“Hands Off” Protest on Film

I often read that shooting a film camera is a slower, more contemplative form of photography. I completely agree with this. But when it comes to photographing a highly dynamic event like a major protest event, the deliberate process of using a film camera isn’t what many would go for.

For my own part, I get a thrill out of going old school even in environments when sensory overload might make my choice of using a film camera seem questionable. In recent months, I have been liking more and more the look of higher-speed black and white film. What better way is there to record a protest event than with a medium that has a bit of grit?

This past Saturday, several thousand gathered in my region for one of the many “Hands Off” protest events that occurred nationwide. I was one of them. But I didn’t come to participate. Instead, I was there simply to observe. With my Nikon F in hand, I had a roll of Kodak Tri-X 400 loaded in my camera along with a few spares in my pocket. How much more photojournalistically old school can you get than a Nikon F and Tri-X?

Because I wanted to compress near and far and be able to zero in on people’s expressions without shoving a camera lens into their faces, I fitted my Nikon with a 135mm f/3.5 telephoto lens. For wider perspective, I also brought a 50mm f/2 lens, but I never went for it.

I very consciously avoid making political statements on this blog. To be sure, I have my own viewpoints. But to the extent this is possible in these hyper-charged times, I didn’t attend that event to pass judgment on people. I was there to be a film photographer.

A while back, I wrote that I am not naturally a people person but that I do like taking photographs of people. At an event like this, it’s far easier for me to be a photographer of people. If anything, I would wager that most thought I was a member of the press. Somehow that made me feel freer.

I mentioned above the sensory overload that I can often suffer from during large rallies. Although I may have fallen victim to that, I am still rather down on myself for having made a significant technical blunder.

Wanting to go as lightweight as possible, I opted for my Nikon F’s plain prism eyelevel viewfinder rather than my bulkier and heavier Nikon FTn metered finder. Since there was steady hazy sun that morning, I figured that I could get away with eyeing the light, metering once to confirm my assessment, and start shooting away without having to worry much about changing my exposure settings.

When I got to the event, I pulled out my iPhone, fired up my Pocket Light Meter iOS app, and took a reading. It recommended 1/250 sec. at f/4. “Huh,” I thought to myself, “there sure is a lot of light for that kind of meter reading.” But with the crush of people and the blare of noise all around me, perhaps the skeptical side of my brain had gotten turned off.

I proceeded to set my camera’s exposure time and aperture settings based on what my metering app recommended and got underway. Every now and again I re-metered. Yep, still 1/250 sec. at f/4.

I ended up getting through most of my second roll of film before I realized that the app had frozen and that it’s exposure recommendation was from lord knows what. Exasperated, I force-quit the app, restarted it, and was horrified to see that the now properly functioning meter app was recommending settings around 1/1000 sec. at f/8. For all that time, I had been overexposing by around four stops.

I am so disappointed in myself. Here I had been training my eye to shoot without a light meter for so long. That bad gut feeling I ignored earlier about there being a ton of light for shooting at 1/250 sec. and f/4 was right all along.

For pretty much the entire time I was at the event, a steady stream of drivers honking their horns in support were passing by. “Wow,” I remember thinking to myself, “this unhappiness is more widespread than I would have thought.” But the introvert in me can only take so much of that kind of commotion while still being an effective photographer. I still had a fresh roll of Tri-X in my pocket, and I could have continued to take pictures at better exposure settings. But the event was due to wind up soon, and I had had enough.

Back home, I readied my film developing gear and contemplated how to proceed. In an effort to counteract my gross overexposure, I cut back on the development time. Attempting pull-processing for the first time, I went from the 7 minutes and 30 seconds recommended for Kodak Tri-X in a 1+9 dillution of Ilford Ilfosol 3 at 68°F/20°C to a guess of four minutes. Even with that dramatic reduction in developing time, my negatives still came out very dark.

When I turned to scanning, however, I was surprised to see that all was not a complete disaster. I’m amazed my Plustek OpticFilm 8200i SE film scanner was able to pull anything from those negatives. Scanning and postproduction editing took a lot more time and effort than it should have, but at least I got something out of it all.