Film Photography still ROCKS!


Hellmuth Conz
Meister of Photography
Couple of weeks ago, I woke up one morning and decided I’ll learn the good-ol-fashioned film photography. From developing negatives to printing pictures and rest of the works in the dark room. Then I met Hellmuth Conz. Originally from Germany, he teaches photography for living in Bangalore. I signed up for the advanced course which includes dark room development and working with lighting etc.

I completed the darkroom course last week(Only black&white) and now I can’t wait to shoot in film. Its amazing all the things you can do in the darkroom to your image.. and trust me.. you can almost do all the things that photoshop/gimp can do on your final image. The image resolution is surely many times better then the top of the line digital cameras.

The film and the final paper print are soaked in this chemical called developer which reacts with the exposed side and exposes the image. To increase the contrast, just use the higher concentrated developer, to overexpose part of the image, just rub the area with your fingers so that the developer reacts faster in that area and exposes it more.

This week we are doing lighting and the picture on the left is hellmuth smoking in front of the softbox. ( Hopefully I’ll have a better looking model for my next class ;))

26 Comments

  1. sankup · July 23, 2004 Reply

    Can u give more details abt this course…..i mean where is the place and things like that….?

  2. harshad · July 23, 2004 Reply

    that pic really rocks…its awesome.didu use ur digi cam or its ur own developed..and hey please provide more info regarding that course.

  3. kewldeaf · July 23, 2004 Reply

    way to go! all the best. I see your real liking for photography. Who knows one day I may follow ur path provided I get to earn on my own. The first thing i want to do after earning is to have a digicam and shoot everything! 😛

  4. rpratap · July 23, 2004 Reply

    Pretty cool 🙂 Is that a digi shot or a regular film camera shot that you scanned in ? Seems digital to me.

  5. jd_knight · July 23, 2004 Reply

    u took this snap ? 😮

    Awesome!

  6. admin · July 23, 2004 Reply

    You can contact him ph : 9845642172

  7. admin · July 23, 2004 Reply

    hellmuth takes batch of 2 -3 people max.. so you can call him up and he shall put you in the next class.

  8. admin · July 23, 2004 Reply

    Yep.. using my D70.

  9. tariquesani · July 23, 2004 Reply

    You will come back to digital – but with a new perspective 🙂

  10. admin · July 23, 2004 Reply

    I am not leaving digital.. I am exploring something that’s maybe slightly more interesting then digital

  11. fox2mike · July 23, 2004 Reply

    Is the real JD?? lol

  12. tariquesani · July 23, 2004 Reply

    Darkroom soon gets tedious and expensive. I still have my enlarger (somewhat broken and very dusty) developing trays and tank if you want it….

  13. the_elcid · July 23, 2004 Reply

    thats really cool can i add u ?

  14. admin · July 23, 2004 Reply

    you always ask ?

  15. murali · July 25, 2004 Reply

    Envy !

    Man, I just envy you ! Would love to do a course like that someday !

  16. praveenk · July 26, 2004 Reply

    i’ve been recently caught up with this digi vs film tangle….the only complain i have with film is that the latency between clicking a shot and getting to see the pic is too long….so long that you dont remember the exposure/aperture/ or an other settings…as a result I wont know why a shot was good or bad…so the learning curve is not steep..i believe with digital u can check and correct ur mistakes much quickly…

  17. admin · July 26, 2004 Reply

    Are you on blr shutterbugs ?

  18. praveenk · July 26, 2004 Reply

    nope…whats that? if its a y! group, u can add praveen_k_81 to the list..

  19. admin · July 26, 2004 Reply

    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bangaloreshutterbugs/

    I’m not the moderator. Recently there was a big thread on Film/Digital pros and cons. you should check it out 🙂

  20. thaths · July 26, 2004 Reply

    Chemicals

    was studying film and photography in undergrad school. She had to change her major because she was allergic to the chemicals they use in the lab.

    They use some really causic chemicals in the lab. So you better be very careful touching the chemicals or inhaling the carcinogenic fumes from them.

  21. admin · July 26, 2004 Reply

    Re: Chemicals

    Yep. there is the developer and the fixer. The fixer is very acidic and you can feel your fingers tickle when you touch the liquid. I wash my hands every 2 min in the dark room

  22. fatmuttony · July 29, 2004 Reply

    Just friended you. Have absolutely no idea why I did not do this all this while. Ok if I add you?

  23. purplehazerads · August 3, 2004 Reply

    Awesome pic. I love the way the smoke curls up – contrast with the background is nice. Am friending you.

Leave a Reply