Photographing Kids On Retro Film Cameras: Hong Kong
I love shooting film. I stuck with it long after many photographers had switched to digital. By 2006 I was digital as well, but I usually had some kind of film camera. Around ten years go I got serious for a while, taking a very special Hasselblad 503CW (Millenium!) on my shoots. Or an old Rolleiflex TLR, and even my beloved Hasselblad X-Pan panoramic camera.
Hasselblad X-Pan
Say what you want about film, there is definitely a look to the images which (for me) is impossible to achieve with digital. And of course with film, you slow down as every press of the shutter costs actual money rather than just a few million one and zeroes. Ditto for letting kids take photos with my old film cameras when I am doing Hong Kong family photos. Most of them have only used phones to take photos, so I tell them they can only take one. They spend lots of time lining up their shots to make sure they count. Letting kids use expensive camera, film or otherwise, is a secret to getting some great shots. They can often find images that I can’t, and get expressions from their siblings that I can’t get.
Someday I want to use my great-grandfather’s film camera from 1892 to do family photos, but it’s just so fragile! This was advertised as “The World’s Smallest Camera” when he bought it. I have family photos made with this thing. Amazingly they still make film in the same sizes as they did 135 years ago.
Cycle Poco #5, circa 1892
Hasselblad 503CW Millenium w/ 80mm Planar - There is reason this is camera that went to the moon. (There are eight of them up there.)
Rolleiflex f3.5
