so I’m able show each of them some love and attention and explore the
characteristics of each of them. But in addition to the cameras, sometimes I carry a Manfrotto BeFree
compact tripod, a set of ND filters with steprings (I shoot wide open most of the time and half my film
cameras are 1/1000th or less) and on a rare occasion I’ll bring a speedlight with a stand and umbrella.
I try to shoot daily, so I’d say at least 4 days a week I shoot.
Featured Photographer #32: Scott Gleine
Short personal intro. For a living, I service and maintain motion picture cameras and lenses, which continues to provide me with more opportunities to learn the craft which carry over into my photography. At the moment, shooting stills on film is sort of a side job/hobby that I hope to continue developing (no pun intended).
Your personal story with photography. Part of my interest in photography comes from my passion for cinema. The art of telling stories through images via lenses, lighting, and composition has always been fascinating to me. Also, I’d say my initial interest as a kid was sparked by my grandfather. He was a photography specialist for the Army during World War II and kept with photography throughout the rest of his life. He even had a dark room in his basement. My first 35mm film camera was a hand me down from him. I still have it, along with many other cool vintage cameras and lenses that I inherited.
What do you think is the greatest power of photography? It seems these days, especially as technology evolves, that we are constantly flooded with images in our life and it can get a bit overwhelming. Also, everyone has the same nice digital cameras, the same nice lenses, the same photoshop tricks, and everything just kind of looks the same after a while. So it’s hard to stand out. I shoot that kind of stuff too, but it’s not completely rewarding. That’s one reason why I’ve been shooting more film lately. Aside from being fun and having a wonderful texture, it also enables me to slow down a bit and think about only taking worthwhile images. I think the greatest power of photography could be the ability to capture moments that linger on long after we’re gone. Unfortunately we don’t get to live forever, so creating something lasting while we’re here is maybe the closest we can get to immortality. If I can achieve that through photography, even in the smallest capacity, that makes me very happy.
Where do you think the wisdom and instinct for good photograph comes from? I suppose it changes from one photographer to the next, but I feel like it comes from personal experience that grows over time. To me, only a small part of photography is talent. It’s a skill that you need to work at and continue evolving. At a certain point, after taking a LOT of pictures, I felt like I could approach a subject and see in my head how I wanted to capture it before taking the shot. How I wanted to frame it, what focal length I wanted, how the depth of field would look depending on aperture and how close I was to the subject, etc. etc. All of that is an instinctive thing that becomes clearer the more I shoot.
Featured Photographer #31: Sebastian Toth
Short personal intro. 27, currently based in Vienna, Austria. I always had a strong penchant for everything nice and creative. I started out in interior- and furniture design, browsing books, magazines and such for inspiration. At some point i started taking pictures myself, first with a point and shoot digital camera, but when i first found my analog camera at a flea market for some 10 Euros i was instantly hooked. Turning the aperture and speed rings, manual focusing .. It had a certain kind of magic. I knew i wanted to to something related to photography, so i finished school but didn’t pursue architecture any further, i focussed on photography working for the Impossible Project and recently for Leica.
Your personal story with photography. As already said, i picked up my first “real” camera some 8 years ago. I can remember it pretty well, it was a really beat up Praktica PLC 3 with a 50mm lens. I used it quite a lot for my first photographic experiments, learning how a camera worked and learning how to develop my first own films, until it fell apart and broke.
Later I got myself my first rangefinder camera, a Canonet 19. The new camera was lighter, smaller and I started taking it everywhere. That was also the time I started out with street photography. I snapped pictures pretty much everywhere, be it on the way to the grocery store or just going out for a walk.
After a few years of street photography, and having less time to walk the city for hours, i looked for new endeavours and found the portraiture genre more appealing, as i had more control over what happened in front of my camera. Some more time passed taking portraits, and I was asked to photograph editorials and backstage pictures at various fashion shows. From there I was asked by designers to take picture of their work, it developed and at the moment I’m trying to build a portfolio in lingerie photography.
I’m always experimenting with different processes and styles, right now I’m a lot into raw and untouched photographs. I publish my pictures just as they come from the scans. Dusty, grainy and unretouched.
What’s in your camera bag? Actually i don’t really carry a bag around most of the time. My get-around gear is a Leica MP with a Leica Summilux 35mm and some rolls of film in my jackets pockets. For snapping pictures when Im outside thats perfect, for my other works I do pack a bag. Its a vintage Ruitertassen bag, filled with my Leica MP and 35mm and 50mm Summilux lenses and a Leica IIIf with a Chinyoko Super Rokkor 45mm screw mount lens. I especially love the Rokkor for its unique signature, its a little gem of a lens. Lens hood, yellow filter and black and white film is also always in it, just like i always pack a multitool and a first aid pack, an old habit from my days in army service. Most essential part is my Lumu thou which i love to use on location for available light photography.
Do you have any kind of obsession? Due to my work i have a serious case of GAS. Gear acquisition syndrome is not avoidable if you work with vintage cameras, collectors items and photography every day, so i kind of started my own little collection of cameras. Multiple rare Leica cameras and rare lenses are the fruits of that obsession and the basket is growing steadily. My other obsession is minimalism and simplicity. For me a camera is not supposed to have more than an aperture ring, shutter speed dial and a focus ring on the lens. It helps me focus on photography when in holding a camera instead of screens, buttons and menus.
Featured Photographer #30: Axel Mosch
Short personal intro. My name is Axel Mosch and I was born in Dresden (former GDR). Being one of two boys I have always been the creative and kinda different one in terms of my way of thinking and acting. I left my parents home at the age of 16 to move 800km away to become a chef which I did, but that was just another exciting point of a still ongoing journey.
Your personal story with photography. My dad always used film cameras (Exa 1c till 1989 and Minolta since 1990), so I bought some Minolta Dynax to do my very first steps with it. Mainly for documenting the Techno scene in Dresden in the middle 90’s, before I moved to Berlin, where I bought the first digital Canon EOS about 10 years ago.
The even bigger step was going from the smaller EOS 450D to the full format 5D Mark III and to use that new toy for studio and product photography. It helped me to reach new levels in the quality of my pictures, even though it also created new issues because of the almost countless options a 5D is offering.
But the biggest step was definitely selling my Ducati and to go for a Leica, which I bought from my friend and mentor Jo Fischer. It just opened another level, another universe of photography and brought me down from the Canon machine gun to an M9 sniper rifle. I have not regret saying goodbye to my beloved bike ever since.
What do you want to achieve? Using a range finder camera brought me back to photography school, but being patient while shooting will bring me to even better pictures and to find my very own language in my images. Improving every day. Learning by shooting.
It would be great to be a good story teller through my pictures at some point.
The craziest thing you ever did as a photographer? Spending time with a friend in a skyscrapers elevator. He was doing stuff for his studies and I created a photography project out of it. Being on 2,5 square meters and meeting strangers for 30 seconds … there will be some amazing pictures soon.
What’s in your camera bag? There’s always at least one camera with me. Since I bought it, the Leica M9 has become the daily weapon, but sometimes it’s the whole “tool box” with the Lumu meter and some more equipment. It just depends on what I have to go for.
Shortcut to Camera app, click, add filter, upload, get 5000...
Shortcut to Camera app, click, add filter, upload, get 5000 likes, I’m a photographer.
A Medium Format Shooter’s Photographic Process by photographer Andrew Jamieson (http://andycreative.co.uk/).
Lumu user Lars-Göran Hedström from Sweden, shows what’s in his...
Lumu user Lars-Göran Hedström from Sweden, shows what’s in his bag.
Check his work on https://www.flickr.com/photos/leicaswede/
(via In your bag No: 1178 - Lars-Göran Hedström - Japan Camera Hunter)