Remembering B&W and Portrait #10.

Believe it or not, I started shooting with film. If I remember it right, my dad always bought the Kodak ASA 400 black and white film. Back in the day, it was much more expensive to develop black and white but my dad, smart as he is, decided that it was better for me as colored film was much harder to shoot for an 11 year old kid.

15 years after, I still love black and white. And in my recent shoot, I tried to produce output that would be similar to shooting with black and white film. I did some research on how to do it. I learned how to add a bit of grain and noise to create that "B&W film look". Post processing in black and white is also much easier for me as I do not need to consider balancing colors; dodging and burning is complicated enough for me. And I wish that I had a film camera to play around with; my dad's Pentax needs a bit of cleaning before I can use it.

Here is my take on the B&W film look... with Anri as my model.

And I got to shoot with a new model, Dixie.

And I also came back to the location of my first photoshoot, Davao City's Pawikan Sanctuary. Here is where I tested the waters of portraiture. And similar to my last post, I did a bit of reminiscing. Its nostalgic and at the same time uplifting, knowing that I have come back to this place better than when I started.

Lastly, I haven't forgotten about my project. At the request of Dixie, I'm adding her favorite portrait to my 100 portraits album. I decided it would be in color since my last one was B&W. And I wanted it to be in color too because I love the sky background. 90 more portraits to go!

Portrait #10: Dixie

 

PS: I'll be posting again in the coming days with another shoot at the Pawikan Sanctuary and Portrait #11!

Full Circle: Portrait #9

About 10 months ago, I was invited to a portraiture shoot. I didn't really have any knowledge of doing portraiture as I was only interested in doing macro and street shoots. Little did I know that the day marked the beginning of a huge shift in my photography hobby.

At the start of the year I decided on doing my 100 portraits project. And, as luck would have it, one of my first models would be a part of it. Jaynie, or Jai-Jai as we call her, was one of the up and coming faces when I started and ever since that first shoot has been a good friend of the group. Though she isn't as active in the modeling industry as she was last year, I still had a chance to include her in my project during the annual summer outing of the Fanatic Photographers Society here in Davao City.

Here is the portrait I took about 10 months ago.

And this was just a few weeks ago. This is Portrait #9 out of 100.

I'm happy that after 10 months of portraiture shoots, I can see some progress in my style. Though I know that I still have a long way to go in this field, seeing my own progress makes me happy. And at the end of this project, I will once again take a look at what has improved and what needs to be improved.

After all, the only thing that is constant in this world is change.