slater_films

As I began my 35mm journey I stumbled across a film photography page by the name of @f1rstoftheroll this page intrigued me ever since. I used to go through this page looking at all these films photos intrigued in the mystery of the first photo on a roll of film, so much so I used to try and capture intriguing first images. In this blog post I am going to display my first of the roll images ad showcase some of the photos I have managed to capture. Additionally I aim to convey my love for the analogue format including the adoration I have for film.

One of my favourite things about shooting on film is the imperfections (I have always been a lover of the imperfect), I feel this is only excelled when you get a roll of film back and you see that first photo of the roll, this excitement is what I love about shooting 35mm film. Capturing images on the film format is never going to be perfect and I feel like you have to learn this is the case to actually take good images.

Here is one of my first shots using the first of the roll method, having begun my photography journey doing landscape photography digitally. Therefore my natural progression is to shoot landscape using the film format, I feel I have really progressed with my photography using film. This image above despite not being my favourite, I really like the way you can see the film developer blend into the image it makes the image look like a painting. As I progress and get used to shooting this ‘first of the roll’ I want to try and use this as a compositional device, by making it look like a landscape coming out of the black space.

In the future I aim to try and utilise this beautiful phenomenon in film photography, rather than allowing that first image to go to waste I feel its much more beneficial if you make the most out of the fun quirks that film photography has to offer.

I understand this scan and image isn’t the best quality, I purposely didn’t scan to high res because I knew it wasn’t sharp and I would much rather get better images scanned to a higher, printing quality. Compositionally I wanted to make this look as if the castle is floating above the clouds, a concept I had seen previously on @f1rstoftheroll we were walking in Biarritz and I saw this perfect castle on an outcrop of land close to the sea.

The Villa Belza is a neo-Medieval mansion and was built on a cliff between 1880 and 1895. Over the years, the Villa Belza has had multiple uses: several directors used the Villa’s incredible scenery for their movies, and it also was a restaurant before becoming a sumptuous lot of 10-pricey apartments. Located near the “Trou du diable” (The Hole of the devil) abyss, locals like to tell stories about revenants and witchcraft ceremonies supposedly occurring in there, which helps maintain the Villa Beltza’s mysterious and intriguing legend. Tourists will have to wait for a while to visit this architectural beauty; it’s been closed for renovation since 2016.

Here is a similar shot idea, but on colour film, I really like this shot as it was completely unexpected as we were walking around Seville we saw so many buildings. I found this practice really exciting when shooting on colour film because I knew the colour film would make the split resemble fire. Knowing this is exactly what it looks like I am now going to start progressing this idea and getting better at shooting this kind of shot.

Finally, the image below is my most recent first of the roll. I was super happy with this shot in terms of composition I feel it could be stronger, but I feel the image really emphasises the beauty of film photography. I am going o keep shooting film and trying to get better at shooting the first shot on the roll and I aim to progress in my whole film photography.