Using a Film Camera in the studios- Rachel Brown

The University of Huddersfield invited Rachel Brown, a former photo director for Harper’s Bazaar and studio manager of Tim Walker, to give a workshop demo on using an (8x10) Film camera while also recapping the group on the history of how the film camera came into use.

Here is an image above taken by me with some of the work Brown had produced herself using her own film camera and at home studio set up. She mentioned how hard it was to do this without any assistance because of lighting techniques, making sure it was bright enough to capture a similar light to the sun.

The image below captured on my phone presents the view of myself sat on a stool as the subject and my view of the camera. It had a 2 second exposure and so the pose had to be held for this amount of time as the camera was taking the picture.

To make the lighting set up bright our group had a spotlight shining on the white background, a light directly above and in front of the face and one to the side bouncing off 2 white poly boards. We then used a light metre to measure the right aperture needed which was F8.

Once the photo was taken, we developed them in the dark room, making sure no light could get onto the film and mess with the outcome. The darkroom process took around 5-7 minutes, and this is how the images turned out:

This process was fun to do as I am not used to this way of working being with digital cameras all the time so, learning about how this was the only way to photograph and still being able to work this way was inspiring. There was an element of risk as there are a few vital steps when creating these. For example, having your film paper the right way, pulling it out when taking the photo all contributes to making sure it is done correctly.