For the past six-plus months, I’ve been in a bit of a photographic rut.  Admittedly, my travel schedule has been nuts with Joe, but the times that I have shot have only been somewhat gratifying.

When I first picked up a camera, all I shot and knew was film (primarily b/w, mostly Ilford HP5), which I pushed, pulled, and prodded every which way I could.  I felt like I knew the film really well, got pretty decent in the darkroom (the real kind), and most importantly, felt as though the look I achieved, gave me a unique voice, all my own.

Then came the real world after school, the digital craze, and the pixel wars.  Everyone seemed to think film was nothing but dead, and of course, like most everyone else, I made the switch to digital.

It was a tough and no-brainer decision all at the same time.  On one hand, we now had our images in milliseconds, and things got a whole lot easier in lots of ways.  On the other, there was always something about the way light hit a piece of black and white film that never quite happened the same way to a digital sensor, and this has always bugged me to no end.

This brings me to my next point of contention…the “digital darkroom.”  I’m not going to sit here and knock Photoshop or post-processing, as they are most certainly necessary.  I will however address the point that as photographers, most of us spend far too long on the computer trying to achieve a look that will be pertinent for six months- until the next group of plugins come out.  It’s a never-ending, lose-lose battle, and really sucks the life out the precious little time we have- which should be spent mostly, with a camera in-hand.

This struggle can be blamed primarily on Michael Cali, a colleague of mine, who’s been shooting a ton of film lately (although he’s been messing with the new Fuji X-Pro 1 for the past few weeks).  He most definitely renewed my interest in film, and in turn, I pulled out my old Rolleiflex TLR and recently got a Leica M6.  So, a big thanks for that.

On our trip to Dubai a few weeks back, I made it a point to try and give the Leica a workout, and  spend some time doing a bit of street shooting in and around the markets.  All of the below was shot with a Leica M6 and 35 f/2.

All in all, I’m truly happy with what I ended up with for a few reasons:

• The color/tonality of the images is exactly what i’ve wanted for a long time.
• I spent more time composing frames, as there’s only 36 on a roll, and every frame costs me money.  In turn, the quality of my contact sheets/success-to-failure ratio has gone up drastically.
• A Leica is completely non-intrusive to your subject, and is 10x easier and more enjoyable to carry around than any DSLR.
• I spent about 1/4 of the time on the computer that I normally would have shooting digitally…about the only thing done to any of these images was a minor curves adjustment.

I’m most definitely looking forward to shooting a lot more film in the coming weeks/months, and a whole new doorway is now opened as to how I approach a typical shoot.  Now I can shoot a lot more loosely, in that I can mix and match digital, film, multiple cameras, etc.

The real dilemma lies in how to incorporate this work with my more produced/cleaner work on my current website.  Do I make a “nostalgia/film” portfolio, do I subtly insert these side-by-side with my digital frames?

Any input is more than welcome here, and if you know any shooters who have a great mix of film/digital, I’d love to hear about them.  Looking forward to your thoughts.

Thanks!