Last week was possibly the best week I could have ever experienced as a photographer. I attended the Film is Not Dead workshop in Melbourne, run by the very talented Jonathan Canlas.

Jonathan is a 100% film shooter, a rarity in these days of high end digital cameras. I just LOVE Jonathan’s work, he has an extraordinary eye and his work has had a very strong influence on me over the past 2 years. And he is the coolest guy as well, there’s no ego, just a warm, open, friendly guy who wants to spread the word about film.

If you know me, you’ll know that I very reluctantly changed over to digital 2 years ago. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with film my entire career, and digital just somehow seemed…..easier. And it is, but it’s still not the look I am trying to achieve with my photographs, and spending 3 days with Jonathan made me realise that.

So, off to Melbourne I trot last Sunday, and all I took with me to the workshop was my very old TLR Mamiya C22, my Canon EOS 100 and my 50mm and 85mm lenses. And that’s it. I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to only take out one camera each day to shoot with, and only on the 3rd and final day did I take both the Mamiya and the EOS to shoot with. But even then, I only had one lens to use on the EOS. These photos below are what I shot with the EOS 100 and my 85mm lens. I was so keen to see what I had shot when I got home that I sent one roll of film to my local minilab, just to see how it turned out, and if there were any photos on the roll at all (now that’s a whole other story). Now I know why Jon sends all his work to Richard Photo Lab in LA, just look at that grain in these photos!!! That’s atrocious! This film is supposed to have NO GRAIN AT ALL, even when over or underexposed! So no more film to that lab ever again. Now I know why I had such a love/hate relationship with film, the lab was crap!

This is the Queen Vic Markets, which I shot in the hour I had before flying home on Thursday morning.

All shot using Kodak Portra 400 on a Canon EOS 100 with 85mm lens

Seriously, if you ever have the chance to do a FIND workshop, do like NIKE says and JUST DO IT!!!

But don’t just go thinking you’ll take some pretty pictures, challenge yourself…..shoot with a camera you’ve never shot with before, try angles you’ve never done before, look at the world with different eyes than you normally do. Because only by challenging yourself will you learn and grow. And don’t be afraid of making mistakes. I overexposed the above roll by a stop because Jon had said that Kodak Portra goes super yellow when overexposed, and in the shot of the scales I can see that. But as for the rest of the shots I think they turned out really well, despite the grain. Well, I’m happy with them anyway

I can only sing Jon’s praises, the man is a font of knowledge and so open and giving. Anything you want to know about film he can tell you ’cause he KNOWS HIS STUFF!! I trained in film years ago, but the combination of being out of the industry for quite some time and switching to digital meant that I had forgotten quite a lot. So it was nice to be reminded of the beauty of film, and there is nothing better than a beautifully lit subject shot in film. But I am so excited to see the shots that I took, especially the shots out of my Mamiya 6 x 6, I literally just can’t wait to get them back from the lab!!