Film photography is perfect for Paris
Paris is a stunningly beautiful city; the buildings, the suave locals, the cafés on each street corner with their heated outdoor seating, perfect for people watching. I've been lucky enough to visit a couple of times over the last two years and each time I've travelled with analogue cameras, capturing the experience through the medium of film.
There is something that is romantic about film that makes it perfect for documenting the french capital. Plus not being able to instantly see the image you have just made makes you think more before you press that shutter release. You need to be sure that you nail the exposure and the composition because you might just end up wasting a section of that finite film. Then once the roll is up, there's the anticipation, the excitement to find out how your shots came out.
Each brand and speed of film has it's own characteristics; the way it captures colour and the grain that manifests within it. I've not really experimented with it much, not enough to have a favourite anyway but I enjoy the look of it none the less.
Film is brilliantly unpredictable, especially when used in 30 year old cameras that have dodgy light seals. There's a randomness to it that I love. A bit of light leak here. A bit of discolouration there. And then there's the grain. All of which adds character and cohesion to a set of images.
These are some images that I captured during my first visit to Paris in the wet and cold January of 2013. I happened to stumble upon one of them the other day and it spurred me to review the set. Now that I just shoot digital, I am so used to seeing 'perfect' images that are super sharp with excellent colour reproduction. So these shots on film looked so refreshing! Maybe I should shoot more film.
Ant Tran is product and lifestyle photographer. Currently working at END.