"As a high school freshman, the darkroom was my initiation into photography — developing my own film, contact sheets and test strips, the red light and chemicals — it was all
so very intoxicating.
Beyond the basics, the one piece of advice my teacher gave me, which to this day has been the single greatest photography advice I’ve received, to compose in camera. That sounds so obviously rudimentary, but it has informed my entire process over all these years — it's why I still choose to shoot film. I predominantly shoot medium format, 6x7, so I have ten frames to capture something worthwhile. I may find something I want to dedicate one of those ten frames to, and I'll spend as long as needed to find the right perspective. Sometimes that works. Other times, I abandon it altogether — film is that precious to me that wasting a frame is not worth my second guess.
Photo by Travis Cobb
Portra 400
Photo by Travis Cobb
Portra 400
For a photographer, film is a resource. Film is an investment in the hope that my skills and vision will come together with whatever subject I’m photographing and reward me with an image I’d be proud enough to print and hang on my wall
— it’s being both confident and patient enough that’s the most exacting. When I get my scans back from the lab, the gratification I feel knowing that I chose the right stock, I took my time, and I composed in frame, it’s the same emotion I feel on Christmas mornings. I’m not a photojournalist and I’ll never receive a Pulitzer, I’m just trying to create a record of the places I’ve been, the things I’ve seen, and the people I love."