Film Journal: July 2018 – The infrared & Lomo Edition

Published on: July 19th, 2018 | Last updated: July 18, 2018 | Written by: Joseph Anastasio

---

Lomo 800 shot at the ‘bando train.

So…

I clearly missed my regularly scheduled May & June posts to this series. Both months were filled with work, travel, events planned on short AF notice, and writing writing writing… More on all of that later. Let’s get to the film.

So I recently tried out some Film Photography Project color IR film. It’s expensive AF at nearly 40 bucks per roll, but I was enjoying shooting it. I got two rolls, and seeing the potential in it, I was going to order more. The powers that be have discontinued it though, so these might be some of the only color IR photos I get to make anytime soon.

It was tricky stuff to use. The description of ‘don’t overthink it, just shoot it’ was really stupid I think. To get decent resulted, you need a completely manual old school camera. Fortunately two years back I had my circa 1980s Canon AE-1 fixed up (it sat a bit beat up after years of use – late 80s to 2001). You absolutely need a Yellow 14 filter for it, and you have to play around with it in photoshop.

Here are two of the photos I’m kinda content with:

“Pretty Hate Machine” Abandoned NJT ALP44 locomotives awaiting a date with death

Prince of Concrete: Ferrera Bros. Concrete ‘bando.

As you can see, there’s quite a bit of variation in results. I honestly thought the concrete towers would be less interesting than the trains in nature, but I prefer the results. Not that I hate the trains, and the disturbing graffiti on the one on the left. I suspect if I scan and play with the other images more in photoshop I’ll get some fun results. I’m hoping to salvage some interesting stuff from my first roll, which I shot in Kansas City and St. Louis in May. Unfortunately I didn’t have the Yellow 14 filter, and everything came out a bit pink.

The second roll of film I want to offer a review of is Lomography color 800 film. This film is way more affordable, and the results are neat AF. I shot these on my slightly more modern Canon A2E (which I’ve had since the summer of 2001).

Again – good variation yet I didn’t do a damned thing to these in photoshop. The train photos being brighter yellow I’m assuming is just from a strong sunset, while the bluish concrete plant photos were shot in mid-day sun. I’ll be shooting two more rolls of this stuff soon so we’ll see how varied they are.

If anything, the lesson in all this is that you don’t need some crazy ass $40 a roll film to come up with compelling photos.

And yes, the LIRR train and concrete plant photos might look familiar, if you caught the two recent (ill)legal party articles linked at the top of this sentence.

Comments

NOTE: It sometimes takes a short while for comments to be approved - unfortunately there's a lot of spam comments that come in. I absolutely love when y'all share personal stories of friends relatives etc who worked in these places. It really helps capture what these places were like before they closed up shop.

If you're feeling salty, argumentative comments completely devoid of facts (supply links to support your argument) will not be published. Got a case to state? come with the details.

2 responses to “Film Journal: July 2018 – The infrared & Lomo Edition”

1. PegLegGuy says:

   July 19, 2018 at 12:46 PM

   .
   Nice set Joe.

2. Bad Guy Joe says:

   July 19, 2018 at 4:01 PM

   Danke 🙂

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.