When I knew that my son was coming, I figured I would want to document our life as a family a little bit more intentionally because the passage of time would manifest itself in a more concrete way. I’ve been into photography for a while, watching lots of cool creators on YouTube, and looking more into photo books for inspiration.
So I put some room in the budget to get a camera. I’ve done extensive research, because I’ve been wanting one for a while, and I found one that I really wanted in stock and pounced: The Fuji X-E4. I originally wanted the Internet’s favorite camera: the Fuji X100V, but it was sold out everywhere (even when they were still manufacturing it), and I knew that the X-E4 was pretty similar in specs with the added ability of interchangeable lenses. I’m really happy I went this route, the ability to change lenses would be proven pretty useful later on.
It arrived and I started taking shots of stuff around my place and of my fiance and I, until the main subject of my photography would come into the picture (pun intended). I’ve accumulated some basic ability with my camera looking into tutorials and shooting our day to day, but it felt like I was not taking advantage of the full range of tools I had at my disposal.
That was a little bit over a year ago, when I decided to take photography classes. My reasoning: it was technical enough for me to at least have something to grab onto, while also being art, something I’m not comfortable with at all. Art is something I’ve always stirred away from, I feel like it goes over my head most of the time, like I don’t know how to appreciate it, and much less make it. So it was a way for me to take me away from my comfort zone and do something I genuinely like with some potential to eventually get good at, while also not being afraid to suck while learning (which at the time was kind of a big deal for me).
I’ve learned a lot over that time: first I learned about light, composition, and a little bit of history. Then I moved on to artificial lighting and how to use it, doing a lot of portraits (my favorite kind of photography), to eventually focus on editing. But the main thing, and the purpose of this post, is that while learning I mostly focused on doing photography “right”: the correct/classic composition, the correct white balance, the correct exposure. Both when shooting and editing I was always looking to put out the most correct photo possible. And it’s not like my teachers didn’t encourage me to try new or different stuff, it’s just that I internalized it’s what I needed to do to improve: do what’s right.
But now that I don’t go to class every week anymore, I feel kind of adrift. Although for sure my photography skills improved, I still struggle to find my voice. I know that I like to do portraits, I would like to be able to do street. But I keep finding excuses, I don’t take my camera out half as much as I should and I don’t see myself getting any closer to where I want to be.
I even challenged myself for a while, to do a photo a day for 30 days. I only made it to day 11, even skipping a couple of days. The thing is: I’m kinda over doing things right, I want to experiment more. And I think the way I’m gonna go about it is classic Fuji: film recipes.
Film photography is what most attracted to get into taking photos, even before getting my digital camera I got an SLR and started to shoot. I really liked that I needed to focus on composing more than anything. Film recipes are a way some people found to emulate the look of some film stocks, using a feature that most Fuji cameras have: Film simulations.
The best place I found to get film recipes is Fuji X Weekly. For now I’ll be focusing on the Fujicolor Pro 400H recipe, for that vibrant pastel-y look. I’ll keep the raw files just in case, because I guess I can’t have that much fun with it. And here’s the picture I took to kick it all off:
I’ll shoot with this film recipe all of the coming month, and I’ll get back to you with results! I’ll post the ones I like most on Mastodon, so give me a follow for real time updates!