For a moment in time, I had a studio with a dark room that I resurrected with bits and pieces, bone and sinew from the past. Artifacts of my father, friends that acquired the odd bit or end from their friends and deposited it in my hands. I put this thing tougher with sweat and a little blood and ingenuity and it wasn't perfect but it was perfect. When the lights go out and you're left to feel your way with muscle memory and one less sense. Rolling strips of delicate memories onto stainless steel reels. Flooding the film with chemistry that's just the right dilution and just the right temperature for just the right amount of time. Shooting film is such a fucking process. I fell in love with it when I was just fifteen years old. The expense and time involved are a ridiculous luxury when measured against today's tools of progress and efficiency. But goddamn if the results aren't good. And real. And tangible. The grains of silver suspended in a film of gelatin magnified under optics are unlike anything else.
I had a session with EvaLuna in this studio. We shot a good number of tintypes. a bunch of digital frames and this one roll of film. This is the whole thing. 34 frames. Un retouched, un cropped. Some of them are out of focus. Most of them are somehow properly exposed. Shot on Ilford FP5 with my Nikon FM2 and I think a 50mm lens. I was able to print a few of these frames in the dark room, with the enlarger on silver gelatin paper. I may put them up for sale on here at some point. If I do, you guys will be the first to know.
I have a shoot in a couple days with a model I've been aware of for years. (keep your eyes out for MikaLovely) It's my first shoot in quite some time. I have mixed feelings about it. I'm examining my relationship with image making these days. Trying to figure out what exactly the point is. It feels a little silly to hold up a figment of beauty when the whole damn world is burning. . .
Eva is a beautiful human, inside and out. She and her work can be found here: instagram.com/earthy.eva.model
I am forever grateful and indebted to women like this that choose to share a piece of themselves with a stranger holding a camera.
This whole set can be viewed on Patreon here: EvaLuna on Film. One Roll.
