B (183)

58

B+W

In the second part of his series on shooting film, Eddie Ephraums

faces up to the realities – the uncertainties, the complexities and

the emotional demands that are all part of life with a camera

that has no light meter or LCD screen...

INSPIRATION

All images © Eddie Ephraums

B&W FILM SERIES:2

I

’m feeling perplexed. I’m

writing the second part of

this series on shooting with

film before I’ve developed the

films I hope to illustrate it

with. What if they don’t

come out? They are the first two

rolls of 35mm I’ve shot for many

years and I took them with a

1931 Leica that I bought recently.

I don’t even know if the camera

works. If I put my ear to it, all the

lovely sounding mechanical

shutter speeds seem about right,

but it’s a pre-rangefinder model

and the focusing distance has to

be estimated, then manually

applied to the lens. So, will any of

the pictures be in focus? That

also depends on how good I am

at working in ‘old’ numbers – the

lens barrel is marked in feet. As

for getting the exposure right...

The tiny aperture ring is very

imprecise and there is no

metering. So, I’ve been relying on

my pre-digital, somewhat faded,

ability to judge the light without

a meter. Who said photography

is fun? It is! Using film is such

a heady cocktail of uncertainty

and anticipation that it infuses

photography with hope: I hope

that my films will come out;

I hope the images will look as

I remember them – or better;

I hope to print them without

Photoshop or Lightroom to rely

on. Am I right to think that

digital lacks hope? Shooting film

again has made me more aware

of what photography really

means to me. It’s funny, not

knowing how the two films will

come out has actually created a

strong sense of knowing.

BUNTY’S COTTAGE

Photography is a two-dimensional medium but, working with film, gives

it another, physical dimension. When the screen is turned off, where do

digital images exist? Here, the image was shot with my 1931 Leica.

The negative was photographed with a digital compact and inverted.

The ‘grain’ is in fact digital noise.

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