I have been a photographer now for nearly eight years, and in June of 2024, I took the plunge to try shooting film. After many days of photographing film for fun, my first opportunity came along to shoot some Kodak Gold on an engagement photoshoot. I knew I could do this, but I needed backup: my trusted digital camera, the Nikon d850. I used my digital as the play-it-safe camera. I duplicated everything I shot on this, on my Nikon F3 with the roll of Kodak Gold 200 inside.

The first I noticed was how challenging it was to have to manually expose and manually focus for every photo. I had to explain this to Luca and Sophie beforehand, and they were more than understanding of this. I had to count down 3,2,1 for each photo. You need to make them count when you only have 36 exposures on a roll. I think that is what makes the challenge fun? You also learn to appreciate every photo.

Sophie and Luca were joined by Gatsby, their little dog. He made a great addition to the photos and nearly stole the show. We all met at Valley of the Rocks in north Devon. It was a brilliant location to be shooting film and an amazing time of year. The earthy colours and the sunset at the end of the evening helped everything fall into place, the short window when the sun has dipped below the horizon gives a nice soft pastille toned window to make up shots. Displayed here are some of, and my favourite photos taken on a single roll of Kodak Gold film. On my next engagement photoshoot I will dig out the Mamiya 645 ( another blog idea ) but this requires using a light meter.

As you will see in the second photograph I had a nice little light leak, something you might say is not great, but these can create unique and onc in a millions looking effects. Thats the thing with film, you can’t plan the random outcomes and finishes of a photo.

If you would like to to meet up for a set of photos just like this please drop me a MESSAGE HERE