Incredible find in a random drawer of my maternal grandfather’s stuff: a roll of unexposed Kodak Ektachrome E135 slide film from the late 1950s.
Gonna have to research how to expose this and figure out something special to shoot with it. There’s a piece of masking tape on the can marked “ASA 32.” If I did the typical thing of overexposing a stop per decade, I’d have to shoot it at ASA 1/2, ha ha!
Any thoughts/suggestions, friends? Let me know on my Mastodon account!
So here we are in the last 12 hours of the 35mm Love Letter campaign, and I’ve been thinking about this analog photography memoir and how-to book and why it might be relevant for my fellow comics creators and readers. And I have some big ideas!
35mm Love Letter will tell the story of how I developed (and continue to develop) my eye for images and story through analog photography. And that means the analysis of individual images in the book will be entirely relevant to anyone interested in reading or making comics.
35mm still photography is often compared to movies because of the shared aesthetics of the physical medium of film. But I’d argue that the act of capturing a story in still images with a 35mm camera is actually more akin to comics than moviemaking.
Check out the image above — a picture I took as a teenager in Italy in 1984 or so. I love this image for several reasons that relate directly to comics.
First, the framing is just great visual storytelling in a single frame — working as a wide establishing shot with the building and street in the background while also placing characters and action in the foreground that move the “story” forward.
There’s also great use of secondary figures on the left and right to fill out the scene and add dimension and character without distracting.
And finally, the motion blur from the low shutter speed on the foreground characters sells ACTION and MOVEMENT in a still image.
All of these elements work tremendously well in photography and comics. So the thousands of 35mm photographs I took over the years helped train me for comics, and all the photos I’m taking these days further develop my eye and expand my notions of what’s possible.
So yeah, I’ll be writing about this kind of stuff in the book. So if you’re interested in comics, I’ve got a strong feeling that this book will be right up your alley.
I’d be honored for you to check it out and back it. Here’s the link — thanks so much for your consideration!
Hey, friends! Hope you’re all doing well as the year closes out, and huge thanks to everyone who’s supported my latest crowdfunded project — 35mm Love Letter, a memoir and guide to the glories of analog film photography!
So with just four days left in the 35MMLL campaign, I have a big stretch goal I’m thrilled to share today! If we hit 200 backers before 11:59 pm PST this Friday night, I’ll organize and deliver a live, 90 minute online class in analog photography for all backers in 2023! It’ll be a fun, lively, practical deep dive into the basics of analog photography from both a technical and creative perspective and we’ll have plenty of time for questions.
Of course, folks who want an even deeper educational experience should definitely sign up for the three session online photography class reward — that will be much more personalized and intense in a great way, with plenty of time for students to go shoot and come back with photographs for individual feedback. So please do check it out!
But if we hit 200 backers, EVERY backer can get a fantastic, fun introduction in a single online class to everything you need to know to get started with analog photography!
If this sounds cool to you, please do feel free to back the campaign today! And please do feel free to share the campaign with your friends in these last few days and encourage them to back at any level! Here’s that handy link:
Right now we’ve got 115 backers. Just 85 more and everyone gets access to this awesome class!
Thanks so much for your consideration and all the very best!
Hey, friends! I am absolutely thrilled to reveal a brand new passion project — 35mm Love Letter, a memoir and guide to the glories of analog film photography!
Like my previous how-to book Cooking Will Break Your Heart, 35mm Love Letter will be packed with incredibly practical information about a subject near and dear to my heart — and it’ll be a tribute to another aspect of my brilliant mother, Jane Pak.
My mother was an incredible amateur photographer who took hundreds of luminous black and white photos of her family and community when I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s. She taught me how to shoot and develop black and white film and gave me her Canon FTb when I was in high school, and photography became a huge part of my life. I started shooting film again after my mom died in 2021, and I do not exaggerate when I say that analog photography helped save my heart and soul this year.
So 35mm Love Letter is exactly what it says on the tin — a love letter to analog photography, celebrating both its glorious aesthetic look and feel and the slower but creatively inspiring process that it requires.
If you’ve ever been intrigued by film photography and would like a primer, this book is for you!
If you’re already an analog photographer who wants a little fellowship and inspiration from another shooter, this book is for you!
And if you just love a good story and want to know how film photography and the ethos of quiet observation taught by Jane Pak has guided the life of her son, this book is for you!
Please do check it out and back the project today! In addition to the digital how-to book itself, you can order physical copies of some of my previous books, or even pick up a vintage 35mm camera cleaned and tested by yours truly, or sign up for a three session online photography class!
Thank you so much as always for your interest and support. I literally could not make these projects without you, and I appreciate you so much.
I leave you with just a taste of some of the photos from the past four decades that may make their way into the book.
Really hoping to bring this kind of energy back in 2023.
Photo taken in 1976 by my mother, Jane Pak, using a Canon FTb with Kodak Tri-X Pan.
(And yes, I have a big analog photography project on the horizon — please do keep your eyes open!)
I’m a kind of snob in reverse when it comes to Leicas. I’ve shot Canons since high school and love them and couldn’t imagine spending so much money on a Leica. But I picked up a Leicaflex Standard for a RIDICULOUSLY small amount on an auction site, and after a Leica rep confirmed the Summicron-R 50mm f2 lens it came with is NOT radioactive, I’m giving it a whirl.
I’ve loaded it with some Kentmere 100, which should give some nice, fine-grained images. I hear the Summicron-R may improve the latitude of images in comparison to my usual (excellent) Canon 50mm lenses, giving a little more detail in the shadows, for example. Very curious to see!
Weirdly, I spent VERY little on this camera/lens, but it turns out it’s probably one of the most valuable camera/lens combinations I own. So I’m going to be a little nervous with it outside today. Wonder how that’ll affect my shooting. We’ll see!
Ever since I’ve gotten back into analog photography, I’ve had my eye on the various cheap 500mm telephoto lenses that pop up on auction sites all the time. I finally plunked down sixty bucks for a Tamron SP 500mm fixed f8 tele macro reflex Adaptall lens, stuck it on my old Panasonic DMC-GX1 digital camera, set up a tripod, and took a picture of the moon.
I’m still figuring out how sharp the lens really is. But I’m already thrilled — OVER THE MOON, if you will (AAAAAAH!). I’ve never been able to take a picture of the moon with anything approaching this kind of detail, so sixty bucks seems like a brilliant investment at this point.
I’m eager to try it out with an actual film camera. Weirdly, when I put the lens on my Canon New F-1, the camera’s shutter won’t fire. Seems to work fine on my Canon T60, though. I’ll have to do a bit more research and experimenting. I have another Tamron Adaptall to Canon FD adapter around here somewhere, so maybe just swapping that out will make a difference.
UPDATE: Took another picture of the moon!
I’m really only comfortable shooting 35mm film with manual exposure. It’s just the way I learned, it gives me the most creative control, and it actually feels faster and more natural to me.
But I recently picked up a ridiculously cheap old Canon A-1 and invested a little time and love to cure it of a sticky mirror and the notorious “Canon cough.” As a result, I now have a brand new sentimental attachment to a classic camera that’s one of Canon’s first SLRs to feature aperture priority and shutter priority exposure.
So I’ve taken this turn of events as a challenge to try shooting a few rolls on this camera with automatic exposure. It’s still weird for me! Still takes me longer than shooting with manual exposure on an old Canon FTb! But I like the feel of the A-1, I’m intrigued by the possibility of getting comfortable enough with this that it actually speeds up some of my shooting, and I like some of the results, like the image above of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at dusk.
Canon A-1, Canon nFD 28mm f2.8, Kodak Tri-X 400 (expired in 2020), developed with Arista Premium Liquid Film Developer.
Back in 1986 when I was a high school senior in Dallas, Texas, I had a vague thought of driving around town at night and photographing the funky neon signs that towered over so many of the city’s corner shopping malls. Even then I had the sense that they weren’t long for the world and that as a 35mm photographer, I actually had the means of preserving their memory.
But high school was a pretty busy time and I never got around to it.
Decades later, I’ve fallen back in love with 35mm photography. Now I live in New York City, which isn’t particularly known for suburban shopping malls with funky neon signs. But I’m more conscious than ever of the fleeting nature of our surroundings, and I’ve developed a habit of carrying a camera whenever I’m running errands in the city and shooting images of any bit of the landscape that catches my eye.
I’ve shot plenty of photos of some of the city’s biggest landmarks, with a special emphasis on the Empire State Building, probably my favorite building in the city. But other shots feel like my modern day version of the Dallas neon sign project I never started — such as photos of graffiti or old painted company signs on the sides of buildings that might be gone in another decade or two.
Here are some my favorite shots of the year with a few thoughts. I hope you’ll enjoy them, and I’ll be thrilled if they inspire you to take a little time to document your own surroundings.
In my first month of shooting film again, I shot this image with a Canon FTb, a Canon FD 50mm f1.8, and a yellow filter on Ilford HP5 400. This remains one of my favorite images I’ve shot all year. I never used filters in high school and college, so it was a revelation that I could pull so much more detail out of the sky with a yellow filter. But mostly I just love the way the framing and light work here. In film school at NYU in the 1990s, our cinematography teachers taught us to use light to direct the eye within the frame. I think this photo achieves that. For a fleeting moment, the sun glanced off of the Empire State Building in a lovely way, making it pop in the middle of these dark canyons of tall buildings. I also remember being dazzled by that famous shot in Rosemary’s Baby in which the camera ramps up the subliminal tension by not quite showing all of Mia Farrow through the doorway. Similarly, I love the way the framing here leaves the Empire State Building partly hidden by buildings in the foreground. It’s not a horror movie tension like Rosemary’s Baby, but it’s a bit of drama that pulls me in.
I shot this photo with a Canon FTb and a Canon nFD 50mm f1.4 lens on a 20 year old roll of Kodak High Definition 400 ASA film. It’s just a shot of Canal Street. But I freaking love it. The frame feels just right to me. I spent so many years shooting thousands of images with a 50mm lens; my eye just knows how to frame things with that focal length, and it feels so good. I also love the way this expired film renders the light, especially on the side of the building in the middle of the frame. It’s so crisp and cool and fresh. And the film holds the colors together in a special way, as if the entire scene were art directed. There’s a coolness to the sky and buildings that lets the red details of the signs and the Chinese medallion pop in a subtle, lovely way. Again, a simple image, but it makes me happy every time I look at it.
Boris Frumin, one of my brilliant NYU directing professors, used to list things that were cinematic, including flags and water and smoke. I’d absolutely add steam to the list, and was thrilled to find this great cloud rising from a grate in the Village this March. I shot this on Ilford HP5 with my old high school Canon New F-1 (newly repaired!) and, if I remember correctly, my mom’s old Canon FD 28mm f2.8.
New York City just screams for vertical shots. I was pretty thrilled with this angle on one of the entrances to Grand Central Terminal. The symmetry of the buildings is offset in a pleasing way by the car on the bottom left and the light reflections on the upper right. Just feels right to my eye. Shot on a Nikon FG with a Nikon Series E 50mm f1.8 on Kodak Tri-X 400.
Another vertical shot that feels very similar to the Grand Central image. This is that fantastic United States Post Office building on Canal Street, but it felt like it wanted to be framed to emphasize the buildings overhead and that lovely shaft of angled light. Shot with a Canon A-1 and a 50mm Canon lens on Kentmere 100. This image really works because of the light. It’s creating the angle on the building on the right that makes the frame work in an interesting way, and it’s making the flag pop out from the foreground.
One of my ongoing themes has been the sky between buildings in New York City. I just can’t get enough of the shape the buildings make of the sky, and this image kind of epitomizes that interest. Shot on a Nikon FG with a Nikon Series E 50mm f1.8 on Kodak Tri-X 400.
This is my NYC equivalent of my never-begun Dallas neon sign project — shooting old painted signs on the sides of buildings. I love everything about these old signs — the textures, the way the paint has weathered, the glorious old fonts, the brand names and products advertised. An added bonus is the old school water tower on the building. I love it when I shoot a photo that at first glance you think might be decades old. Shot with a Canon AT-1 with a Canon FD 135mm f3.5 on Arista Ultra EDU 400.
I shot very little color film back in the day. I just loved black and white and had the most control over its look since we had a small darkroom and I could make prints on my own. So I’m still figuring out what I’m looking for when I shoot color film these days. This image felt like it worked — with lovely detail and color in the sky while maintaining detail in the buildings. Shot with a Canon AT-1 and a Canon nFD 24mm f2.8 on Fujifilm Fujicolor 200.
Another color shot that felt good. If the previous shot was all blues, this one’s all reds, and I dig it. Shot with a Bell & Howell FD35 and a B&H/Canon FD 50mm f1.4 on Fujifilm Fujicolor 200. Back in the day, the widest lens I had was a Canon FD 28mm, so this 24mm feels considerably more funky and dramatic to me, but I think the Ghostbusters building earns the treatment.
Just an absolutely everyday image of the IFC Theater in the West Village. But in five, ten, or twenty years, this might become a treasured record of the way things were. I’m trying to shoot lots of photos like these, and I feel good every time I get a keeper. Shot with a Canon A-1 with a Canon nFD 50mm f1.8 on Kentmere 100.
In the wake of the New York Comic Con, my friend Jimmy Aquino interviewed me for the Comic News Insider podcast! We talked about a new comics project I’m working on for the NYC Department of Education, Planet Hulk Worldbreaker, Skaar, Darth Vader, Duo, and analog photography, accompanied by the glorious ambient sounds of Bryant Park in New York City. Check it out!