ilford – This Instant Life

I forgot I was shooting with this camera.

I loaded my Olympus Infinity Stylus with a roll of Ilford HP5 and took it on our spring break trip to Cleveland in order to document our adventures in black and white. I remembered to use the camera in Cincinnati, at the beginning of our trip, but then I placed it in my backpack where it got lost in the debris and I didn’t use at all in Cleveland.

In fact, I kept forgetting to use the camera consistently for about a month. When my photos were developed, it represented a perfect snapshot (pun intended) of my family during that time. With digital photography and iPhone photos, there isn’t a beginning or an end, we just keep taking more photos. A single roll of film puts interesting parameters on time. For instance, in one roll of 36 photos, we visited Cincinnati and celebrated both Easter and my 40th birthday. There were even enough photos left to capture some miscellaneous shots in our neighborhood.

Below are those photos and a little about each set.

CINCINNATI:

We visited Cleveland for Spring Break this year and stopped in Cincinnati to see family on the way. We strolled around and took photos in both the Over The Rhine and Northside neighborhoods.

My favorite photo is of my boys standing in the alley. When I was preparing to take the photo, a random dog came out of nowhere and perfectly posed in between them.

EASTER:

This year we decided to capture our Easter family photos on film.

I TURNED 40:

Yes, I turned 40 in April and we celebrated with a family lunch in Columbia, TN. The third photo below is taken by my nephew (the cool dude in the 76er’s jersey). It was his first time taking a film photo and he simply whispered, “Coooooool” after pressing the shutter button.

MISCELLANEOUS PHOTOS:

I thought it would be fun to finish up the roll around our house on a beautiful day outside. We have access to a river within walking distance and I wanted to see how well I could capture the trees’ reflection in the water with this point and shoot. I think it did a great job.

That’s the last of the photos…see you later.

If you have read this site before, it’s no secret that I love my Olympus Stylus Epic Zoom 80 point and shoot camera. I haven’t shot a film camera since I was young (and those were probably disposable cameras only) so these point and shoot cameras have been an easy way for me to get back into shooting film.

Recently I had the idea to run a roll of black and white film through the camera and see how it turned out. I decided to use Ilford HP5 Plus 400 as the film and was very pleased with the results.

A few things to note:

A lot of the outdoor industrial shots were taken midday on my lunch break and the sun was out in full force. I knew this going in but I was restless that day in my office and needed to go out for a walk and take photos.

I tried to take a photo of the giant moon that was visible one night, knowing it would be a risky shot. I didn’t have a tripod so I pulled into a neighborhood store’s parking lot and set the camera on the roof of my car and took two shots. As you’ll see below, neither turned out that great but I was obviously moving too much on the second shot and it resulted in what reminds me of a stick figure made of light.

What I really love the most is how the photos of my sons and their friend turned out. In the first set I had great lighting outside and those turned out the best. The photos near the end of the roll were shot inside at night and the flash did the hard work. I would easily take another roll of this film and just line people up outside and shoot away if ever given the chance.

As I have noted in my other posts on this camera, it suffers from light leaks common with this model. It’s most noticeable when I shoot on a sunny day as you will see in the photos. Sometimes the leaks add a certain character to the photo that I enjoy while other times it’s a little distracting. But on overcast days, like in the first two shots below, the leaks aren’t noticeable at all.

I can’t wait to shoot another black and white roll with this camera.