After working with a digital workflow over the past two years (outside of the TAFE studio) i have an apprehension when it comes to using film.

The weekend just passed i did three shoots. I was faced with two situations where the film i had was too slow. I bought a bulk pack of Fujichrome Velvia 100 because they didn't have bulk 400. To be honest i'm not a fan of shooting at 100 ISO. In one shoot i decided to push the film to 200 ISO and in the second to 400 ISO. I've never pushed (or pulled) film processing before (with colour transparency) so i was worried it wouldn't work out. I was told by one lecturer it would just desaturate the colours and another said it would make the colours look unnatural. Lucky for me it all worked out fine and i'm pretty sure i got some great shots (i'm yet to look at the transparencies on a lightbox).

I guess my apprehension comes from the fact that there are so many variables and things that can go wrong in between taking the photo and seeing the end result on film. I'm even more worried when doing stuff in the studio because it's a lot more complex and making a simple mistake like not loading the film correctly is disastrous.

As the weeks go by i guess i'll get used to working with film all the time and will hopefully no longer feel the need to bring my digital body around with me to do some test shots, although i guess that's never really a bad thing.

I guess it's just hard to get a new workflow going after i'd established and had my digital one working so well. It's also frustrating having to have a pen and notepad with me all the time to record the data of each shot because it's not recorded in the camera like on digital . I'm contemplating getting a voice recorder.

So anyways, i'm focusing heavily on my uni work at the moment and am not shooting anything for myself personally or anyone else. Hopefully i produce some great stuff and manage to get it scanned at some point to show some of it.

This rant was brought to you by boredom at work at 5:00AM. Another two hours and i can go home and sleep for a few hours before going to my digital workshop...

Oh, also: If any Melbourne people could suggest some great locations for me to do shoots at i'd really appreciate it. Since i've only been down here for just under two months i'm struggling to try and find places which isn't helpful for location work! I have a car so distance generally isn't a problem.