Does anyone here take photos of their sessions in 35mm or film? I've been toying with the idea of setting up a darkroom to develop some messy photos (away from the eyes of the CVS photo-tech) and to get a more grainy, natural look. I also think it would be interesting to have spontaneous/surprise shots that don't emerge until long after the mess is cleaned up. I just posted a few shots on my page where I was going for a 35mm look.

For those who were shooting pre-digital, how did you develop your photos? Any interesting stories of your stash being found or picking them up from a shop? Today there is so much instant gratification and unlimited content online. However, I can imagine the thrill of developing session photos, seeing how well (or not so well) they turned out after the fact, and building a cherished collection outside of the hard drive.

Ah, I remember the days.

You would take lots of pictures of girls getting wet or messy, but no instant review, so you wouldn't know until you got the pictures developed if you'd done it right or not?

It was very exciting to go and collect your prints from the shop.

We used to get ours done in our local Asda Superstore, funny thing was the guy who worked there was into WAM/Splosh and said to us when we were collecting our pictures, "You know there's a market for these?"
Turns out he knew David Wilkey and other people in the industry.
A small world.

It was a pain in the ass to have to scan the all to put on-line, also, I mentioned when it wrong?

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I don't shoot much film these days, mostly because digital works well for all our needs.

But I have shot with film and I actually have a love for Polaroids and I own several Polaroid cameras, including a classic Land Camera.

Most of those images don't go online because you can't really appreciate the fine details that film can produce, on our resolution limited monitors.

On the flip side of the coin, I currently have very good photoshop software that can mimic film to a tee.

EdwinR

Wow, the Mostwam stuff shared here by Leonmoomin is awesome. I've always been in awe of it, being a girl that loves the mud etc. I'd love to be one of those girls! Such a cool, fun, non-sleazy website and operation. I'll always love it.

I haven't shot film in ages. I almost miss it... but not entirely. There was definitely something special about darkroom time and seeing the image come together in the developer bath.. Shooting on Fujifilm gear has been my way of recovering some of that feeling I used to get in my early shooting days. I shoot mostly on an x-pro2 and having tangible aperture dials, shutter speed dials, and all of the other manual controls on my camera, makes It feel more "real" to me.

No, but many moons ago I used to be a projection manager at a movie theater. To give an idea, I think "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" was the last film I helped put together on build night. God I miss build nights. The new films would come in, and it was all hands on deck to assemble them from the reels onto one giant plate. The beautiful art of threading the projector, splicing in the trailers, bitching and arguing about why the trailers were in scope, but the movies flat, the beatings if someone brain wrapped a film, and the heated arguments between Christie and Barco projectors.

It was THE best job I ever had.

Now it's a goddammed server room. The funny thing is that one of the major costs to the theater was the "rental" and insurance for the physical films. Theaters make next to nothing on tickets. Now that everything is a digital file, you'd think ticket prices would go down. I guess the studios are still charging the theaters a fortune to show their films though.