• Beginner
• Light Walking
• North UK
• Photography
• Workshops

The obvious question before we start is; “why shoot traditional film in an age of digital photography?” Well, there may be many answers to this, but at Wild Arena we have the view that film still offers a timeless, rewarding and challenging creative format for photographers.

Of course, modern digital SLR’s are amazing in their quality and faultless functionality, but the relatively slow and manual process involved in older film cameras, can really focus the photographers’ creative thoughts. When every picture has a material cost, the photographer starts to become more discerning about how these images are initially captured. This often then leads to the epiphany of ‘re-discovering’ a joy in the basic act of creating an image.

In short, the film process can connect the photographer, through a traditional and considered process, to an entirely different and rewarding shooting process.

By way of a short history, the earliest, practical photographic process was the ‘Daguerreotype’ in 1839 but film as we now know it was pioneered by George Eastman around 1885. Film therefore dominated and facilitated the growth in modern photography for well over 100 years. Amongst the many film formats during this time, ‘135’ stills photography film, ushered in a whole new world of smaller, lighter and more affordable cameras in the later 1930’s. The 35mm format was further popularised by the titanic rise of the SLR (inter-changeable lens) cameras and this is where our fun, informative and creative workshop will be centred.

The day is really all about getting a great start in the process of shooting film images using traditional 35mm film SLR cameras. After a welcome tea and coffee your tutor will run through an introductory briefing covering the basics we think you will need to know to get a confident start in shooting film. Each delegate will be provided with a loan film SLR complete with a 36 exposure, Kodak colour negative film (or similar). We will cover film loading and safe handling as well as the basic operation of the SLR camera.

The briefing will also cover more generic photographic skills and ideas such as camera shutter speeds, apertures, metering for correct exposure, manual focusing techniques and film settings.

Once the briefing is complete and we have had a short break for lunch, we will head out as a group to put the theory into practice, with a 2.5 hour street photography walk.

The day is not only about technical ideas, the guide will also take time to encourage everyone to think artistically about what images they personally wish to produce. Different genres of shooting can be considered from candid street to architecture and abstracts and our hope is the experience will be creatively stimulating for everyone.

We will conclude by returning back to our base to summarise the session. Delegates will have access to a PDF version of the mornings presentation and the tutor will make recommendations about film processing and digital scans.

The tutor for the session will have many years of both digital and analogue photography experience and should be able to answer a wide range of thoughts and questions around the subject. They will also be happy to offer advice and ideas around purchasing analogue film cameras that would be suitable for every individual need and budget.

Being based in the welcoming and friendly environment of a respected camera store, also means we have access to other support too, like second hand camera sales and additional film purchases.

In summary, if you have ever fancied the idea of a more traditional approach to photography but are unsure of how best to proceed, this could be the perfect day for you!

Glasgow with WEX Photo Video Store

We are really pleased to be hosting this event with our good friends WEX Photo Video Store in Glasgow, this store has ample facilities for the day and of course plenty of kit on hand to tempt us all. Glasgow is a fantastic destination for street photography, this old shipping city is famed for its victorian and art nouveau architecture lending itself perfectly to 35mm photography,