35mm Ce

WHY FILM?

As I stated in my personal statement on the homepage of this blog, photography is something that has been a large part of my life for a long time. It is something that inspired me to pursue my future goals of working in the world of visual media. I will never forget when I discovered Tumblr.com. This website offered countless opportunities for me to display my photography work for the world, even though it wasn’t very good. I have always loved the idea of sharing my life in a visual medium.

When I went to a leadership camp during my junior year of high school, I met someone who introduced me to film photography. He had an Instagram page solely for sharing his film photography with the world. This inspired me to pursue this newfound medium, leading me to find my aunt’s old cameras. Over time, I began to get the hang of it and fell in love with the results.

One of my favorite things about using film is the suspense that comes with it. The fact that you can take up to 36 photos and have no clue as to if they turned out is thrilling to me. For some I can understand why they may not like this, but weirdly enough I like this element of having no control. This is going to sound very profound, but I feel like I spend so much time trying to control every move that I make in life. It’s refreshing to willingly let go and take a chance.

Film photography has also helped me grow so much as an artist. Something that I see as an issue at times is how dependent we are on the automatic features of a digital camera. Before using a completely manual camera, I had little knowledge on the different elements of photography such as ISO and aperture. With my manual camera, I am forced to adjust those settings in order to get the photo to even expose on the film. I find that this challenge makes photography even more fun and fulfilling.

With that being said, I hope to get even more involved in my ventures with film photography. I hope to experiment more with new cameras and even hopefully get the chance to work with getting video on film too. If you also have this fun interest in film, but are nervous to take a chance on film, I highly recommend just doing it! While cool, new technology is fun, old technology can be just as fun and even more educational.

Sidenote: I took inspiration in my good pal Cooper’s instagram page for his film photography, so I made my own too! You can follow it @35mmce if you feel inclined! 🙂

https://www.instagram.com/35mmce/

SUMMER 2019

Moving away to college is hard for everyone, and even harder when you’re doing it alone. Despite how close my friends and I are, we all made our college decisions individually resulting in each person attending a different school. Being separated for nine months can take a toll, however the cheesy quote “distance makes the heart grow fonder” has proven to be truer than ever.

When we all came home for summer break, we each had full time jobs. With time being limited and each person being extremely busy, it became even more of a priority to make time for hanging out with each other. These photos capture some of the time we spent together over this past summer. These events range from a visit to the Detroit Institute of Arts to our spontaneous decisions to meet up at the local coffee shop downtown.

If there’s one thing that I love about film photography it is the authenticity of the results. Some of these photos were taken with a disposable camera, which is one camera that does not hide imperfections. The harsh flash helps to give the photos a special edge that personally transports me back to the moment that I pressed the button.

Another thing about the disposable camera is the lack of camera presence that it has. In both photography and film, there is a concept showing that people tend to change the way that they present themselves once they notice that they are being photographed or videoed. It makes the content less authentic. With disposable cameras, they seem less intimidating, which generally makes for a nicer product where the subject is less tense and more natural. Lots of the photos from this past summer have that genuine feel to them where my friends seemed to ignore the camera and just be themselves.

Summer 2019 was likely my last full summer at home with the freedom to see my friends every day. The future holds a lot of really amazing things, but it is also absent of the life that I have always known. As I will be making my journey to study abroad in London during this upcoming summer, I will be sad to miss out on countless trips to the McDonald’s parking lot but I take solace in the fact that I will have these photos to remind me of my wonderful friends at home.

KENSINGTON

Growing up in suburban Southeast Michigan, there was not much variety in the different activities that we were able to do. My friends and I are the type of people who go to McDonalds at midnight and sit in the parking lot just talking for hours. Another thing that we often do is go to Kensington. On this particular day, we had just gotten back from a long semester of school. It was finally summertime, so we had a nice little picnic along with a quick photoshoot.

Our afternoon started with a Michigan classic – Little Caesars pizza and pop. We sat on blankets, played some music, and admired the beautiful scenery that Kensington has to offer. We watched sailboats drift by and families spend time with each other. After eating, we took advantage of that scenery with our little photoshoot.

The best part of taking these photos, after my beautiful friends, was the blooming tree that we were sitting under. It offered so much color and vibrance in addition to some sort of focal point to the photos. Looking at the final products, I can feel a radiance of summer shining through with the help of the soothing colors and smiles.

While some of these photos are genuine shots of my pals, we definitely had some fun with this. We laughed so much this day. With good tunes blasting through the speaker we danced around in the grass and took some funny pictures like the one with Alissa ‘stepping’ on Olivia. After eating lunch in the park, we paid a visit to the Dairy Queen right outside of the Kensington entrance. Shalissa had a field day with this and these photos ended up being some of my favorites.

Days like this one make me grateful for my friends. People always say that you find your true friends in college, but my life decided to do it opposite. I met the greatest friends way back in elementary school and they have remained my best friends to this day. People have come and gone, but these four (including Audrey who was volunteering in Africa during this time) have stuck around and I’m so happy to have these incredible people in my life.

TWENTY ONE PILOTS

Music is something that has always been a huge part of my life. I’ve gone through various stages of artists and bands that I have been head over heels for. Twenty One Pilots is one of the three bands that have stuck throughout my life. I am unashamed to admit that I have seen TOP eight times live and hope to see them many more.

These photos come from the most recent show that I went to in June of 2019. It was the first time that I was in the pit after three years, so I was incredibly excited. One major aspect of twenty one pilots culture is camping outside for shows. My day started with a two hour drive to Grand Rapids, followed by nine more hours outside in the summer heat. My amazing little brother agreed to go along with my shenanigans, so he was my buddy for the day/night. Knowing that I’d be in the pit, I knew that I wanted to get some cool photos, so I planned ahead and bought some disposable cameras since bringing my actual camera wasn’t an option.

First, I took the last four photos that are included in the gallery below. With these, I really wanted to capture the scenes outside. Twenty one pilots fans are truly passionate about this band. Remnants of the campers were everywhere. Slogans from the newest album saying “welcome to trench” were taped to the ground. The band’s logo was posted everywhere along with a sea of yellow plastering the crowd waiting to get in. I love these photos because they remind me of what it feels like to be a part of this inspiring community of fans – the clique.

Next, of course, came the show. If you have never seen even a snippet of a twenty one pilots show, I recommend that you look it up and watch. These guys go all out for their live performances. Despite becoming a worldwide sensation, they make a true effort to maintain the authenticity of a small band. They pull off stunts such as standing on top of the crowd and even drumming on top the crowd. It’s honestly hard to put into words how incredible this show is. With my disposable camera, I made the conscious decision to turn the flash off. I figured that there was enough light in the giant arena to make the photos turn out. Here is a YouTube video on the art of shooting with disposable cameras (https://youtu.be/pwjERPKUqec).

I had such an amazing time, as always, at the show and getting so many photos to turn out on film made it even better. Whenever I look back at these photos I feel like I’m being transported back to the show, which is something that I aim to capture with all of my photos. Great photography tells a story, and for me these photos tell the story of great music and passion for a band that changed my life.

SAN FRANCISCO

Something that I have learned about myself over the years is that I am not a very conventional person. Instead of going on a tropical cruise or to an all-inclusive resort in a different country, I decided to go to San Francisco for my senior spring break trip. No friends, just my mom and I. My Aunt Chrissy was living there at the time, so we had both a place to stay and someone who knew everything about the city. Being my first time on the west coast, we had lots of excursions planned and I knew that I wanted to take lots of photos on film.

I trekked my Pentax K1000 across the country and made sure that I made good use of it. The first major place that we visited was Muir Woods. As a huge Parks and Recreation person, I was super pumped to see some of the sights that they also saw in their San Francisco episode. Seeing the redwoods was breathtaking. I couldn’t stop taking photos, however, one issue that I found was the lighting. We were in the middle of a giant forest, so naturally it was a bit dark even in the middle of the day. While it did take me a bit of time to adjust my manual settings, it was very much worth it. I placed one of my favorite photos of the sun peeking through the trees on that day.

The next thing that we visited and viewed frequently was the Golden Gate Bridge. Let me tell you, I you think it looks cool in pictures just wait ’till you see it in person. Taking photos of the bridge is fun because there’s so much you can do with it. You can get far away and watch the sun set on the Pacific right next door or you can get up close and personal. Composition-wise, I tried to get unique angles of the cables and leading lines that the symmetrical structure offers to the eye.

In addition to seeing the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, I also made an effort to see the city sights. My dream has always been to live in a big city, so being in any urban setting brings me tons of joy. The photos of the buildings, the cable cars, and China Town are some of my favorites from the trip. I loved capturing both the culture and general beauty of the city. Similar to the bridge, lines of buildings and cable cars allows for so much opportunity when it comes to fun photo composition. The natural light from the sun also made it easy to get the perfect light settings and even capture some lens flares.

In opposition to the previous paragraph, we also made an effort to get away from the city scene with a trip down the coast to Big Sur. While in the small coastal town, we paid a visit to Pfeiffer Beach. This beach was truly magnificent. Its main attraction was the giant rock formations with waves constantly crashing through them. While I had a manual camera with literally only one shutter speed, it was certainly difficult to get a good image of this, but I made it my goal to do it anyways. I eventually figured out my rhythm and managed to get multiple photos of water in the air. I included below one of my favorites from that day.

Since I wrote lots about photo composition on this trip, I have included below the link to a really awesome article talking about the different aspects of composition. https://medium.com/photography-secrets/beginners-guide-to-photography-composition-88290d6c24ac