Black and white film photography

I think when so much of how we interpret and interact with the world is informed by culture, it’s only natural that certain tropes might come to mind when approaching various stages of our lives.

I often think about one trope I encountered in several stories as a kid: that of the main character in said story leaving home to experience “the wide world.” These characters often came from small, pastoral, idyllic communities that would later be juxtaposed against the hustle and bustle of bigger cities or the various dangers lurking beyond the horizons the character was familiar with.

As I weighed and wrestled with my reasonings for moving from home, this thought always came up to me — that desire to see and experience “the wide world.”

*Fomapan 200 on Canon A-1.* *I think walks along the shoreline and gazing out into the sea are one of my favorite things about Corpus.*

If this already sounds like I’m putting much more weight onto my move than is necessary, know that I am very much in agreement. Austin is, after all, a little less than four hours down the road from home. Hardly “the wide world.” But I must acknowledge that the pandemic, and a couple of personal tragedies preceding it, have left me much more sentimental towards time and relationships — in preserving and cherishing both.

So when it came to finally put the wheels in motion on a move I’d literally been talking about for years, it suddenly was much more difficult. Adding to that, the city I once found so appealing when I was younger had lost its charm to the drab aesthetics of tech culture and an intimidating cost of living.

But there I was, a recent college graduate and not getting any younger. While I will always have love for my city, and certainly have no qualms about perhaps moving back someday, I felt the urge for new experiences drawing me elsewhere.

As they say, it was time to shit or get off the pot.

I decided I’d make my last few weeks in Corpus something of a project. I’d capture my surroundings on film, visiting places that embodied the concept of “home” to me. These could be places I frequented — like my favorite café — or even places tied strongly to my childhood that I rarely took the time to explore in adulthood, like Annaville and Robstown. I also wanted to get photos of friends and family that were part of my day-to-day.

Memories, we always have. But as conduits to our senses, memories can always be stimulated. I wanted these photos in their multitude to be one big piece — a tapestry of what makes up home to me.

I didn’t want to purchase new film stock for this, mainly because it was pretty much impossible to find in Corpus stores and ordering online would take too long. Plus, I had a decent amount — though mainly black and white. But then, thinking of how rendering in monochrome can only heighten the sense of “memory” that I was going for, I opted to shoot a roll of Fomapan 200 and Ilford HP5.

While I had intended to shoot more, the reality of prepping for the move ended up taking most of the time I had hoped to devote to this. The idea for the project really only came into my mind in the last month I had in Corpus and I didn’t really plan things out as well as I would have if I had started earlier. I didn’t make as many trips as I’d have liked out to Annaville, for example, and even wanted to make a trip out to Banquete to capture the fields leading to my late grandmother’s house — but this trip never came to fruition.

There were also plenty of folks I didn’t get portraits of that I wish I would have been able to. And not only that, but my amateur skill level shone through on one too many of the portraits I attempted, leaving several fuzzy or out of focus. Because of this, I’m leaving the portraits I took out for now.

*Ilford HP5 on Canon A-1.* *I have fuzzy memories of getting root beer at this old corner store by my grandparent’s house before it closed and it was one of the first landmarks that came to mind when I thought of this project.*

But, I suppose this means this project remains unfinished — perhaps indefinitely as I age and my home forever changes. My camera is always in tow, after all, and trips to Corpus are certainly always on the calendar.

But for the first installment of such a project, I came away pleased with at least a few of the shots I got. I captured some of the horizons I know well and places and faces I hold dear.

As usual, check the slideshow at the end of this post to see more. All photos developed and scanned by Memphis Film Lab.

This entry’s playlist is somewhat of an ode to Corpus and my life there, but that means many things and maybe is much more of a mixed bag. It’s composed of songs that simply make me think of my home — lyrically, thematically, or simply capture a moment or time in my life I remember fondly, or even not-so-fondly. They’re colorful songs I remember from childhood trips with family. They’re songs from when I was a young high school grad — exploring new tastes in music and finding my own sense of style and identity. They’re songs I’d play on my phone when I lived in our weird death trap of an apartment on 3rd Street, having a beer on the steps leading in and listening to the night, bathed in the glow of the streetlights. And then some I’ve simply heard recently and nonetheless spurred some sentimental feelings towards home.

As always, any thoughts and feedback is welcomed. Until next time.

Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022, 3:00 PM

“There’s just something about it.”

That’s what I feel like I tell myself when I build those silly scenarios in my head where I have to justify why I like the look of black and white, let alone want to shoot it.

It’s a timeless aesthetic — so strongly rooted in how we imagine the past and now seemingly taking a place as a purely artistic medium ever since color became possible across the recorded visual arts. If one were to look at the production of film and photography on a solely utilitarian sense, then it might seem illogical to want to fall back on a look that for all intents and purposes is obsolete.

But, to some, film photography in general may seem like a nonsensical field to venture into at this point in history, so there really is no reason to explain further when you’re already here I’d say.

In any case, shooting black and white has been something I’d wanted to try since getting into film photography — firstly because the aesthetic and secondly because, frankly, it’s cheaper (thanks, Kodak price jumps).

I’ve been sitting on a roll of Eastman Double-X that I bought when I first got that simple point-and-shoot back in December, but, because it’s still a little pricier, I’ve refrained from shooting it until I’ve got the hang of things a bit more. I’ve also got a roll of Ilford HP5, which seems to be one of the more popular stocks and comes highly recommended across the film community.

But for my first B&W shoot, I opted for what might be considered a budget option: Fomapan 400.

Produced by Czech company Foma Bohemia — in business since 1921 — I’d certainly say there was a historical allure to their line of film stocks for me. I read somewhere that they were one of the main film suppliers for the USSR back in the Cold War era and the traits of the film — particularly its high grain content — really gives it a look straight out of the annals of history.

*This is, of course, an easy remedy in Lightroom but not really something I want to have to do a lot of*.

It really delivered on this essence in this first roll but, boy, do I have to say: it’s contrasty as hell! I shot at the box speed of 400, but after reading several posts and articles on it, I learned that it is actually perhaps closer to a 320 or even 200-speed film, meaning a lot of my shots ended up underexposed. While I loved a lot of the shots I got (more than I thought I would, in fact), there certainly were several where the subjects kind of got lost in the shadows.

This roll panned out the way I figure many may go for me — shot over the course of days, or even weeks. While that first post I made centered around a roll I shot the total of in one outing, the reality is I usually don’t make the time for full shooting trips, only taking the moments as I can find them on my days off.

For this roll, I started out on a relatively gloomy day — kind of what I had been waiting for to shoot in black and white because I felt the shadows and fog captured that certain noirish quality we all seem to love about old films.

I started out by the shore, hoping to capture the fog out on the sea. I had stopped by the new Cole Park pier some weeks back on a sunnier day — impressed by its revitalization while still repulsed by its hostile architecture, as if the gloss of the new can subtract from the strict control commercial logic places over public space. I did, however, take one of my most favorite shots from this roll — seeing the black and white rocks that buffeted the land from the seawater as something that would naturally render well on this film.

However, the setting was still a bit too new to me. That’s not to say you only have to shoot old stuff with black and white, but I had thoughts in mind of what I wanted to capture and I wasn’t going to find it at the city’s latest tourist attraction.

Keeping with the sense of the past, I took the time to stroll about Heritage Park a bit — taking in the architecture of the old buildings and sense of solitude within the square. There was an odd contingent of cops on motorbikes having a meeting in one of the houses and I occasionally spotted folks working at their desks in some of the buildings but, overall, I felt like I kind of had the park to myself.

I walked a bit around the area and surrounding streets, looking in particular for subjects that might bring about the contrasts that render so well in black and white. See more of these shots in the gallery below.

Subsequent weeks I took my camera with me around town — to the library, to a nearby park, to a favorite nature trail. My mind was keyed largely on what the look of black and white might add to a scene, rather than what was in the scene itself.

I’d seen videos on how to “see the world in black in white” — some of the numerous I watch nightly to fall asleep to. However, I can’t necessarily say I gleaned as much from them as I would from simply my love of the aesthetic over years, particularly in the realm of cinema.

With the great Monica Vitti’s passing earlier this month, I recently watched Michaelangelo Antonioni’s trilogy of L’Avventura, La Notte, and L’Eclisse, and understood anew why the films may have given him a reputation of foregrounding visual beauty before, but not necessarily to the detriment of, plot. How the environment frames the characters of La Notte, further crowding them visually as they wrestle with their own inner turmoil, I found so wonderfully evocative in particular. An argument could perhaps be made as to whether the same emotional effect would have come across in color — I certainly think it could. But again, there’s “just something about it,” and I think that “something” may in part be how deeply we might connect emotionally with an image when we’re forced to reckon with its substance with a bit less noise.

Perhaps this is another reason I gravitate to this medium. A career in cinema was once a dream of mine that I long ago allowed to die, but I still think my creative ambitions owe a debt to that foundation. I think, at times, I may look at some of these photos and feel a strange sense of familiarity, as if encountering a dream as an old friend — one you once held close and inspired you, and to whom you embrace as if you never thought you’d see them again.

Check out more of my favorite shots in the slideshow at the bottom of this post. All developed and scanned by Memphis Film Lab. As usual, thoughts or feedback is welcomed, and enjoy a little playlist to go with this post below.