Its a Personal Thing

After weeks of thought, I have started preparing for my personal project.I have also decided to do it entirely with film. I have spent so long emulating film on my digital work I figured why am I doing this if digital is up to the standards I want. Its not a matter of quality or how large I can enlarge photo's, but a matter of the look and feel of film as well as the quality of a final fibre based print. I simply just love the film I used to use. On a lot of my older photo's grain is very visible and a lot of my 35mm images are quite high in contrast. Some of my digital images still are quite high contrast but I have to be so much more careful with the digital stuff that I don't go over the boundaries of what the medium can do. I used to love a lot of Ellen Von Unwerth's work. Not all of it by any means, but I still do like some of her images. The thing I don't like a lot about photographers like her, is that they are normally technically completely inadequate. They shoot a load of images and can compose and focus a shot, but somebody else brings it to life for them. The skill of the developer and printer is sometimes much more than the photographer. The other thing is that they always shoot pretty people! No offense to any of my clients but I'm sure its easier to make Kate Moss look good than somebody that isn't a top model! So it begs the question, is it the photographer I like or the photography. Well with Ellen Von Unwerth it is certainly the photography. What I mean by this is that I love the finished photo that was a combination of not just her work but the models, make up artists, stylists, and maybe most importantly in her case, the printer. The beauty of my personal project is I will make sure I do all of the work, except the makeup and hair though! My models will be real people also and hopfully this will compliment my wedding work.