ONE SELF PORTRAIT EVERY DAY in 2020 : 150

Today I am not going to be able to post my self-portrait for today.

I haven’t taken photos with colour film for at least 30 years. I have been taking photos with B/W film until quite recently which I would develop and print myself but colour photos have always been what I would take on holiday and it’s been replaced by digital photography.

I bought my film online a few days ago and it arrived today. I used to have my favourites b/w film but when it came to colour my choice was always the cheapest one and often I would get a free roll every time I got my film developed.

This time I browsed for hours on the analogue wonderland website reading descriptions and reviews, I finally chose Kodak Portra 400: “one of the best everyday colour emulsions for capturing daily life in beautiful colours and soft contrast.”

Here are some reviews from verified buyers: “Just a God tier film, unbelievably versatile and with amazing dynamic range” and “Superb detail, nice saturation and low noise, you really can’t go wrong.” and “Genuinely amazing, the skin tones are beautiful, colours are rich and warm, and the film has a wide exposure latitude aswell. Expensive, but worth it.”

I’m so excited, the last time I browsed in the same way was when buying coffee from a similar website and I was very satisfied with my choice.

Film photography seems to be very cool today but I really am much happier with digital photography, I like to be able to have an idea of what I want and then being able to keep on taking shots until I get it. I am also much more adventurous and experimental with digital photography: if things don’t work out I can just delete them. I usually shoot on manual exposure but with a film camera I shoot on aperture priority as I don’t want to get it wrong.

OK, I’m getting really boring, I know I am as I am boring myself. OK one more thing and it’s about disappointment: in the late 80s I went to Madagascar and I took three rolls of colour film of rain forrest and a few month later when I got the prints back they were so boring, pretty much just foliage, a couple of photos would have sufficed.

So just to make it clear, this photo here is not my self portrait for today, it’s a place holder. Once I finish the roll and get it developed, I will post a scan of my self portrait and that will be the self portrait for today … unless I am really disappointed with the results and in which case I will probably make this not the self portrait for today become the self portrait for today.
But this won’t be the case as with Portra 400 you really can’t go wrong.

29.5.2020.

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