Whew, it’s been a hot minute since I last posted! Life got busy and I took a two year hiatus from my creativity to shift into teaching and homeschooling, only to discover that path certainly is not for me. I have all the respect in the world for teachers now and know we definitely do not appreciate nor pay them far enough for what they provide to our communities and our society as a whole. My hat is off to and my gratitude expressed for any teachers who may be reading this!
Once we got the girls into a school that fits their learning style this past year, it was the first time in my life that I found myself with no other pressing full time obligations. I suddenly had about seven hours of each day to myself. It was actually a bit disorienting at first, and I kind of flailed about for several weeks after the novelty of having so much free time in my schedule rubbed off. Eventually though, I found my way back to my creative roots. First, I picked up my pencils (and pens and paper and paintbrushes and oils and watercolors and canvases…). And then I picked up my camera. And then I signed up for my first ever workshop.
The workshop I picked was led by a photographer I’ve long admired, Jennifer Lawrence (no, not the actress!). Her style is bold and colorful, fresh and fun….rather the opposite of my usual darker, subdued color palette. I wanted to shake myself up, push myself to stretch and grow and explore new ways of playing with film. It was also highly convenient that the workshop would be held in Santa Barbara (::swoon::) smack in the middle of my least favorite time of year in Alaska (mid-spring where winter activities are over but it’s still too muddy for summer fun).
Over my five days spent there, I fell in love with SoCal and the camaraderie of the women who were also participating in the workshop. We explored the Santa Ynez mountains, searched the beach for sea glass, and stayed up late gushing about film. We tried lots of coffee and tea, wandered the farmer’s market, and frolicked through fields. All in all, it was a wonderful time spent with like-minded souls and I’m so grateful that I stamped down my introverted self for a three day weekend to connect with these beautiful people in person.
A huge part of this workshop was all about challenging ourselves creatively, which translated to double exposures, light leaks, and film soup. This was the first time I had attempted “blind doubles” which is the process of shooting through an entire roll of film on flowers, lights, word art, etc., then rewinding the roll, and shooting it all through a second time with portraits or landscapes. I can’t claim complete success with this first attempt, but I had some images that came out ok.
We also took some normal photos of each other and the surroundings. On one of our longest days, we found ourselves seemingly transported to the Mediterranean area, complete with rolling hills, pencil cypress, and the yummiest golden light you could ask for. It felt otherworldly!
And here are a few from along the coast. We didn’t have as great of weather conditions at the time, but to me there’s something especially enthralling about the beach on a moody day.
But the surprise hit for me that I got from this workshop was my roll of film soup. Now, I know that my film soup posts on this blog in the past were my best performing posts by far, but I feel these scans blow my old ones out of the water. I am 100% obsessed with how they came out and have already started incorporating more soup into my regular routine. Both my youngest daughter (who’s been bit by the film bug!!) and I sent off rolls of film that we souped earlier this week to the wonderful FIND Lab and we should have our scans back in a few days’ time. We’re both so excited to see how they come out after we finished squealing over my results from the Santa Barbara roll.
For those interested, these following images were shot on Kodak ColorPlus 200 with my Nikon F100 and then souped for an hour in dish soap, orange juice, baking soda, vinegar, chamomile flowers, and boiling water. After rinsing well and draining overnight, they were ready to be shipped off to the lab.
These blues blow my mind!
What a difference in effect between these two back to back frames.
Yep, it even works in lower light indoors!
Aren’t those wild?! I seriously loved all the images, but didn’t want to overload everyone with psychedelic colors. Or maybe I should? There’s another batch coming, don’t worry! The biggest tips I can provide for film soup are to use some kind of acidic ingredient in the soup and to shoot multiple frames of the same scene because the colors will shift dramatically from frame to frame. You never know which one you’re going to love the most!
That’s all I have time to post for now, but I truly intend to keep up with sharing both my images and what I learn over these next several months. I’m also in the process of relaunching my photography business, so if anyone lives in the Anchorage, AK area that needs an unconventional film photographer, leave me a message or spread the word to your friends :-)