Finally gave in and tried shooting black and white film after years of hating on it

I used to think black and white film was just for people who couldn't afford color or wanted to look artsy without any real skill. My buddy Jake kept lending me his Ilford HP5 rolls but I always gave them back. Then last month I found a bulk roll of Kodak Tri-X at a thrift store for like $8 and figured why not give it a shot. I shot a whole roll of just shadows and textures around my neighborhood in Portland - chain link fences, wet pavement, tree bark up close. When I developed it myself in some old D-76 I had sitting around, the grain and contrast blew my mind. Now I'm kinda hooked on the way it forces you to think about light differently. Has anyone else totally flipped on a type of film they swore they'd never shoot?

2 comments

2 Comments

mason28325d ago

Man, I was the exact same way - thought it was some kind of film snob code or something. But then I accidentally shot a whole roll of Tri-X with the ISO set wrong and it came out super grainy and weird, and somehow that mistake made it look better than anything I'd ever done in color. Now my "artsy without skill" self is just embracing the happy accidents.

sage_lewis1025d ago

You ever wonder if the whole "happy accident" thing is just us convincing ourselves we don't totally suck at metering? Because I've definitely had that moment where I botched something on purpose then called it artistic. But for real, that grain and contrast you stumbled into - isn't that what people chase for months with different developers and chems? Now you're never gonna be able to go back to crisp clean color like some kind of alien, right? That Tri-X stuff has this way of making the most boring street corner look like a noir film set, and once you see it you can't unsee it. What's the next thing you're gonna swear off just to prove yourself wrong again?