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.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nSeurat does GAF500. Or was it the other way around?<\/i><\/p>\n
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Sarah Moon does Seurat<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n
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?<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nPindelski does Seurat. Eiffel Tower, Leica M3, 35mm Summaron, GAF500<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n
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<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n Pindelski does Moon. Pentax 6×7, Kodachrome, Alien Skin’s GAF500 conversion<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n And here’s a babe in monochrome:<\/p>\n Pindelski does Bailey. Alien Skin’s TriX conversion<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n I actually think I like the ‘Cross Processed Agfa Optima’ version:<\/p>\n Pindelski does drugs. Alien Skin’s Agfa Optima conversion<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n Finally, the glamor lighting version.<\/p>\n Alien Skin’s glamor lighting conversion<\/i><\/center><\/p>\n Fair’s fair. The AS people (oh! dear) do that one really well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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. … Continue reading A plug-in for filmies<\/span> 
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