Author Topic: I wish......  (Read 5173 times)

Windy

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I wish......
« on: March 02, 2011, 11:27:18 PM »
my daughter would play more with film.

She constantly takes my E620 and does arty stuff playing with the onboard art filters. Waiting in the car the other day she grabbed my OM10 and asked me to 'look away' the result:


Me by Beth by windy_, on Flickr

Really like the result, how do I encourage her to do more?
« Last Edit: March 02, 2011, 11:35:34 PM by Windy »

sapata

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2011, 11:37:31 PM »
I like the result as well ! :)

I guess if you make it "easy" for her, like having always films available around and get results as quick as possible (processing and scanning). There quite a lot people I know into photography that I "forced" to use films, they got excited for the first two rolls and then given up because it's not quick enough! Maybe if you  let her process a B&W film could help as well...
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Ed Wenn

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2011, 12:09:51 AM »
Windy, first off, that's a great photo, so well done The Daughter. Second; how old is she? I'm assuming significantly older than my two youngsters (6 and 3).

Windy

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2011, 12:16:30 AM »
Windy, first off, that's a great photo, so well done The Daughter. Second; how old is she? I'm assuming significantly older than my two youngsters (6 and 3).

She's 14. She owns a Petri GX-1 that Andrea gave her, but I've only managed to get her to run 1 roll of film through it.

edit: her digital stuff shows an eye for a 'good picture'

edit2: my avatar was her pic too. taken on a canon 1000fn (now passed on to my eldest)
« Last Edit: March 03, 2011, 12:33:32 AM by Windy »

Mojave

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2011, 05:42:30 AM »
Couldnt agree with Sapata more. Lots of film available and maybe teach her to develop her own black and white. Maybe you could appeal to the teenage side of her and suggest she might look really cool carrying around two cameras, her film and digital camera, and that might get her shooting more film. Maybe? All I know is, carrying around all the cams I carry attracts a lot of attention. She might find that cool.  :)

Oh yeah, and that is one terrific shot!
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« Last Edit: March 03, 2011, 08:46:31 AM by Andrea »

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #6 on: March 03, 2011, 09:39:41 AM »
Hi Windy.

Is retro "cool" up there in the same was as it is down here? There's an increasing number of college kids walking round London waving everything from OMs to Pentax Spotmatics to folding rangefinders (none of which are particularly expensive, in the big scheme of things).

How about letting her choose her own camera (within a budget, of course) and seeing if she's up for a chellenge to produce shots in the style of........ I got a book recently called:

"Tir A'Mhurain: The Outer Hebrides of Scotland" by Paul Strand and it is superb. I suppose the good thing is that many of the places will probably still be instantly recognisable. maybe a bit of "focus" (pun intended) or a "project" that you could share might be a good way of pushing the issue, gently?

Good luck as she seems to have a good eye.
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original_ann

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #7 on: March 03, 2011, 01:08:32 PM »
I wish I had that kind of eye at 14 - encourage her!  Beautiful!

greenstphotography

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #8 on: March 03, 2011, 03:05:51 PM »
I am going to suggest another path.

Stop caring about what medium she is using and just plain encourage her to keep shooting.  If she prefer digital now then let her shoot that.  By trying to force her to use film you may be inadvertantly telling her that film is the only way to go and her digital stuff is not good enough (I know film is awesome and you want to teach her that).  I have found when I was teaching photography that the hardest part is to keep someone excited with shooting and part of that was to help them find a camera and process that helps make them comfortable.  At that age I think it's more important to just encourage her.

Keep shooting film on your own, branch out and experiment, if you don't devlope your own start doing that.  Let your daughter see what you are doing and see if you can get her interested in your work.  She will most likely in time want to branch out on her own.

Ed Wenn

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #9 on: March 03, 2011, 07:40:50 PM »
I am going to suggest another path.

Stop caring about what medium she is using and just plain encourage her to keep shooting.

....and I agree with Andrew (Mr Greenstreet). Photography itself is the overarching thing, surely? I spent about 5 years in the mid 90's being a digital photography evangelist (early adopter at the low end of the market) and shooting all those rubbish (but getting better) images really helped me get my eye in and led me...at the end of that journey....to the realization that I couldn't really take the kind of photos I wanted to with the digi cams in my price range. Something was always missing.

One LC-A later (present from my wife) and a chance meeting with Damion who told me all about this thing called a Holga and I was hooked....I could suddenly produce images that were a lot closer to the ones that I'd had in my head when I pressed the shutter. The connection was made and I've been a film fan boy ever since.

The instant-feedback nature of digital is what turned me into "a photographer" though and if your daughter is to get that far at least then she probably needs to do what comes naturally to her.

Let's face it; she already has a huge advantage over most of her generation....she knows that film exists and she has a Dad who takes awesome photos and shows a love and enthusiasm for film photography. That's probably enough for now.

For the rest, only time will tell.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2011, 07:43:28 PM by ed.wenn »

Mike (happyforest)

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #10 on: March 03, 2011, 08:13:00 PM »
Windy

I have the same issue with my daughter.

Following her GCSE's she was encouraged (by school) to sign up to an open university course and she selected a photography course.  Unfortunately the course was digitally biased.  However it gave her an appetite for photography and the course challenged her to experiment with her photos which she continues to do.

She currently owns three digital cameras (not including those on her ipod and phone) and generally carries the more compact of these whenever she is out. Using digital has enabled her to experiment more as their is no additional cost to taking and seeing the photo's. Something I was well aware of when I first got into to photography and in fact cost got me into developing\printing myself using the schools darkroom.

She has the walls in her small bedroom (was going to be my darkroom, still that's another story.) covered in pictures she has taken and they are mostly black and white (desaturated) images, and they are quite good.

However recently after gentle prompting (she thinks her photo's are better than mine and I say she cannot tell until she tries to use film) she is in the process of putting her first roll of B&W film through and old OM20.  She still has a few frames to finish and then we will see what the results are like and whether she will want to do it again.

At least she is trying film and I hope the results will encourage her to continue.

Now all I have to do is start the process with her brothers (the reason why my darkroom never materialised).

Or do I because my stock of film will reduce much faster.

Mike

Ed Wenn

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #11 on: March 05, 2011, 12:59:16 AM »
Good point, Mike. Paying for one person's film addiction is bad enough...I'm not sure I could bankroll a whole family of them!!

 :o :o :)

Skorj

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #12 on: March 05, 2011, 10:25:05 AM »
Really like the result, how do I encourage her to do more?

Polaroid. Simple! Skj.

Windy

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #13 on: May 08, 2011, 06:25:29 PM »
Well I've got her a polaroid (just need to get the film now). She also used here Petri last week (unfortunately she managed to open the back and ruin some shots and I didn't do a good job with the developing, but hey..)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/buffyg_96/5697660168/#
« Last Edit: May 08, 2011, 06:32:15 PM by Windy »

Windy

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #14 on: May 08, 2011, 07:09:11 PM »
I think you meant to put these in the weekend thread, Carl  ;)

CarlRadford

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #15 on: May 08, 2011, 07:15:02 PM »
I think you meant to put these in the weekend thread, Carl  ;)

Indeed he did :)

tkmedia

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #16 on: May 09, 2011, 05:37:30 AM »
Maybe you can get her some shorter 135 rolls? that may decrease the time to develop, making the results faster. I'm more comfortable with 2 sheets on LF holders, 8 to 10 sheet instant, MF 120 rolls with 8 to 16 shots, but I often struggle to finish off 135 36 exposure rolls before I want to develop.
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jojonas~

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Re: I wish......
« Reply #17 on: May 09, 2011, 10:12:59 AM »
how about a good book around the subject?
I'm reading a nice novel right now that gets me fired up about picking up the camera. unfortunately, I've only found it written in swedish.
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Re: I wish......
« Reply #18 on: May 11, 2011, 07:27:41 AM »
As a bona fide teenager, i remember that when i was starting with film, all the (at the time) complex settings i.e aperture, film speed etc made me struggle with taking pictures :P therefore i'd recommend a camera with an auto setting, i started off with an olympus trip, great quality pictures!
all the interest in developing and buying cheap cameras from charity shops has all grown from that :)

also, absoloutley loved buying my polaroid from ebay :D