The last two months have been quite hectic and I didn't get a lot of opportunities to go out and shoot. In fact, I only shot through 2 rolls of film. This post is about them. I spoiled myself last August and bought an 800-speed film from KAC for a photo walk by Analog Film Qatar which was incidentally on my birthday. Analog Film Qatar is a community of photographers in Qatar who also do film photography. The photo walk was in the evening, at Al Nasr Street.
Considering that this was my second roll of film and I was shooting at night, I was definitely out of my comfort zone. To make things easier (supposedly), I took my old 50mm f/1.4 lens with me. I also loaded a second camera, the Yashica MF-2 Super, with some Fomapan 100, which is a 100-speed black and white film.
The photo walk experience was really enjoyable. I made some new friends and got to meet some really talented people in Qatar. Here are some photos that I like from that day.
Perhaps one of the first places Khalid took us to at Al Nasr street was this old carpet shop. This shop had a very beautiful secret. On its first floor was a large room full of carpets. It almost looked like a studio with different backgrounds. I love the colors that I got with the Portra 800 here. The photo I took of Khalid is slightly out of focus, more on that later.
I had high hopes for the photo above. The lighting that Petra's outlet had should've rendered really well on the film, but I wish I'd stopped down the aperture by a tad before taking the photo. A larger depth of field would've really done this composition justice. This is definitely one of those shots that I'd go back to retake.
By the end of the photo walk, I'd exposed fifteen frames on the Portra. A LOT of them are dangerously out of focus. There are two reasons as to why these photos are out of focus:
The first reason is that I took a lot of these at wide-open apertures. I should've known how thin the depth of field can be at f/1.4, it's difficult to nail focus manually at such an aperture. Besides, I wasn't used to the combination focusing system of my SLR. Graham White's video on YouTube about manual focusing is perhaps one of the best guides on how to work with manual focusing.
The second reason is the lens itself. This lens is old, like, older-than-me old. Old lenses like this one have issues and need regular maintenance. This was no different, with a jammed focus ring and fungus-infested lens elements. Focusing with this 50mm was a pain. The force that was required to turn the focus ring often disconnected the lens from the body, which only made things more difficult.
This photo had so much potential! The lighting is great, only if I'd aced it in the focusing department, the photo would've been great too. This was the end of the photo walk, and my Nikon F3 sat patiently for almost a month before I took it out again, almost as patiently as this teddy basked in golden hour sunlight.
The next time I took out my camera was when my parents and I went out. This was in October, and we went to IKEA first, where I took this photo.
This is probably my favorite photo from the roll. I really like the composition here because of its simplicity.
That day, my parents and I went to Gold Souq, which is an area near Corniche with a lot of jewelry stores. The upcoming photos are from that time.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed taking these photos, and the colors rendered by the film are beautiful (although I wouldn't be the first to be praising Portra's colors, haha). It was also a learning opportunity for me, as I failed with the focus several times, I know I can improve it. Since then, I've fixed the issues my 50mm had. Perhaps that could be the next post?
amazing read. Looking forward to the Petra retake!