A few days ago I went on an adventure. Thanks to some unforeseen events I got to get press access at the Vogelball and Spektrum Open Air music festivals. Being all excited about the possibility to gain backstage access on a major stage I went off, my new to me Canon AE-1 and and a Nikon AF3 in my Bag but forgetting the key to access the DSLR I actually wanted to use. Fuck it, I said and made this an all-analog evening of shooting. Considering I wasn’t sure it both cameras were working properly, this was a pretty big act of braveness I thought. But it didn’t stop there, because my new found bravery led me to develop those 4 color film rolls ON MY OWN.
Needless to say I was scared as hell, when I took my first roll out of the spool but as you can see in the following pictures it worked out just fine.
In hindsight I would have come better prepared. The decision to develop on my own came to late to hold up to a professional standard of nice timing, and I really should have taken more advantage of my press badge to get more good exposures. Also: shaky-hands.
All in all I can just repeat that shooting analog on an event like this, feels like an entirely new way to shoot. The uncertainty if you “got the shot” could possibly kill a photographer who only shot digitally before.
About that C41 Development: It’s really straight forward. The only real “challenge” is to keep the right temperatures, especially if you have to go through a whole lot of rolls. But if you’ve developed black and white film before, C41 should in the end be easier.
The pictures from the AF3 are still missing, but I’ll update this article when I hold them in my Blix-soaked hands.
Learning is fun, isn’t it?
