VSCO cam and VSCO film (and VSCO Grid)

I find myself in a funny predicament - I had shot very little film as a young boy (I loved taking pictures when my parents and I went to Thailand which was absolutely great) and I love film now - I've been shooting more and more since April when I got my M7 and what strikes me with film is how wonderful the feeling is to know that the image is crafted - not just made but crafter: I load the film myself, I carefully choose what to shoot, I rewind the film myself, I develop the film myself, and only then do I enter the more digital world of scanning. The development of the film is a pleasure like no other - loading it in the spool blindfolded, mixing the chemicals in the magical movement of stirring every minute (as if one brews a potion), and then pulling out the negative and looking at the pictures for the first time - it is like magic indeed. And every time, the film comes out to life with a passion - with a soul.

This is what a lot of digital photography isn't about - it tends to be about quick shooting of many pictures, and the plastic-ifying of colours and textures. And this is where some digital software comes into play to create effects that mimic the dynamics, the imperfections, and the colours of film. VSCO (Visual Supply) is a company that has been creating digital tools for the photographers who want to instill soul into their work. One of their more unusual products (VSCO Keys, which I am yet to try) is quite different from other digital tools in that it enables one to get closer to the grafting of the filme with their hands - with movements and typing - it is reminiscent of writing in which the real tool are the fingers and not the keyboard on which it is written. 

But it is not about VSCO Keys that I want to talk about but about their presets. In fact, not even about that, nor about VSCO Cam (Reloaded - which is an extraordinary deprture from other camera apps). I want to talk about their ambitious goal - to create beautiful things and to share them with the world - their VSCO Grid.

Their presupposition - when we were kids crafting - is what fills me with emotions - because photography for me is indeed about celebrating both the "beautiful" and the "broken" in life. Because we can be cynical but when we were kids, we were ballerinas - pure, elegant, spontaneous, playful ... - and that's what I aim for with my photography - to campture not the cynicism but the idealism, to encapsulate movement and dance without chains and restrictions, to translate darkness into light, to bend the borders of reality through a blend of realism and imagination, and to liberate the child hidden behind the mask of adulthood. To be pure. Thank you, VSCO!

You can visit my VSCO Grid at Traveller Between Spaces.

Shooting film along digital in Venice

A couple of months ago, I was in Paris. I walked smiling hand in hand with my darling. And we were loving the air - it was chilly but the sun was out and we happened upon a Leica boutique. The romantic idea of shooting film has been in my mind for months. I wouldn't have wanted to trade camera systems or to use a different approach when photographing - I just wanted to try the medium - to take away the temptation to check out the picture immediately after taking it, and to remove the thought of sharpness and picture quality that has been plaguing me. In other words *i* wanted to create my images - not leaving the job to my camera.

The Leica store had a number of second-hand cameras and among them was a relatively beat-up M7. I was assured it was fully functional and ready to go. And so the next couple of days in Paris were documented with it. It was a risky decision - I had never shot film (as a kid I did but we all this then - I hadn't shot film since I took up photography with the enthusiasm of a hobbyist), and I was clueless about its behavior and interaction with light. But I knew the camera system and the 35 mm Summicron was something I felt right at home with. The first 36 or so frames felt awkward - I didn't know what to do with the rewind knob, I had not acquired the muscle memory of rewinding after each shot, and I often felt surprised at how quiet the shutter was. The first film I used was Ilford FP4 and it took me some time to switch to the black-and-white mental mode but this wasn't such a foreign part considering I've shot with cameras with the black-and-white preview function on. And I enjoyed the process - when I got those pictures from the lab, I was excited like a kid - I rushed to my darling to show her our pictures.

Several weeks down, and a few more rolls, I am now also equipped to develop my own black-and-white film at home. And I was ready when we were planning a trip to Venice again. Arriving in Venice, I couldn't wait to leave the suitcase at the hotel. My girlfriend had the digital and I had the film. Parallel to that, I also had of course my iPhone. And there were a few pictures that I took both with the film and with the phone. The black-and-white pictures below were scans made with a dedicated film scanner (quite poor) with some additional noise applied to get rid of the artifacts from the poor scan; the color pictures are the iPhone pictures with a VSCO film preset.

Looking at those color pictures, I am transported into the context by the realism of the digital pictures - the sharpness creates flatness, the realistic color plunge us in the context, the composition does not drive the eye in any particular direction, the sunshine is tangible, and my memory is triggered. I have a sentimental connection to those color pictures - I am thrilled that they are realistic, that they can tell me where I took the picture, they can tell me the settings under which it was taken, they are a correct recording of my visual experience. But ...

And here's the "but" - when I took the film picture, I took it because I had an emotional attachment to the moment - I was screaming with happiness, I was internally experiencing tickle all over my sensory pleasure centers, I was seeing the world not through my eyes but through my mind - I lifted the camera and took a picture during a blink not because I wanted to take a picture but because I wanted to capture the feeling *i* was having - you can't capture a feeling on a two-dimensional silver-decorated plastic but that film picture is so removed from the reality that it becomes an abstraction - and it is an abstraction of my feeling in that moment:

The sharpness of the grains is like acceleration through space and time, the lack of color grinds the context to graphite abstraction, the composition draws the eye through stacks of lines, the sunshine is pure white distinguishing the hairs and the cracks through shades, and my memory... - I am experiencing the warmth of the sunshine, the smell of the sea weed, and the calls of the gondoliers. And I am there - hand in hand with my smiling darling.

Hipstamatic - The New Disposable

The very first idea of this post came to me many months ago - I was reviewing my app-use trying to see if I could clean up a little bit my iPhone from apps that I don't use and camera apps take the largest share of apps for me. This leads to a struggle every time I want to take a picture - which app to use? Luckily most apps offer the option to import a picture from the camera roll so I can simply use the regular camera app that Apple includes. But Hipstamatic is an exception and as one of the very few exceptions (there was also Lomora 2 some time ago but a big update last year made it possible to import photos) of apps that simply take a picture not allowing you to import or to export original file. And that appears to be something they are adamant not to change. And I think this idea is a revelation in today's photographic sphere where multiple edits and painting over pictures diminishes the spontaneous nature of preserving a memory. When one spends too much time thinking of how a picture should look like, it is no longer a collection of an emotion but a polished work of art - and that's quite alright, too. But I take the picture not because I want to make art for someone else but to preserve a memory for myself. 

There is something scary about standing in front of a finished piece of art - it is there, it carries its own value and it is immutable. It is not encouraging the question "what will happen if ..." but it asks the question "what made it happen". These are two distinct world-views - the exploratory and the questioning, the courageous and the accommodating, the acting and the observing, the emotional and the objective.

The finished work of art (the one that is thought through and designed by nature) is not welcoming; it is only existing out there, occupying space and time - demonstrating the great power of the human mind to design. The unpolished work on the other hand (the one with imperfections) is a charmer; it starts its existance challenging its own existance - it takes up no space and no time - and yet it is there demonstrating the great power of the human ego to feel.

And it is this questionning power and self-effacing evaluation in today's ego-, head-, and objectivity-centered society that make us add those imperfections and the unplanned to our pictures - consciously or not. And I am guilty as charged to extole and abuse them to my own catharctic advantage.

The Camera You Always Have with You

For the past week-and-a-half, I’ve been having a lot of fun with the cell-phone camera. I know that it is quite a departure from a DSLR or the rangefinder (not only in terms of price OR resolution) but in terms of shooting approach, size, and creative freedom on the spot. And I had missed that – the impulsivity of it. Photography hasn’t been about spontaneity really – it used to be a meditative process – not only with the big view camera but also with all the film cameras. Maybe you know that you nailed the picture with the Leica M6 (or M3 for that matter) but you don’t get to see it immediately, you don’t get to share it instantly, you don’t get to hear others sharing the photographic experience with you right there (and it could be someone you know or the entire world that cares to listen). And that’s something that digital technology alone isn’t enough – you need the cell phone for this – the camera that is always with you (well, I also always have another camera but that’s another story).

For the past weeks, I’ve returned to the Apple side with the iPhone 4 and with it, we finally have a camera that delivers great results. I quickly installed all the apps I had before on the 3G I had until December and was reminded of some of the perks they have (like, you cannot always layer effects, or you cannot dodge specific spots as easily as in Lightroom, or you cannot get all the same film effects I can achieve on the computer – but who would be surprised by this?). And in all the nostalgia of the discovery of something old you knew for its new things, I found all those great pictures I had taken ages ago with the old iPhone – pictures that in their own right, I would love to recreate with the bigger camera (which for most of those shots I didn’t have with me – most of those mountain pictures were from 2008 before my more serious turn to photography). And yet, I love their imperfections, their “old-time” feel. They are today’s archive of degenerated film negatives that you discover on your harddrive. Actually, they are not even that – because I have no other versions of those pictures, no originals, no raw – just them – as they are, done, unreplicatable – they are my digital polaroids. And I might as well use the mobile phone’s spontaneous features just like those film people used the polaroid (although that’s a whole new discussion because of the resurgence of the Polaroid movement: the Man with the Guinness Record Number of Polaroid Cameras, the Impossible Project, and The Mijonju Show).

Discover more iPhone photography in the portfolio section.