I bought a new film camera (Minolta x500) that I was hoping would allow me too shoot gigs on film and re inspire me in terms of live music photography, but I was unaware it had such a low flash sync speed so I wasted rolls of films and money on pictures that were only slightly exposed by the flash. But in terms of portraits I haven't shot much on the Minolta, I shot around 4 photos of Starr Clare on one of the first few rolls, and in fairness they turned out beautifully. I also shot some behind the scenes stuff from my studio shoot with The Americas on it, they were very green tinted and mostly not in focus.
Starr Clare, Test Shot, Manchester
I was letting all of this frustrate me and put me down, convincing myself I am hopeless and shouldn't even bother shooting film. But thankfully, I have started to discover new sources of inspiration, come up with new ideas and plans. Being a self taught photographer I often succumb to the fleeting feeling that I'm out of my depth. What I've finally slapped myself on the wrist about is that I haven't been making enough effort to learn and understand. So I'm going to start watching more tutorials, reading more articles etc so that I do understand what it is I'm doing, whats causing the problems I'm finding, how I can over come them and better myself as a photographer.
Alex, The Americas, Studio BTS
Some of the things I've decided to do to try and better myself and keep myself inspired are:
- Set aside time each week to learn, pick something I don't understand and study it that week. Even if it's something I already know how to do but maybe don't understand, or back to the ultimate basics and working from there. Wether that be using a flash gun, different settings in different lightings, why different brands of film make a difference.
- Take more portraits, candids and tour style photos of The Americas off of stage and with my Minolta, rather than taking unplanned and low quality snaps with my point and shoot or digital gig photos.
- Take more pictures of mundane things, both on film and digital, street photography, documentary photography, things that are totally ordinary that I find beautiful.
- Use my film camera more on portrait shoots.
- Buy some Kodak Portra 400 for planned portrait shoots. See how much of a difference the quality of film makes.
- Use @inspo.hol more on Instagram, to regurlaly be aware of the images that are striking me and inspiring me and to have all those images in one easy place to come back to.
- Stop putting myself down constantly, I still have so much to learn, I need to remind myself more often that that doesn't make me an awful photographer.
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