Now retro-tech can make your work look like Sarah Moon’s.
First I should explain that ‘filmie’ is a new noun used to describe those poor boobs who mourn the passing of film. They rue the passing of a tired technology, messy chemicals and a medieval production cycle. So if you are a filmie, read on. Indeed, I might be mistaken for one of those twits with all those recent ramblings about Kodachrome.
Back in the Sixties, French photographer Sarah Moon discovered Ansco’s GAF500 color film. Nominally rated at 500 ASA – it was actually a bit slower but the marketers got to it first – it made over-exposed and over-developed TriX look fine grained by comparison. The film was very low contrast so everything looked sort of …. filmy, if you get my drift. Had it been around in Georges Seurat’s day he would have put down his paint brush, shaken off incipient carpal tunnel, and used a camera instead.
Seurat does GAF500. Or was it the other way around?
Sarah Moon does Seurat
Moon was working for Pirelli doing their calendar when she took the above; someone at Pirelli decided mechanics preferred their women blurred and grainy so they retained her to do the photography. I confess I have yet to meet such a mechanic, but maybe they are all French?
GAF500 has been unavailable for decades and the original slides made with it will long since have faded. I took a roll to Paris once and confirmed what Georges and Sarah knew. It was a great film.
Pindelski does Seurat. Eiffel Tower, Leica M3, 35mm Summaron, GAF500
Well, I’m obviously not the only filmie around as a company named Alien Skin (What? Hard to think up a less appealing name) has come up with a product named Exposure which, they say, will allow your digital pictures to look as if they were taken on GAF500. Or Kodachrome. Or lots of other emulsions. Now at $100 I’m not rushing out to buy it, but it’s nice to know that if I ever get another GAF500 urge I can indulge in grain excess using this product. The demo is fully functional for thirty days, by the way.
The pictures below are reproduced in a large size. That shows the effect to good …. effect, and small pictures are boring in any case.
Pindelski does Moon. Pentax 6×7, Kodachrome, Alien Skin’s GAF500 conversion
And here’s the wife in monochrome – they really need to get the grain effect much sharper if they want to emulate TriX. The conversion is underwhelming:
Pindelski does Bailey. Alien Skin’s TriX conversion
I actually think I like the ‘Cross Processed Agfa Optima’ version best (note to Alien Skin. The Agfa Optima was a camera, not a film. And not a very good one at that.):
Pindelski does drugs. Alien Skin’s Agfa Optima conversion
Finally, the glamor lighting version. ‘Glamour’ to you cricket players all over the world, God bless you.
Pindelski loves his wife. Alien Skin’s glamor lighting conversion
Fair’s fair. The AS people (oh! dear) do that one really well. I should stop before blowing another $100.
For a daily snap be sure to visit my photoblog Snap!
Agfa Optima was also a film… I have some left in my fridge.
Thank you, Sir. Consider yourself admitted, with honors, to the dying club of Filmies!