Roll #9

Silver Lake Part One

The last time I went to pick up some film, I challenged myself to branch away from the trusty Portra 400 and try something new. I went for a roll of Ektar 100 but it didn’t turn out very well. At first glance everything seemed out of focus, blurred together with zero contrast, and the colors were not crisp or vibrant. It was a huge disappointment, and a humble reminder that I am a novice.

When I was in school and received a bad grade on a test I would shove the paper into my binder and never look at it again. The opposite of what you are supposed to do, I know, one should look it over, taking note of all that went wrong and do better next time, a blatant example of learning from ones mistakes, but I wouldn’t practice this until University.

My instinct was to bury this roll of film away and never look at the photographs again. Instead, I brushed up on some technical aspects of taking pictures to assess what went wrong, and then played around in Lightroom to try and salvage them. Turning everything into black and while took out the harsh lighting and strange colors, and now they don’t feel like a total waste.

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*the final photograph on the roll of Ektar 100 finally displayed the epic color that the film is renowned for.