I wear the pout of a disappointed child. My photographic partner in crime is retiring.

Who am I going to nerd around with from now on? Filters and light and exposures, Cecil B. DeMille-style grand plans for the next wedding set. It’s as if the conversation had barely started. I turn my back for a minute, and this is it. Uncle-All-Things-Pictures, the DIY master of all image-thinking, has run his course.

“I’ll miss it, that’s for sure,” he concludes with an impulsive chuckle. A sixty-plus years old boy who never stopped being amazed by what started as quite a mind-bending job; making images in a land of no more images.

Hold on. Rewind.

Why did the images stop?

We’re in Cambodia in its very long 1970s. A place and time of civil war, and behind the heat of the civil war lurks the greater specter of global cold wars.

Photos disappear because of what they contain: the past, the land, ancestors, loved ones, all things of longing and attachment. It is a place and time of no more cameras; those are a technology of the West, the empire, the colonial. It is a place and time of no representation, a thing of the bourgeoisie. It is a place and time claiming to start all over. Year zero is now, and it promises a future.

Barely emerging from that land is something claiming to be peace, shyly crossing the threshold. By the 1980’s, it’s not quite here yet, but we’ll take it, since that’s all one gets. Barely emerging with it, barely recovering from the toll of family losses and absences, enters Uncle-All-Things-Pictures: then and now a public school teacher, then and now a respected Muslim thinker, then and now an admirer of whatever it is that modernity carries with her. Then and now, against all odds, an imaginative maker of images.

“There was no money at the time. Actually, let me take that back: they had just started reprinting  money (currency had been suspended during the regime of the  Khmer Rouge). In the city, they were producing new bills. But it’s not like after all those years of nothing to barter, we were about to actually carry money in our pockets overnight! So, I guess it was a time of money-for-all, except that for all of us, there was none”.

No cash.

No gold.

No sequins.

And yet weddings were about to light up the countryside again. People began to get back together, to gather, to groom around and bride about. There was a hunger for images; there were too many weddings with no camera. In those times, what was missing was a photographer.

“I always loved photographs and cameras. Even when I was little. When we were kids, we used to make pinhole cameras out of mud. My father was so intrigued by the upside-down impressions that he kept staring at them. And even during the war(s), I managed to keep family photographs from the old days, before the soldiers got hold of them [in their quest to start a revolutionary society from year zero, Khmer Rouge soldiers went through households to discard any traces of the past, and keeping family photographs was often dangerous]. For a while, I still had this portrait of my dad working in the rubber plantations and a photograph of my uncle in his athletic days at an international javelin competition. But even when the war(s) began to end, things were still rough; my teacher’s salary wasn’t enough to support my family anyway. That’s when I noticed that those photographers were sort of better off. So I thought I would give it a try”.

But giving it a try in the early 1980s, with the broken roads and shattered land, required more than it might today. It required talent, savoir-faire, daring, brains, and maybe a bit of chance too.

“Well, obviously, I had no camera and certainly no money to get one. So things were about to get tricky”.

On his way to becoming sort-of-a-photographer, Uncle-All-Things-Pictures set out to become sort-of-an-ethnographer. Observation and research gave him his starting point.

“I already knew what photographs looked like. Now I needed to look closely at what they were actually made of, how professional photographers were doing it. I decided to follow them.”

Uncle-All-Things-Pictures tags along: itinerant adventurers on the go thrown on a moto with gear around the neck, red dust all over their faces, torn-up flip flops glued to the brakes. Photographers were not exactly common. They were coming from afar to spend a few days working on a wedding, fed and lodged by the host, leaving only to return weeks or months later with the long-awaited bounty; half-filled albums displaying the few precious glossy shots that could be afforded.

“I really got interested in the cameras they were using and started to pay attention to… you know… What do they call those boxes where they show images for kids? [Uncle seems to be referring to something similar to Iranian shahre-farang or Japanese kamishibai: itinerant storytellers with a viewing box using still-images as a visual support to the narrative. In the 1980s-1990s, some international humanitarian organizations were using the medium for various awareness campaigns in remote areas of Cambodia]. And then I began to imagine doing all that on my own”.

Just like that, Uncle-All-Things-Pictures was going to make a camera. Still no money. But ideas. Uncle-All-Things-Pictures had a lot of those.

“I got some wood and built a little box. Then I added some old spectacles’ lenses. I managed to get my hands on some leftover rolls of film and found someone who could process it. That’s how I got my first camera to work”.

Curious neighbors come to observe but don’t really get it. “Go buy yourself a cow, man!”

The idea being that you get the cow, feed it, sell it back, make the money, and buy the camera. Nice and simple. Almost too nice and too simple for Uncle-All-Things-Pictures. So he kept on going with his very own pinhole camera and in time, all the neighbors wanted images. Just a few. And then more. And finally, a lot.

“My cousin, he had an old Rolleiflex. He had buried it somewhere to protect it from the soldiers, and when the war(s) ended, he was finally able to retrieve it. All beaten down and broken up, of course. But I figured I could work on it and finally get myself a real camera.”

A tiny little piece of wooden stick here, a thin line of iron thread there, and probably quite a lot of patience and tenacity, and voila! The Rolleiflex is back from the grave, ready to wink its dove eye shutter. Except that, by then, the medium format film that the Rolleiflex uses has completely disappeared from the barely emerging market economy.

“Here is what I did: I took some black fabric and glue and made a mask for it. So that instead of the large opening that allows the whole surface of the 6×6 roll to be exposed, I could focus the light on a 35mm strip”. A conversion that will, decades later, become the core principle of Lomography’s refurbished Lubitel, and a DIY process that is now the quest of many YouTubers.

The refurbished-plus Rolleiflex makes its way through a series of images before 1986 arrives and, with it, finally a bit of income accumulated through the selling of all those portraits. “At last, this is when I bought my very first ‘real’ camera. A Soviet Zenit. You would have loved it!”

My eyes turn to the ethnographer’s shelf and the Arax-CM, a re-cared-for Kiev88, the socialist understudy of the ubiquitous Hasselblad. I pause the note-taking for a second, for I can’t resist and must ask. “What happened to that wooden one, the one you made yourself out of scratch? Or even the Rolleiflex you refurbished?”

“We recycled them. There was no reason to keep them once I had a replacement, so I sold them for parts.”

But as film photographers know all too well, the picture is only half-made once we have a camera and film. How do you create darkroom magic when you have no darkroom, chemicals, or enlarger (or, for that matter, electricity and running water)? Magic will have to do…

“I went to the small town nearby once. There was a famous photographer there. The guy had quite a reputation… He was a character. I followed him in his lab to become his apprentice, and he was flattered, but it’s not like he was going to hand me the tricks of the trade. I just had to figure it all out by myself. Except, it’s seriously dark in the darkroom. You really can’t see anything!”

Learning in the pitch-black lab turned classroom, hands venturing into can’t-be-taught experiments. Observation switched to something beyond sight, attention beyond mere vision.

“I figured the trick must be in the numbers. It was all it could be about: the timing, the minutes, as important as measuring the right chemicals. So I started to count and take notes in my head”.

Uncle-All-Things-Pictures finally gets ready to leave and go home when the master-photographer comes with a departure gift in hand: some leftover chemicals. Shining silvery particles as an omen to a bright future. And more of the good stuff awaited Uncle once he got back to teaching: a few grainy paper sheets—or rather shreds—were waiting at the nearby printing store where the exam sheets were Xeroxed. Uncle-All-Things-Pictures is now ready to go full DIY mode.

“So, here is how it went. I do the whole thing with the paper, the chemicals and all, in the dark, counting in my head, with a little torch handy right next to me. But here is what I had missed; the prints could only be exactly the same size as the negative. It was impossible to make them any bigger. That was a problem. I was stuck”.

Uncle-All-Things-Pictures waits. Probably counting by the minutes until a solution comes. And one does, oddly dressed as a soldier.

“Where he got it from? That I have no clue. Back then, people got their hands on all kinds of stuff that had been left behind.”

Back then, the war(s) displaced both people and objects. So maybe the camera stood there, somewhere, abandoned. Perhaps the soldier had his own ways and got it by other means. Perhaps the camera had belonged to someone who’d “forcibly disappeared” as  happened again and again back then. Uncle doesn’t know, and who knows if the soldier himself did.

“Anyhow, that guy, the soldier, he had this Polaroid camera that didn’t work so well and that he didn’t know what to do with, so I got it from him.” Another drafty yet crafty conversion: an inverted camera hanging from high above, suspended on a wall. The bare bones of the most basic enlarger. “Of course, I still had to adjust the size, so I would play around with a stool and a pile of books, getting the image closer or further to the lens.”

It couldn’t be that difficult, right? A little before that, Uncle had improvised his very own darkroom with a blanket and a stool. “I was doing it, right there with my hands under the stool and the blanket, while chatting with friends visiting. They had no idea what was going on down there. I would always amaze them with the images coming out like a magic trick!”

Passers-by with no affinity for photography were not the only ones amazed. One day it is the famous master-photographer who stops by to visit. (Uncle says it as if it’s no big deal. Like it hadn’t taken days of bumpy travels on roads still prone to landmines’ explosions and conflicts’ eruptions to get there.) Uncle gives him a tour of the impromptu tricks and treats.

“It’s like his face enlightened and darkened at the same time, his body shivered. He said, ‘I have spent a fortune to set up my whole lab and you, you spent nothing and got it all done just the same!’”

A small fortune—just a tiny bit of one—will finally come to Uncle-All-Things-Pictures, as the demand for his refined techniques and know-how increases. And yet, himself restless, he couldn’t stick to what was then the bread and butter of any photographer; weddings. He was an image hunter.

“I would go around, take so many pictures of my kids, relatives, friends, neighbors. Sometimes I asked them to take a pose; sometimes, I would just go around and snap a shot as they went about their daily lives. I was so happy to get the pictures printed that I would just go all over the place to distribute them, so I don’t have that many left. But back then, people had lost most of their photographs to the war(s). The photos I was making were the very first images they were getting again”.

Camera-man on the road, in the trails, by the river, and through the jungle-plantations-paddy-fields commute, paying close attention to others, caring for what they looked like, knowing what they could be.

“Sometimes I would add some colors to make it a little more special, just a touch, you know… I used those old Chinese color inked sheets to work on the print in the lab to dress them up a little. Or even during the shooting itself, I would set up a whole scene with a tableau. I would either rent the backdrop or buy a secondhand one. Sometimes even, I would make one by myself to try things out; you can change everything with a tableau.”

The word craft comes to mind. And care. An intimate knowledge that comes from the hands as much as from the heart.

Years later, and for quite a long time, I am lucky enough to learn from Uncle-All-Things-Pictures, his trade, his art, and his love for images. During those years, and at his side, I am encouraged and inspired not to leave analog photography despite the growing difficulty of acquiring and processing film within the country. Not because of the war(s) this time, but because of the collapse of the global analog industry as photography shifted to digital.

At his side, I was finally encouraged and inspired to conduct an ethnographic project as a wedding videographer working alongside rural teams of wedding designers, planners, arrangers, and photographers. And then just as the photographic, videographic, and ethnographic impostor syndrome was barely beginning to fade, just when I was about to start my year-long “internship” with Uncle (otherwise known to anthropologists as “the fieldwork”), he breaks the good news of his long-awaited retirement, the photographic business reduced to on-site operations (quick ID photographs, short textbook photocopies, international phone calls by the minute only).

“But who is going to teach me now if you stop?” I wail like a tiny little thing.

“I don’t know. I was pretty much one of a kind, that’s for sure!” A cheeky smile accompanies a dash of pride. “But actually, I was never taught. I never learned. I just tried things out. I always loved doing it and I still do. Just like you, right?”

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[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

The post An Oral History of Photography During and After the Cambodian Civil War appeared first on Casual Photophile.

My name is Taylor and I am a film photographer based in Minnesota. My forever “photography home” is in the un-decorated prairie land of the middle west. I enjoy making portraits of anyone I can, connecting with people. I use photography as a tool for understanding. When these things breathe together with me, then that makes me feel really sustained.

What originally got you into film photography and what keeps you shooting it today?

I have always taken pictures. Yet, film was brought about by a very good friend of mine, Ben, who first put a film camera in my hand. At first, it had felt like something finally had made sense when I was really struggling to wake up to the reality of life. Film is physical – it is a constant lesson. The tools of a film photographer, among other things, really helped me in that process of understanding things at a critical time in my life. It acts as my anchor to earth. There are so many photos I have not taken; I could not imagine an end point. I understand it to be about survival. To share and connect, to understand myself and others.

If you could go back in time and give one piece of advice to your younger self starting in film, what would it be?

I think that I would just be supportive. I don’t know that I knew how to listen to advice. We all need support. We find our way the way we need to with support and willingness. I wish I knew back then how to use photography as a tool instead of being afraid of it.

35mm vs. 120 vs. 4×5. If you could only choose one to last you the rest of your life, what would it be and why?

If I had to choose, I would choose 4×5 – it is everything I want. If I have access to that, I am confident that I could maintain happiness. And then I would try wet plate, cyanotype, painting, music, etc. I would like to find other ways to create.

Your large format portraits & self-portraits are so magical. Can you tell us a little bit about your style and how you developed it?

That word magical really blows my mind, honestly. Thank you! I do not have a style necessarily that I notice, but I am sure that it is there in some capacity. I think that I just try everything that I want to. It is a dream to be alive and in charge of all these things I could try next.

Outside of your portraits, many of your photos feature abandoned buildings. What pulls you toward photographing these places?

History is absolutely mind boggling to me. As someone who has been puzzled with existence, I am really drawn to putting pieces together. I like to discover, I like to create, I like to share. When I share, I get to connect! Old unkempt buildings of the prairie have this wisdom in organic material that will eventually just absorb back into the earth. I think of how houses are now, how in-organic and concrete, and I just prefer to be out there with the buildings who seem to know who they are. I feel that they do reveal things to me.

What is one area of photography you feel like you’ve seen the biggest growth or improvement in yourself?

Being vulnerable. I thought I was being vulnerable but I now realize I did not understand what real vulnerability was. My willingness has broadened.

What photo of yours are you most proud of and why?

Photos of loved ones; To share those and have people feel something from them. It can be emotional to share certain photos or words, but those are the ones that make me feel the most.

Who are your favorite female or non-binary photographers, either past or present?

I love my friends, Rebekah and Kate’s work. I feel so fortunate to be friends and I am inspired by their work; their hunger for creating with photography. I feel like our styles are all so different, too. We bounce around in the same spaces and it fascinates me. Being around photographers and feeling those connections makes me entirely happy.

Also, I love Imogen Cunningham. I am really inspired by her work with dancers. I absolutely love movement and showcasing the body as a complete work of art; Bodies are a miracle! Photography is a miracle! It was so ahead of its time. Which also makes me think of Anne Brigman, another artist whose work was timeless. I want so badly to time travel back and have conversations and listen to them speak.

I really love Sally Mann – I love that she is welcoming of error. I believe this is how to be. There is such humility in the welcoming of a mistake. Not just the tolerance of it. We are lucky to create anything at all.

Do you have any big projects, or film adventures lined up for the near future?

Nothing to announce. I am heading to North Dakota soon and I will be lining up some ideas, but mostly I just go in without a plan.

Where can people find you and your work online?

Instagram.

Find inspiration with more photography features and interviews

For more stories behind the images and photography from the community check out the many series we’ve published over the years below!

Featured Photophile – we shine a spotlight on amateur photographers whose work we love.

Photographer Interviews – in-depth discussions with professional and established photogs doing great work.

Five Favorite Photos – a hand-selected examination of the oeuvre of our favorite famous photographers.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube

[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

The post Interview with Film Photographer Taylor appeared first on Casual Photophile.

Hi Jenna! Can you start out by telling us a little bit about yourself?

I’m a 27-year-old queer, non-binary film photographer. I am born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area and currently reside in Oakland. I am going to school for photography at CCSF with plans to move on to a degree in sonography.

What originally interested you in film photography and what keeps you shooting it today?

I found a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic at a consignment store in Dallas, Texas and started taking it with me everywhere. Film photography started out as a way for me to create art and capture memories of friends and places I’ve been. But it’s turned into my absolute passion. I photograph to make sense of the world and to create meaning and beauty from the monotony of everyday life.

You take the most vibrant photos of the Bay area. What is the relationship between photography and location for you?

I am born and raised in the Bay area and have such an intimate relationship with an area that sees a lot of transplants. In the beginning of the pandemic I spent hours a day driving around and photographing and cataloging locations throughout San Francisco and Oakland and I have a Google Maps saved guide of over 200 places with cool buildings, cars, etc. all over the Bay Area. I pride myself on showcasing what I think is the best the Bay has to offer and I love being able to share that with people all over the world.

Throughout your film photography journey, what is one thing that has been a game changer for you?

Developing and scanning my own film. If you have the time and resources to do so, I highly recommend it. I’ve been strictly scanning and developing all of my own film for the past two years now and I’ve saved so much money. I bought my Epson V600 scanner and C-41 chemicals and auto load plastic film reels and it’s been the best film decision I’ve ever made (besides finding a $600 Hasselblad!)

You recently posted a guide of 30 Queer Portraits on Instagram. If you had to pick one that has the biggest impact on you, which would it be and why?

It’s really difficult for me to choose just one.

I would have to say Jessica Tanzer’s (Instagram) portrait of the gay woman with the shaved head at SF Pride in the 1990s had the most immediate profound impact on me. She has her leather jacket in her hand and she’s mid yell with her hands up in the air, it’s pure queer joy and makes me emotional every time! All of Jessica’s work really strikes an emotional chord with me.

[And] Chloe Sherman! Another queer San Francisco photographer from the ’90s whose work has absolutely captured my Bay area gay heart. Both of them are very influential to how I approach portraits and how I feel my community and the streets of San Francisco in general. They remind me of the queer culture that can so easily be forgotten with the migration of techies and gentrification that has saturated SF.

You frequently speak out on the gender disparity in the film photography community. How did you first become passionate about the subject and why is it important to you?

I used to co-curate a film page last year and when I brought up the lack of gender inclusion in our posts, the creator of the page said something along the lines of “we don’t get enough female/nonbinary submissions.” So, I made it my personal mission to make my curation day strictly female/non-binary photographers to show them, yes we do get submissions you’re just not looking hard enough! That’s a common excuse men make in the curation of pages, but all you have to do is be conscious about who we’re posting and the kind of recognition we’re portraying.

A lot of these pages repost the same twenty or thirty male artists and over-saturate our feeds with men who have been featured hundreds of times across Instagram film pages. I started counting how many male versus non-male photographers were being posted and the discrepancy was jarring. Kodak seems to be the worst at inclusion and diversity (female and People of Color are a very low percentage of their posts). I am a non-binary, gay photographer and I think we need to be loud and take up space in this community that wants to push us to the side. We’re not going anywhere and they better learn to deal with it.

What is one area of photography that you feel like you’ve seen the biggest growth or improvement in yourself?

I have seen the biggest improvement in my film development this year. I am in school for photography and learned a lot about tips and tricks in Lightroom for my negatives as well as the more technical aspects of photography that I can now apply to my work.

What photo of yours are you most proud of and why?

This is a hard question! I have a lot of favorites but the one I think I’m most proud of is my image of a pink vintage car with pink flowers in the background. Pink is my favorite color and cars and flowers are two of my favorite things to photograph. It was one of those photos that I converted in Lightroom and said “Wow!” It was also the picture used for the flier of my first gallery show, so it will always have that sentimental value for me and I will always cherish it as “the photo.”

Who are your favorite female or non-binary photographers, either past or present?

My favorite female/enby LGTBQ photographers in no particular order are Chloe Sherman, Kate, Liam, Kaileaa, Allie, Naa Korkoi, Han Phan, Denise, Nat Meier.

Do you have any big projects, or film adventures lined up for 2023?

I would really love to put out a photo book this year, that’s something that has been a dream of mine. I’m also dipping my toe back into darkroom printing this year with black and white photography! I’m hoping to get back into taking more queer portraits this year as well.

Where can people find you and your work online?

Instagram, Twitter, and at Darkroom Tech.

Get Inspired with more Photography Features and Interviews

For more stories behind the images and photography from the community check out the many series we’ve published over the years below!

Featured Photophile – we shine a spotlight on amateur photographers whose work we love.

Photographer Interviews – in-depth discussions with professional and established photogs doing great work.

Female Photographers to Follow – get inspired by a monthly series focused on the beautiful and unique perspectives of female photographers.

Five Favorite Photos – a hand-selected examination of the oeuvre of ur favorite famous photographers.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube

[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

The post Featured Photographer – Jenna (Jae) Williams appeared first on Casual Photophile.

My name is Jessica Dunston. I’m originally from Raleigh, NC. I just recently moved to Brooklyn about 4 months ago. I’ve been out here moving and grooving. I have always been a creative person by nature, kind of touching a little bit of everything including poetry, blogging, drawing, painting. I want to get into music production but I have not sat down long enough to learn it.

That being said, I feel like I’ve been taking pictures as long as I’ve had a camera phone. We’re in the age of picture taking, but I always tell people I learned what ISO, aperture, shutter speed, all that was in the beginning of 2020. I wanted to get into it and learn it. Hone my craft and learn what kind of artist I want to be. I’ve been on that journey ever since. I’m just addicted to it. I love photography. I love taking pictures. I love learning about the history of it. Getting addicted to cameras and wanting to buy every single camera. So yeah, that’s me!

So you just seriously started taking photos in 2020?

Yeah! So I had been on this corporate path, and I still have my corporate job, but for a while I just thought I’ll do this job and then do little creative projects here and there on the side. Then in December, 2019 something just hit me and I realized I didn’t want to do this. I realized it wasn’t my path. I challenged myself to experiment and see where my interest took me.

The funny thing is I originally thought I wanted to get into acting. I had a journal entry where I wrote about not wanting to do my corporate job anymore and thinking about becoming an actor. Then something led to another. I took an acting class. I took a drawing class. But something about film work, and by that, I mean motion picture work. I was really interested in it. I ended up getting a camera in February, 2020 with the purpose of making short films. Then I started playing around with video and editing. Spent thousands of hours on YouTube working on all of that. But I somehow landed on photography. Once I started just taking pictures, as opposed to video work, it just stuck with me. And that’s not to say I won’t ever go into video work because I love cinematography and getting into all of that. But I’m really invested into creating [still] images at this point.

When you jumped into photography did you start with digital photography? How did film come into the picture?

I started with digital. I started with the starter camera that a lot of Canon digital users go for, the Canon Rebel series. So, a really decent camera, but a beginner camera. I was learning on that camera. As I got into the photography community, it really started in Charlotte. Just finding people that were in the community, into photography so I could learn more about it. I was just in awe of everyone and the amazing things they could do.

At the time I stumbled upon @AnaloguePapi on Instagram. That was my first introduction to modern use of film in photography. Before that, what I thought about film was like Gordon Parks who shot film because it was back in the day. I didn’t realize people were actively using film and shooting film on brand projects or high profile portrait pieces. So, getting exposed to that through their Instagram profile piqued my interest because I kept seeing them post about Lomo 400 and Portra 400, and thought “What does any of theis mean??” Once I got my Canon AE-1, and popped my first roll of 35mm I have just been addicted to the process. I can’t get away from it. [See our review on Jessica’s Canon here.]

Chincoteague with a Rolleiflex and Kodak Portra

A visual feast of pastels and beach tones results when Juliet takes a Rolleiflex to Chincoteague, an island off the coast of Virginia.

And what keeps you shooting film?

For me, it’s the complete process. One, the intentional nature of it. I shoot mostly medium format now. Rolls of medium format are between $12-16 these days. And with the 6×8 on my Mamiya I get 9 frames per roll. So each of these frames we are setting up. We are taking our time. We are understanding the settings and composition, because I can’t just click and get 1,000 photos. I have to be very intentional. I really enjoy that. I feel like that’s why my film work is better than my own digital work because I’m so much slower and intentional with the process all the way from choosing the film to understanding what kind of settings I want to use, how am I going to meter.

I don’t develop now, but I want to in the future. Getting the film developed and getting it back is almost like a Christmas present. You know what you took pictures of but the exact frames might not be fresh in your mind. Getting them back is so exciting. So that’s part of the process, the whole getting a present every time I get a roll of film back scanned.

Where did portraits come in?

It’s crazy. I don’t think I even had a period of not doing portraits. I think my first instinct when I got a camera was to go find someone to take photos of. It didn’t even occur to me to, like, go outside and take a photo of a tree. For some reason it just didn’t occur to me. Because of that I started working with portraits and I haven’t left that since. I’ve tried a little bit of street photography. Most of my street photography work is focused on people and capturing scenes with people. I’m not sure why. I think it has something to do with the fact that people are interesting. Even just faces and all the emotions we go through and all the faces we can give. How our bodies can move and change shapes.

It always feels like there’s a story behind the people you capture. You’re a portrait photographer + story teller.

I’m really glad you said that. Especially in the last year and a half I’ve made a concerted effort to go more towards storytelling. When I first started, I was just taking pictures of faces. Then it became “Okay, this face, what is going on with this face? Why is this face here?” And then when I was in a mentor-ship in the second half of 2021, he pushed us further to say, what are you saying with this photo?

We love beautiful things. But I think when your photography is related to a story, one it’s more memorable and two it’s more impactful. So even as I transition further, I’m trying to take it a step further. One of the projects I’m focusing on in the second half of this year, I want to tell a story and every picture is a still of a story. Almost like a movie still. To be able to set up each individual shot, like this is this part of the story and next is scene two to further push being able to tell a story through photography.

Over the last few months you’ve been posting photos from a series you call Black Love. I’d love to hear more about how that project came to fruition?

It all came together in 2021, I started this mentor-ship. He’s asking us to come up with a series for an exhibition we’re a part of. I’m trying in general, in life to follow my gut and follow what feels real and feels good. I was really pushing myself on what I wanted to talk about. For some reason I just kept going to love. I am one of those people who’s a sucker for love stories, for romance movies and romance novels and rom-coms. A couple months prior I had been taking photos of my parents, and I’ve lately been very invested in understanding their story since they’re in their 70s now. So part of that was documenting their love story, so that also sparked my interest in wanting to know other people’s love stories.

I wanted to make sure that I was going into their spaces. Because I feel like when you go into a person’s space you get to know their history. There’s pictures on the walls, their individual items are all over. Their personality is in it, helping set the scene. Then you have them. Any time I go into a session, I tell them I don’t want to pose you. I want you to be how you naturally are, and we’re just gonna chat and take pictures at the same time. Trying to verbally get their story and trying to capture that visually in their space with their natural energy. Once I started that, I have just been addicted to it. I can’t even fully tell you why. I think for me it’s just a natural curiosity to want to document.

I had an exhibition where I did another set of couple’s pictures for couples in Harlem and in my write up, I was even a little insecure about it. But I’ve made peace with it, it’s just my natural curiosity with what love is, how it presents to each other, and how each couple is unique.

Do you continue to plan to show this in galleries and exhibits?

Yes, it started with the group show called Black Gaze in Charlotte in January 2021. I’ve just been building on the project. I just showed another set of couples portraits in Harlem for an exhibition lead by a group called Faces of Harlem, a non-profit. I’ve shown some there. And I just had someone reach out to me about a gallery show in Charlotte she wanted to pull some of those same pieces for. So yeah, just continuing to develop. I hope as I keep developing this body of work it can evolve into something more focused but until then I’m just doing what I love.

I would love to have a photobook of it!

I think that would be a beautiful and uplifting piece. I think a lot of time, especially for black photographers, art has to be tied to something tragic or making a bold statement versus something that is just very joyful and exciting and beautiful. I think that’s another reason why I love the concept of doing a coffee table book and having it all together.

I love the work you do with musicians, especially Pat Junior. I’d love to hear more about those collaborations. What draws you to wanting to document other creatives?

For one, especially with musicians, as I mentioned before I have such a love for music and musicians whether it’s singers, instrumentalists, or production. I’m one of those people where the only times I don’t have music playing is when I’m asleep or watching TV. All other moments include music. I’m so inspired by it. I’m so moved by it.

That project that I said I wanted to do, with capturing different scenes, that came to me because I was listening to a song and it painted such a picture. When I listen to music I see things like colors and scenes. That’s one of the reasons why I really enjoy working with Pat.

When I started working with him for his album he released in 2021, he really gave me the freedom. He just asked me to listen and tell him how I felt. Even before he told me what the album was about and where he was in the evolution of him as an artist,  I could tell it was fresher, lighter, more joyful, and brighter. That’s why all the images we’ve made for this album are super colorful, bright, and golden. Being able to take what I hear and translate that into what people see, is super exciting for me. I love to be close to the music as well without having to get into it.

Since you have discovered photography, how do you feel that it’s changed your life?

Oh my gosh, I think it has made me so much more creative. Like I said before, I’ve been into other art forms and media and have dabbled in them and got some level of fulfillment out of them. But I think being able to do this has fulfilled me in a way I haven’t been before. Being able to dive into what do I want to say, what am I trying to show, and understanding how to do that. That’s been the biggest thing, being so much more fulfilled and giving me something to be very passionate about. I love this stuff. What was I doing before? I try to think about my life before because now it’s filled with editing photo sets and doing photo walks and taking pictures, and all this stuff. And I’m just like, what was I filling my time with before??

What photo of yours is most impactful or meaningful to you?

I have this photo on my page, it’s one of the couples shots. They’re on the stairs, and it’s more like a wider angle shot I got through this archway when they were on the stairs. And I think the way I was able to get that shot and the intimacy that is palpable through the photo. It’s one of my favorite photos because of that. Along with wanting to tell stories, I want my photos to make people feel something. To experience something when you look at it. It’s one of those photos that I think is definitely an experience looking at.

In the way we consume photography nowadays where we’re often just seeing curated feeds and not seeing behind the scenes as much, I think it’s easy to forget we’re all a work in progress. To that end, is there anything in photography you feel like you struggle with or are working to improve upon?

Two things that I have insecurities around and want to get better with. One, is my composition. I feel like it could be more dynamic or set up in a more interesting way. You always feel like you could push your compositions further and I very much think that. When I first started I was taking more classic portraits, very posed, which are beautiful and I love them but as I move forward I want to be able to push that further.

And two, how I write up about my projects or how I write about myself as an artist is also something I’m insecure about. I see other photographers who’ve been in the game a little longer and their project statements are more eloquent or their artist statements take you on a journey. For the Faces of Harlem exhibition I’m in, with that artist statement I gave it was pretty straight to the point and then I saw other people release their statements and they really painted a picture with words. So those are the two areas I’m going to keep working on.

On the flip side, throughout your photography journey, what is something you’re especially proud of?

I think since the beginning of my journey I’ve been particularly focused on color, not just of the whole photo, but particularly of the skin of the people that I photograph, like how their skin comes across in these photographs. I’ve experimented and tweaked things in post. So I think my color work on my photos. I’ve really enjoyed where that has come from since the very beginning. Especially when it comes to film and understanding at a base level what film stock should be used for this subject and will be best to capture what they look like.

Do you have favorite stocks you’ve found through experimenting that get you the look you want?

I’m always a Portra girl, Portra 400 or 800. For clients with deep brown or darker brown skin, I like to use Ektar because the reds that come through on Ektar can do a good job of picking up the undertones in people which comes across beautifully. When Ektar is bad, it’s bad but when it’s good it’s great. Usually I will stick with those. I was having this conversation earlier with somebody and how I get a little frustrated with Fuji when it comes to using Pro 400H and how it renders brown skin, I absolutely hate it. So I don’t use that. Other than that, Lomo is pretty decent. That one comes behind Portra for me. But even with Portra itself I usually do a little tweaking, not a whole lot, but a little bit to get it where I want it to be.

Shooting Lisbon with a Minolta SRT 303b and Kodak Ektar

Our own Jeb Inge visits sunny Lisbon, Portugal with a Minolta SRT 303b film camera and Kodak's most vibrant film, Kodak Ektar 100.

Who are your favorite female photographers either past or present?

I will start with Carrie Mae Weems. Her table series inspired my couple series. The intimacy in all those photos, the self portraits she did were gorgeous. So of course her. I’m a huge fan of Renell Medrano. She’s one of my favorites. She does beautiful work. I’m also a huge fan of Alex G. Harper. She’s out in Los Angeles, she does a lot of work with musicians, brands, and artists. Also, CoThePhotographer. She does really beautiful work. And then Kanya Ewano, she is also based out of Los Angeles. She does amazing work as well. So those are my five!

And lastly, what’s next on the horizon for you?

Yeah! I have a complete list of things going on. The Faces of Harlem exhibition is going on in Harlem Morning Side Park until November 30. So that’s going on! I told you about the project I want to shoot with the scenes. I was also just approached for a solo show in January, so I think I want to use that project for that exhibition so hopefully that all goes to plan. Also I’m going to be featured in an exhibition in Charlotte in January showing some of the work I’ve done with my couple series. And then just trying to do what fulfills me outside of that and making work that makes me and other people happy!

If you are in New York City, I highly encourage you to check out the Faces of Harlem exhibit and Jessica’s work. More information about the exhibition can be found here. It will be on display in Moringside Park until November 30, 2022.

You can find more of Jessica’s work online on her Website and on her Instagram.

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The post Film Photographer Interview – Jessica Dunston appeared first on Casual Photophile.

I’m so honored that she took the time out of her busy life to talk with me. We chatted about everything from the ridiculous prices of film to the urgency of preserving moments with the people we love. Our time together helped me realize my own desire to preserve the people and places I hold dear and I hope you find our conversation and her photos as inspiring as I do.

Can you start off by giving us a brief introduction to yourself?

I’m Han Phan. Last name is pronounced “Fan” even though my Instagram says it’s “Fawn.” I am now exclusively a medium format and large format film photographer. I fell into that niche and it’s been pretty good thus far. In regards to what I’m shooting, I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure that out. That’s me! If I’m not photographing, I’m probably reading.

What initially got you into film photography and why do you keep shooting film?

It was exclusively my dad. For as long as I can remember growing up it was him with some kind of camera pointed in our faces. I know that he was an amateur photographer when he was in Vietnam. He’s told me about how it took him years to save up money to buy his first nice analog camera. It was, I believe, a Nikon FG or something like that. And then he slowly progressed into the FM’s, and FM2’s. I have all those now, he gave them all to me. He was always around and taking photos of us. I’m very thankful for that because now I have all these photographs of my youth, and I get to look back on them. Ever since I can remember he’s been subtly pushing film on me, like growing up he gave me the disposable point and shoots and then bought me a Polaroid camera. Then we got into the digital age so he bought me the Canon point and shoots. I was always that person in our group of friends who had a camera.

I took a huge hiatus from shooting in general, but then picked it up again in college when I shot for our newspaper. It all sparked up again when I went home and all of a sudden all my friends were shooting film, and I was like “wait what year is this??” They all had film cameras now. It was bananas, so I asked my dad if he still had his Nikon cameras and he did. So huge credit to my dad. He was always an inspiration.

Looking at our photos growing up, they were so organic. There was no “pose here, do this.” I feel like that’s why I continue to be obsessed with capturing organic, raw moments. I’m terrible at it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try. It’s wanting to preserve and memorialize the people every day that I choose to give my time to. So that in five years, or even five days from now I can look back and think “remember that time, it was great.” It’s really preservation that’s why we shoot whatever it is we shoot, like our neighborhoods for instance. Like my neighborhood growing up doesn’t look anything like it does now.

The people in our lives, our parents, it’s important to have photographic mementos of them.

I love the stunning portraits of your parents that you post, along with beautifully written details about your family life and their experiences here in America. How has your family life shaped you as a photographer?

It’s affected me a lot. I feel like those are the realest, proudest photos I take of my family around their home. I think it’s kind of the reverse of how it’s affected me. It’s kind of, for me, a lack of family in my life that drives me to take more photos of them.

I live in Northern California and my parents live in Southern California. It’s only about a six hour drive away, but it still doesn’t mean I’m afforded time with them. I only get to see them maybe once every three or four months, and maybe for two or three days at a time, at most. I feel like when I’m there it’s almost a selfish, greedy desire to capture everything, to want to photograph things so I can remember them, or so I have more photos of my parents.

I don’t know how this developed. Growing up I didn’t have the best relationship with my parents. I have gaps in my memory where I spent time with them or they weren’t huge figures in my life. Like when I was a teenager or when I was in college because they were working their butts off, or I just didn’t want to be around them, you know, like you think your parents are your worst enemies.

It didn’t make any sense. They were my sole providers and worked so hard to give me the life I have now. But I was so anti-family, now I have to make up for that for all the time I lost and all the times I pushed them away. Now I just want to embrace them and anything and everything they can tell me about their struggles and our home life growing up. I would say it has affected my photography a lot because I feel like when I’m home and photographing them, those photos are the proudest I’ve made. They feel like the most important ones.

Do you envision long term that you will keep documenting your parents for the rest of your life?

Yeah, I was thinking about that recently. It’s like a finite but infinite project, in that for as long as I can and for as long as they are around I will be working on this project. I thought originally I’d love to put together a photo-book, at least for myself, that I can look back on and reflect. But I feel like it’s always going to be a working body, something I’m going to want to photograph because they’re still here. And it would be cool if they’re here for a very long time and I can continue to work on it. But obviously they are not going to be around forever, so as much as I can and for as long as I can I will be working on this.

How do your parents feel about the project, and has it evolved at all as a response to their feelings?

It first started out as me just wanting to see how far I could push my parents before they thought it was annoying. Also, you have to know this about my mom, she is such a ham. She thrives in front of the camera. And my dad, as a photographer, loves it. So that, coupled with her being a hoarder and having tons of clothes, I thought would be one of the projects. Her in every single garment she owns. It’ll just be a thousand pages of weird clothes she’s wearing. But it ended up being so forced. I hated the photos that came out of it, just me being like “Can you stand here, pose like this.” 

That changed the first time I ever photographed them and felt proud of it. It was her in her bathrobe cleaning the yard, and I just told her “Look up, smile” and took the photo. And I love that. And that’s how it’s changed.

In regards to their reception. She hates it when it is organic. But I love it, because that’s you in this moment. Whether you’re angry or caught off guard. My mom is always like “Let me curl my hair, put on earrings. Oh and pose me here.” So then she’s trying to direct me on how to direct her, and I just want her to be natural. Then she asks me to show her the photos I post online and she’ll be like, “What, I only got 300 likes??” Mom! You’re crazy! Look at this one, you got 1,000 likes. She’s hilarious.

As for my dad, on the other hand, he’s a photographer so he’ll be asking why am I having him sit a certain way or why I’m taking photos of him. But it’s really fun. They’re really supportive and used to it by this point. I really appreciate it. I’m working on how to translate what I write, so I can tell them. Me and my broken Chinese, I’m able to tell them what I was writing about but not a true translation of it yet.

Since you mentioned the writing aspect of your posts. Not only are your photos stunning, but you also post the beautiful prose and story behind the photos. What is the connection for you with words and photos?

I think I take more pride when people compliment me on my writing. So I think in that sense I would consider myself more of a writer than a photographer. But honestly, I’m neither. But on my phone I just have a ton of notes. Like sometimes I won’t be able to sleep so I’ll just re-write or it’ll be just word vomit. With the pieces with my parents, half the stuff is pre-written. Then if a photograph fits what I already wrote then I’ll finish the piece I already wrote, or I’ll write something specifically for it. Initially I felt every photo I took had to have something so deep and eloquent. And sometimes, like, it’s a photo of a sunrise. It’ll happen again. Yes, it’s beautiful but I don’t need to be deep or introspective about it.

But I feel like with the images of my parents, it’s so natural. For me, it’s kind of figuring out my lineage and my parents, so it’s therapeutic just writing. That’s what a lot of this is. Figuring things out by writing it down. And [the motivation is not] so I can post it and people can like it. Like, that one post where I didn’t know my grandma had the experience she did with the French soldiers. My mom just made an off-handed comment about how she shouldn’t really be here and how her dad wasn’t really her dad, her brothers aren’t her brothers. I was like, what?! And then she explained how grandma was assaulted, and how she was the product of it. I was like, hold up, we need to talk about this. But she didn’t really want to. So I needed to process that and write about it.

So yeah, I would say writing is very meaningful to me and very therapeutic. If it’s befitting of what I wrote or it’s a photo that means something to me, I’ll write something. But if I force it, nothing comes out. The theme is just very organic.

What was the evolution of 35mm to now focusing primarily on medium and large format?

My dad really believed you could only learn how to use a camera if everything is manual, so he really encouraged me to try the Nikons. But I just wanted a point and shoot. I wanted something easy and fast, set it and forget it. I didn’t really care. Then looking back on my first 10-15 rolls on the point and shoots, I realized all that stuff kind of sucked. I thought I was making cool photos, but it was really just me thinking I was the shit because I was shooting film. I think we get in our heads a lot about that stuff. I didn’t really connect with the 35mm work. I couldn’t fathom taking so many photos. So what I ended up doing was blowing through them on stupid things. I couldn’t really connect with it.

It was purely accidental that I got into medium format. I was on eBay and had purchased a roll of Lomography film. I thought I ordered 35mm but they shipped me 120 and I was like, “What is this??” I remember even leaving a three star review because I was frustrated at not getting 35mm. But lo and behold I should go back and give that guy five stars now! At the time I borrowed a camera to shoot it, a Mamiya RB67. The HEAVIEST camera you could possibly own. I put the roll through and I got the results back from the lab, and was like, “OH CRAP”. That just ruined me forever. It was so great. And because it was just 10 photos, I had to really think about what I wanted to photograph. It was a lot better because it slowed me down. Before I had just been walking around downtown San Francisco and just blowing rolls of 35mm on things that didn’t matter. With this, I was really, really slowed down. I really cared about the photographs I was taking. I almost immediately abandoned shooting 35mm, and went exclusively medium format. Which is still my main format, only because large format is so expensive. It’s been good, I’ve been so happy. I finally have teased out which cameras do and do not work. I’m just rotating on two medium formats now.

Which two are those?

The Pentax 67 will always be my baby. I love it so much. And the Mamiya 645.

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You mentioned that you are still figuring out what you like to shoot, but you obviously like shooting portraits. What draws you to shooting people vs. other subjects?

About two years ago I went on Instagram and declared “I am going to be a good portrait photographer!” It felt like the bane of my existence. I feel like I’m better now, but not the best. You can see in my photos it’s frequently people standing in the middle and they’re not really posing. It’s mainly, “Let me get a photo of you”. For me, that’s what matters and it’s not so much the pose. It’s not so much the portrait itself, but the people. You can see I do have a lot of the same people that I re-post. Again, that’s who I choose to give my time to, it means a lot to me. Taking their portraits and having a photo of them at this place where we did something together, that means more to me and these portraits are for me. It’s memorializing them and our time together. Having something to show for it, I guess.

That’s why I’m drawn to portraits, it’s about my relationship with these people. But man, it’s hard. There’s people out here taking amazing editorial shots of people, or making photos that are so emotive that tell a story just looking at them. That’s the level I want to get to. Still working on it! Will forever be working on it.

I’ve noticed your subjects seem so comfortable in front of your camera. Do you do anything to help people feel at ease in front of your lens? 

I think it has to do with getting to know people first. It’s cool to take portraits of strangers, because they look really nice or you want to capture their aura. But it’s also so important to build a relationship with someone before capturing their photo, because it is so intimate. Like I mentioned, a lot of the people featured in my work are friends and people I’m really comfortable with. I’m really happy you’re able to feel that between me and this person and our sense of trust in the photos.

Of the photos you’ve taken, what is your most impactful photo?

Probably photos I’ve taken of my parents. Maybe more so of my mom, because we’re so close. My mom is my best friend, she’s the love of my life. It’s a huge fear when I lose her it will be the end of me. Any photos I have of her mean so much to me. It’s always the ones where she’s caught off guard or I make her laugh and get a photo of that.

There’s one I took with my Mamiya 645 and her glasses are sitting on the edge of her nose and she’s cheesing. She had just finished grabbing some lemons off the lemon trees and I snuck up on her. Things like that, where she’s in her natural element. It’s just like, that’s my mom. She’s a happy person. She’s the light of my life. She makes me so happy. Any photos that emit that kind of feeling for me are my most meaningful and they impact me emotionally a lot.

Is there anything you feel like you’ve struggled with in photography that you’ve overcome?

You know, I could make up something and be super deep, but honestly no. I don’t think so. Photography isn’t that serious for me. If I make a photo, I make a photo. If it’s great, it’s great. If it’s not, I’ll just throw it away and never think of it again.

But I think if I had to pinpoint the most challenging part, it would come down to how expensive things are. That’s just it. I would have no qualms about this hobby if things were affordable. My partner and I are trying to save to buy a house, and once we became serious about wanting to get a house I realized I couldn’t buy film and camera gear any more, until we at least get an accepted offer. And I’ve saved so much money! It’s so stupid. Oh my gosh, this is where all my money is going? Literally, it’s just being sunk into this hobby that’s never going to make me money. But I enjoy it. It’s so challenging in that I want to save money, of course, but at the same time I want the cameras I think are fun and I want all the film!

And one day I won’t be able to afford it anymore. So that really is the most challenging part of this. I’ve calculated it, Portra is $13-14 a roll now. I gave up on developing film myself, the colors were always terrible. So I send everything to a lab and scan my film myself to save some money. But sometimes I don’t have the time and energy, so I pay for the lab to do both, so then it’s like $16 for developing and scan, and then you’re paying for like $30 for a single roll of film start to finish. I can’t do that! That’s bananas. I want a baby, and we cannot afford to have a kid when their formula is $30+. This is just nuts. Sometimes I just have to break it down and focus on real life things and what I could afford instead. It’s so sad. $55 for a pro-pack, or half of a one-way ticket to see my parents? Oh man, this is really not fun when you sit down and think of these costs.

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What female or non-binary photographers are inspirational to you?

Oh Hannah Films! She’s amazing, and oh my gosh super cool too. I love her landscape photos. I don’t know how she gets the dreamiest and richest colors. Her photos are what I want my landscape photos to look like. Also there’s a couple that do predominantly story telling of the queer community. They’re known as Allie and Jesse on Instagram. They make really beautiful portraits. One of my most favorite ones of theirs was a boxer who had transitioned from female to male, and they followed their story, how they transitioned, and what they look like now. It was riveting. It was so cool.

When people take photos like that, I wonder how they make those connections? Because it’s so intimate and personal. They were able to connect with this person and they were comfortable enough to let them tell their story. That’s what Allie and Jesse do.

Obviously Sara Messinger. She’s amazing. I just discovered her. She’s based in New York and she does these photos, where they feel almost just like photos you take of your friends just hanging out but they are punchy and raw. The people she is photographing are like the cool punks or the misfit kids in high school you wished you could have talked to. All her photos are of people like that. Very raw. And I wonder how she evokes these emotions. Literally I have a whole list of people. Lindsay Perryman, they are so so good. Their portraits are super dynamic and powerful.

From the past, but Mary Mark Ellen. I bought a three book set of her work and after going through it I couldn’t photograph for months. I was just like, what am I doing? Her whole thing is she ingratiates herself into her subjects’ lives. She spent months in India photographing sex workers. I don’t even think it was an assignment. It was just her wanting to know about these people and their lives and that she wanted to photograph them. She spends time building up these relationships and making people feel comfortable. She takes these amazing photos that are just dripping with emotion. It evokes so much from just looking at it. That definitely made me pause and reevaluate things. I’m such a fan of her work.

Also, Aly’s Vintage Camera Alley, Shay of the Arts, and Liz Potter! And oh Jess Hobbs. She’s amazing. She’s actually the reason I’m now diving into modified cameras for instant film. All these women, like Jessie Tepper, Film by Kait, Chris Bartolucci, it’s been such a welcoming group of people that have been so supportive. Not just of me, but of everyone and of each other. There’s no gatekeeping. Also, Vania Francesca, she’s been so helpful in talking about quick loads and ready loads, and learning about how she does things.

Just looking at everyone’s work is so motivating. It makes me want to continue making good photos. It’s so invigorating seeing women and non-binary people be represented in this community. It sucks when it gets so loud with people trying to make a point that there couldn’t possibly be 50% of the film photography population be these people, that they think it’s all white men. It really sucks, because I could go on and on listing these people. It sucks that there are people who don’t believe there’s equal numbers of all these different kinds of photographers. But it’s so empowering to see all these feature pages pop up that aren’t just featuring cis-white men. I love it, it’s so cool. I’m glad more people are becoming aware of this. I hope it continues and we start becoming louder voices!

As we wrap up, what big projects are you working on?

Not so much projects, but I’ve gotten to a point where I’m comfortable with medium and large format and now I feel like, what else should I throw my money at? There’s a discord called Film and Filaments, or something like that, it’s a bunch of smart people modifying or designing their own 3D printed cameras so you can take instant photos. Polaroids are so expensive! People are upgrading and making those things at more affordable prices. I’m printing one right now that will work with a Mamiya Press Lens and the LomoGraflock Back. So there’s better alternatives to using the LomoGraflock Back. I’m super excited to dive into the world of instant film. So many of the instant film cameras on the market just don’t have a lot of control, so then your photos don’t turn out the greatest or the sharpest. With these designs they make it possible to shoot instant film with a lot more control, so I’m ecstatic about that. It’s not so much a project that will be fruitful and produce a specific body of work. It’s going to be fun and I’m really excited about it. But also it’s super aggravating because 3D printing is stupid and hard. But yeah, I’m really excited.

You can find Han’s work online on Instagram, Twitter, and on her Website.

Get Inspired

For more stories behind the images and photography from the community check out the many series we’ve published over the years below!

Featured Photophile – we shine a spotlight on amateur photographers whose work we love.

Photographer Interviews – in-depth discussions with professional and established photogs doing great work.

Female Photographers to Follow – get inspired by a monthly series focused on the beautiful and unique perspectives of female photographers.

Five Favorite Photos – a hand-selected examination of the oeuvre of ur favorite famous photographers.

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[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

The post Parents and Portraits with Film Photographer Han Phan appeared first on Casual Photophile.

A truly one of a kind artist, Claire has been working in the photography industry for years, from shooting weddings to capturing newborns. If you’re a fan of authentic and tender moments captured and preserved forever on film, then sit back and enjoy our conversation throughout her career and artistic journey.

Can you start off by introducing yourself?

A little bit about myself. Well first, I’m a mom. I have two little kids. We live on a small farm in Ontario. I’ve been shooting since high school, for like, 20 years. I started on film because my parents still had a film camera. They gave it to me and I took a film class. I loved it because back then we still had teachers that would do darkroom stuff with us. And that’s the most thrilling part! Then I went to school to become a midwife, and I did that for a little while but then it just was not for me. I ended up switching completely over to photography and taking on clients, and that’s when I started my business. I would say I’m still polishing my voice. Finessing it. But I would say it took a good 6-7 years to speak in my voice in my job with my clients. That really helped give me a niche market. I took all those people that liked what I did and took them into film with me. So now I only do film photography with my clients; families and weddings and all that kind of stuff. On the other side I have my conceptual artwork which can be both digital and film.

What do your clients think of you being film only? Do they understand the limitations of working with film?

Yes, they are pretty educated these days which is really nice. The ones who’ve known me, I’ve been bringing different film cameras to different shoots for decades. So those who have shot with me know that about me. And I would often share those film images with them even if it was just a handful. I’ve certainly lost some along the way but I knew I was going to lose them and that’s okay. Because I wasn’t gonna give them what they wanted anyway, so that’s good. I would say for the most part they are very well educated and because people are so quick on trends on Instagram people want film because they want the grainy look, which drives me a little bonkers, but anyways. So they often specifically want film to achieve that texture. And then shooting in film is a whole different pace. I’m definitely a different shooter, like the content is different. The pace, the vibe, it’s all different. So that’s attractive to some people too.

Do you have one main film camera with which you shoot your client work, or do you have a buffet of cameras you like to choose from?

At the moment, I have two. I have the Pentax 67 [our review of this camera can be seen here]. Man, it’s a tank but I love it so much. I’ve played around with other ones, like the Mamiya C330. That was beautiful too. That’s a twin lens though, and it was just slowing me down a bit. But it was beautiful. I am happy with the Pentax.

I’m not a big gear head. So I tend to stick with a camera for a few years until I meet a bunch of people and use their cameras and realize they work better. I rarely go research cameras. I forget who said it, but “the best camera is the camera you have.” I do try to make my cameras work that way.

The 35mm I use is the Nikon F100 [our review of this camera can be seen here]. It’s a really nice camera. I like it a lot. I also got the Canon EOS3 because someone I admire was using it, but I kind of had nothing but trouble with it. I need to play with it more but I haven’t had the time. I hate wasting film trying to figure out problems. So those are my two main film cameras I use. If I’m doing my conceptual work I just use the Pentax.

And what digital camera do you use?

I am going to ride my Nikon D700 until it dies [our review of this camera can be seen here]. It’s funny because I’m so old. When I shot a lot of weddings I had two. So when I stopped doing those, I sold the second body and just kept one for this and that. And now with mirrorless it’s like I’m an elderly person now with my digital gear. It happened so quickly. Now there’s no point in selling this. So I’m just going to run it into the ground. But I do love it. I’m used to it. It’s like an extension of my body. This is the second shutter on it. And I have a bunch of other cameras, too. Like personally I like using the Canon AE-1 Program [our review of this camera can be seen here] when I’m just out and about, it’s low profile and does a nice job. And then I have a bunch of fun cameras like Lomo cameras and different instant cameras, just to play with.

Do you remember your first film camera?

You know? I don’t. It was a Minolta. I know, and it had a mickey mouse neck strap from my dad, which I still have! I’ve asked him but we can’t remember what camera it was. We just didn’t think that way back then. It just was like, here is a camera. Perfect. I ended up giving it to a friend, so I don’t know where it is anymore. But I do have a soft spot for it. It did a good job.

You don’t shoot weddings anymore. Why is that?

Yeah, I don’t do the same kind of weddings. Like I used to do the BIG weddings and I like Love, I’m all in support of Love. But I’m so jaded by weddings. They’re horrible. I’ve shot many, many, many weddings for a decade and the last couple years I was running my business I only took on micro-weddings, which are now a big thing but five years ago weren’t. But I love those, those are totally up my alley. They’re slower, they’re smaller. So I’ll still do those. I even did a few last year actually. But I don’t advertise it.

You just got burnt out on the big wedding structure?

Yeah, all the hype. I”m all about authenticity. And I’m not saying a wedding isn’t authentic. But people can often lose sight of what is actually happening on a wedding day which is Love and a celebration of Love, and it just turns into this big Instagramable event and I don’t like that. I have friends who are still wedding photographers and they’re just made to do it. They’re pumped, they’re always super excited, they love Love, they cry at every wedding. So they’re great, some people are just built for it. But it was a stretch for me. I’m glad I did it though, it was fun. But I’m happy that chapter is closed.

Beyond your clients, what keeps you shooting film?

I like the pace. I like how it slows me down. I like the challenge. The technical challenge, and the artistic challenge of capturing in the fraction of the frames you would on digital. I really enjoy that challenge. I also love that you really have to surrender with film. You can’t check the back of the camera to see if you got it. So it’s very freeing.

A photographer whom I saw at a workshop said “Film will set you free.” I didn’t understand her for a long time, until I just exclusively shot film and I realized it really does set you free. It’s super risky shooting film, so you wouldn’t think it would set you free but it does. It frees you to think more creatively and just trust your skills and the process. And when you are being creative it’s more of a challenge. Like if you’re going to do a double exposure you really have to think very clearly of how you’re doing it, framing everything, and if it’s going to work. As opposed to if you’re doing a double exposure on digital you can just check right away and that’s no fun.

It’s thrilling, you get your scans back and you don’t know what they’re going to be like. The whole process is very exciting. And clients really love it. Even my clients who didn’t grow up with film. Now there’s more clients who have never experienced film, they just enjoy how special each image is. People cherish their images more. It’s beautiful.

One of the things that first really pulled me into your art was your work with mothers and children. What draws you toward mothers and why are they one of your focuses?

Oh, man. That’s a good question. I’ve never been asked anything like that before. Why mothers? I think there are a couple of reasons. The first reason, that’s the time of life I’m in right now. So that’s my demographic for starters. But I’ve thought about it and I’ve never come to a good conclusion about it. I’ve wondered if it’s because I can’t physically have kids myself. I wonder if there is some fascination or examination I’m doing. Because I can’t have kids and I haven’t been through it. I see pregnancy and the early days of motherhood through a different lens, of more curiosity maybe. Because it’s not normal to me and it’s not commonplace, so it’s exciting. I think that’s the first thing that comes to mind. That could be it. Also just moms and babies are just such a unique relationship to begin with. It’s really an endless topic you could study. The shapes and the colors are so beautiful, and the textures. And the earthiness of it. It’s so feminine and it’s so gritty at the same time. I really like it.

Is there anything in particular you are hoping to capture about motherhood?

Nope, just the reality of it. All I really ask of my clients is they try to be themselves as much as possible. So the shoots are always different. But I just want to capture them authentically as who they are. I don’t think you can see it in the images but I can, like some shoots I did last year I can see a lot of gladness in them because I know what was going on with that mom at the time. And I tell them, that’s just where you were at. This is a time capsule. Shoots can be really silly or intimate or sad and intimate. But they’re always very tender. I love tenderness.

I love that there’s nothing posed or overtly forced in your photos. They feel very lived in. As if you’re capturing these moments as these families are just living their lives and going about their days whether it’s getting dressed for the day or having bath time. How did you develop that style?

It evolved but it came from a place of really valuing authenticity. What’s more authentic than being in a state of undress and moving, undressing, dressing, rocking your baby. You don’t get more authentic than that. A lot of the images are posed in a sense, they’re initially posed but then I let them fall apart. It’s just really that desire for something authentic. The nudity part of it, I’m personally not much of a nudist. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable, though. I think having been a midwife helps a lot and helps my clients a lot because they can get nervous and I can say, “Remember, I was a midwife, I’ve seen it all.” And that has really helped everyone to relax and let me take pictures. It was a few years of asking people to be vulnerable by taking clothes off and now it’s people coming to me wanting to take their clothes off. Not in a weird way of course!

When you mentioned nudity just now it took me by surprise because I’ve never thought of your photos as being nude photos. It doesn’t stick out at all. You do it in such a beautiful, subtle way that I never thought about it until you brought it up.

I have always been really, really clear I don’t want to create sexual images. I want to create intimate images, or even sensual images. That’s totally fine with me. I have a lot of pictures of couples kissing and nudity there, but they don’t feel sexual. So yeah, there’s a line that I don’t think you could define until you saw it.

The last thing I want to do is sexualize anybody, because it’s kind of a cheap trick.

As you’ve mentioned, you are a mother. How do you feel being a mom has affected your artistic vision and output?

When we adopted my daughter I had to do art to, like, breath. That was a really cool time with her, because when we adopted her a lot of things went really badly in our lives just after we adopted her. Nothing to do with her, of course! Just life things. It was a way to process and spend time with her. I created a ton of images with her when she was 18 months to about 3 [years old]. They’re really hard and heavy but I love that I have them. I think with parenting and having two kids now, there’s a level of, I have so few fucks to give. Like, I just don’t have the time. I don’t have the energy to invest in things I don’t believe in, like art projects I don’t think have legs. Not to say I won’t experiment. But it’s made me more focused and it’s made me more relaxed in one sense but it’s also made me more tunnel visioned in what I want. It’s been really awesome. Really tiring, but awesome because I know what’s me and what I want to do. I guess I would say I’ve gotten much more efficient.

Do you ever feel like there’s times where motherhood and art are in conflict?

Oh yes, every day. When we first adopted our daughter she would take three-hour naps in the afternoon, so I would once a week have someone come to the house and we would do “nap sessions” and shoot during her naps. I created a ton of images I loved during that time. Just finding myself and what I like. I got to work with a lot of great people who still model for me from time to time to this day. That was so life giving.

But now I don’t have the time for nap sessions, because nap time now is “clean the house, shower, make dinner, etc.” Things are different now, it’s just so busy. And less energy, but I still have so many ideas. Even today I was driving my daughter to school and I got sad because I have so many ideas I want to follow through on. And Claire Without Kids and Claire With One Kid could find time to do them, but now I can’t and I have to keep letting them go, but I know more will come. That’s something I’ve learned with ideas and projects. Sometimes they come and they go, and you don’t have time to work them out. But there’s always more coming. There’s no scarcity of ideas that come up, so I have to remind myself to let them go and it’ll come back to me if I really want.

I wanted to talk a little about a project you are working on called Fed is Best. Could you tell us about that photo project?

Yes! I renamed it, it’s just called Fed now. I was seeing that Instagram has just been flooded with images of moms breastfeeding. And there’s this really big movement in the last year or two where women are showing more and more skin while nursing and breastfeeding. And while it’s super beautiful and super awesome, it is unrelatable for someone like me who can’t nurse. And also for other types of caretakers like men who don’t produce milk, or grandparents taking care of kids, or foster parents serving as primary caregivers. There’s all these different people who have these beautiful bonding moments multiple times a day, and it just felt like “Well, where are our beautiful images?” Because I know that we’re having these moments too.

So that was the impetus, feeling underrepresented and jealous, too, of these beautiful pictures. And then I’ve just been reaching out to the community. Even though it’s just been very preliminary, and I’m still building it and establishing what the whole project will look like. Also as a midwife, I’ve been so surprised by all the different ways people are feeding their children. I was just thinking we’d have a bunch of different bottle feeding caregivers, but no! There’s so many different things between full on breastfeeding and full on bottle feeding. There’s a plethora of different methods which I didn’t even know about.

It’s very exciting! It’s been fun to explore. Something that’s never happened to me before. And I don’t know what to call it besides stagefright. I got frozen with this project and I lost a lot of momentum from last summer to now. So unfortunately I’ve lost several volunteers I had lined up because they’re no longer feeding their babies, because they’re babies are growing up and not taking milk anymore. But that was really weird. I’ve never had that happen with a project before. I just felt immobilized. I couldn’t make a decision on the project.

I will be seeing it through. But again, there’s no rush, because women, men, and caregivers will always be having to feed their kids. It could be a long project, we’ll see. Also, it’ll be all film. That was one of the things making me freeze, because of the costs. I’m shooting medium format and just committing to that.

That’s such a beautiful idea, because you’re right. There’s so many different types of parenthood outside the traditional biological aesthetic of motherhood that don’t get celebrated or recognized in our society.

And don’t get beautified or romanticized. For adoptive parents or moms who can’t produce milk or just all the different scenarios, pregnancy and having babies is so romanticized. Then people like me feel like this isn’t romantic at all, this is really hard! So yeah I just want to romanticize what we do, too.

Most of the people I interview either don’t rely on film photography for their income, or they shoot digital as their main job and film on the side as a personal passion. I think you’re one of the first people I’ve interviewed who shoot solely film with all their paid work. So how are the rising costs of film affecting your business and is that of concern for you?

Yeah, yup! I actually just sent out some quotes this evening where my prices had been raised. And I sat there for a while reading it over, not sure. If I was a potential new client receiving an email like that, I would be thinking “Are you kidding me?!” But I always have a formula, and it was the formula I used ten years ago and it’s the same formula I use now to make sure I’m earning money. I guess the one thing that you might not want to hear, I’ve always had it in the back of my head is that what I offer is luxury. And when things get difficult in the world luxury items are the first things to get nixxed. And I’ve always thought of myself that way.

I mean, you could argue that photos are art and art is essential. But it’s not a daily living essential. It’s really low. But it’s helped me. I’m totally prepared to fade out, if the world is going to collapse for a while. That’s been in the back of my head. And also, I’m just aware because of the price increases I will have limited clients. Fortunately because I am a stay at home mom and my husband works full time, we are not reliant on my income anymore. We were when I was running a business full time without kids but that ended a few years ago. So I don’t have to think that way. But I do have to think when I do shoot film, it costs me financially to pay for it but also in finding babysitting for my family. So it has to be worth it. So, I don’t know, I don’t have an answer. I just know I’m very aware my job is a luxury item.

Does that ever cause you any anxiety?

No. Because I feel like I can fall back on my other artwork as an outlet. I’ll just figure out how to make art no matter what. If the world totally collapses and we can’t even get film developed, it’ll be heartbreaking yes, but there will always be other outlets. And that’s the main thing for me, this is an outlet.

Also something very unique you’ve been doing to keep your client work alive during the pandemic is Zoom photoshoots. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, during the pandemic I was trying to find a way to keep shooting film, but, of course, it wasn’t possible to shoot indoors. At the time, I was in an online class with Yan Palmer and Bec Griffiths and I was captivated with one of my classmates. I asked her if I could try shooting her and her baby through Zoom, but on film, and that started a whole new genre for me which has virtually taken me from Connecticut, to Washington state, back to Ontario, then to Germany. Soon I’ll be working with people in Qatar, the UK and the East Coast of Canada. It’s so thrilling being able to virtually travel into clients’ homes across North America and Europe!

I don’t want to forget to ask you! One of my favorite images of yours is the burning Christmas tree image. It is just iconic. I’d love for you to tell us a little bit about that image and how it came about.

Yeah it was our first Christmas with two little kids and my parents were living with us at the time, in an attached part of the house. And life was just heavy, and hard, and tiring, but magical because they were really excited about Christmas. But we forgot to do the Christmas morning picture in front of the tree, or really any picture in front of the tree which I wanted to be our little tradition. And we forgot.

And then it was New Year’s Eve and we had plans to go out and everyone we were supposed to meet up with had Covid. So the party was canceled, and we thought let’s take down the Christmas tree instead. And then I realized we hadn’t taken a picture. And I was just in a MOOD and our daughter wanted to roast marshmallows earlier so I told her, “We’re going to burn the tree and you can roast your marshmallows over it!” She got so excited and was jumping on the couch shouting “Burn the tree!”

So we took it outside, and I could just see it in my head. I knew we had to pick up outfits. We had to do this right. This is going to be our Christmas tree picture, because this is what Christmas was this year. It was chaos, a big dumpster fire. And it felt fitting to burn it. It felt good to not passively take the Christmas tree out and be sad I missed the opportunity to get the picture in front of the tree. I wanted to be really defiant about the whole thing. So when we started off we did some sample shots before I lit it on fire.

And then we don’t know what happened, why my daughter started crying. There are two theories. One, I maybe stepped on her finger but she says I didn’t. And then the other, I think is in her 4-year-old head she hadn’t fully processed we were going to actually burn the Christmas tree and then when she saw what we actually were doing she started crying. So we don’t know. But she did start balling and wailing uncontrollably as soon as we started taking pictures. And I was like, “Yeah, this is appropriate.” It’s in theme. And then I stood up and I just put my arms out like a defiant surrendering thing. It just felt so good to do it in the moment. It was super cathartic. It was awesome.

I always like to ask each of my subjects what female photographers, past or present, do you consider favorites or find inspirational?

Oh, it changes all the time! There’s just so many good ones. First and foremost, and I feel embarrassed to say this because it’s so typical, but Annie Leibovitz. And I’m not talking about her big commercial stuff as gorgeous as it is, but it’s all her personal work beforehand with her parents. If you don’t know any of her earlier work with Rolling Stone and stuff, man she speaks my language. She’s looking for the moment. She’s looking for authenticity. She was following the Rolling Stones for a while before Rolling Stone magazine, and there’s a picture of Mick Jagger getting into the elevator and he’s exhausted and his makeup is all running off after a show. He looks terrible, but he looks like a total rockstar. Just the way she captured it is so vulnerable and tired. She’s really talented. And then with her elderly parents she asked to photograph them. And they let her. And just the vulnerable, intimate pictures she has of her elderly parents is just beautiful. Her early work has been a huge inspiration. So yeah, early Annie. Rolling Stones Annie.

And she has a super cool life. I can’t remember if they were married, but she lost her partner to cancer a few years ago. And she took pictures of it. And that’s me. That’s me. That’s how I process things. I lost my best friend a couple years ago to cancer, and I took a lot of film pictures of it with her permission. I don’t think I’ll ever share them but man are they important to me. And that time in my life and those images helped shape who I am today. And I recognize that in Annie. And beyond Annie, I also really love Vivian Maier, Yan Palmer, and Amy Woodward.

As we wrap up, is there anything this year photographically that you’re looking forward to?

I’m looking forward to getting started back on the Fed project. I’ve psyched myself out, but I know it has value so I’m excited to see what comes out of it this year. And if I get some clients along the way that would be great, but that’s not really the goal these days. I guess the biggest thing, even if Fed totally flops, I just feel like no matter what, I’m really enjoying this process of not caring so much. But also at the same time having a laser vision of knowing what I want to do and not worrying about pleasing other people. And just doing what I want to do. I’m excited to see where it will take me.

Where can people find your work and is there anything you’d like to add?

On Instagram my client work can be found on @dam.its.claire. And my artwork can be found on @claire.dam. So those are the two!

And just one thing I want to add about women in the industry, and in women being talented. I think as women we often don’t present ourselves like we’re talented. Almost like we’re apologetic that we’re talented, and that’s comfortable to do. But it’s so backwards, so I’m pushing myself and encouraging other women in the industry to be proud of our accomplishments. And walk around like we have accomplished stuff. We’re artists and we’re talented, and we’ve earned it through the many hours we have put into our craft. I want to change things because like at weddings and stuff people would always call me “bossy.” And it’s driven me up the wall. Whereas a guy would never be called bossy. And I’ve worked with men who were bossy and didn’t get called bossy. I just hope that we can start carrying ourselves unapologetically that we are talented.

Get Inspired

For more stories behind the images and photography from the community check out the many series we’ve published over the years below!

Featured Photophile – we shine a spotlight on amateur photographers whose work we love.

Photographer Interviews – in-depth discussions with professional and established photogs doing great work.

Female Photographers to Follow – get inspired by a monthly series focused on the beautiful and unique perspectives of female photographers.

Five Favorite Photos – a hand-selected examination of the oeuvre of ur favorite famous photographers.

Follow Casual Photophile on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

The post Parenthood and Love Shot Authentically on Film – Interview with Claire Dam appeared first on Casual Photophile.