Orbs, Low Light, and the Moon

Last night I went on a two hour hike by myself in the woods. One of the best things, in my opinion, about where we live is that we're really close to a beautiful park along the Kankakee River that includes a prairie preserve, a forest, a stream with little cliffs and caves, and miles of bike path. You don't have to stay on the paved path though; there are plenty of little trails that snake through the forest along the stream on it's journey to the river. When I have my son with me I flip into Wolf Mother mode and ask him to stay very close to me because there are many places where you find yourself dangerously close to the edge of a sharp rocky cliff if you're near the stream. When I'm all alone I creep to the edge of the cliffs to get the best views. I always come out of the woods with bunch of tranquil photos; it's impossible for me not to want to photograph the beauty that this land holds! Yesterday I set off with something new though - my old 35mm camera! I haven't snapped anything but digital photos for at least 15 years. However I was recently inspired by an old high school friend of mine, Dawn Frary - a photographer who lives in Iowa City and hangs out with birds of prey. She had an exhibit not too long ago showing some of her work that's on purple lomo film (they're breathtaking - go and see some of them on her page for yourself!) and I'm completely in love with them. I went to Iowa last month to visit her and just hearing her talk about her passion for her art would have anyone wanting to get into film! ... I'm wishing I had taken down a direct quote or two from her to share with you here, but Dawn waxed poetically to me about the deliberateness of shooting on film that digital photography can't understand. The finality of each frame. Each one needs to count. It's not a "take 100 shots because 1 is always going to be perfect." No. Film photography is slower, you take your time to find that perfect shot because you don't have 100 frames to burn to find it by playing the numbers. Especially when you're using a specialty pricey film, such as her purple lomo. It keeps you thinking artistically the entire time. "Is this the perfect shot or should I move back 10 feet and see what that would look like before I click the shutter?" Hearing about and seeing more of Dawn's photos had me itching to dust off my old 35mm; a Canon Sureshot with an 80mm optical zoom. A good basic camera with a couple of nice features, nothing fancy. It got a lot of use when I was younger. The date automatically reset to 1/1/1994 when I replaced the battery on it last week. I brought it out of krogenetic storage, into the future! Now I just needed some film. What kind of film should I get? What did I know about film? I tried to remember.... I learned to develop film in the darkroom during my high school Journalism class (and got to use a much nicer camera than my own, one that you manually focused). I believe we used 100 or 200 film and it was all black and white, of course. I'm sure we talked about types of film in that class, but I don't remember it now. What did come to mind when I thought about what type of film to use was from that same time period though, high school in the 1990's. A block away from my mom's house there existed, for a very brief period in time, an occult bookstore. It was called "By the Book" and was painted a deep shade of red. It was mysterious and unexpected in a small rural town of about 10 thousand. The shop was dimly lit inside and smelled of burning incense. It was mocked and/or feared by the majority of the town and therefore of great interest to my friend Dawn and I. I remember one time we spoke with the shop owner about orbs (The Paranormal Encyclopedia defines orbs as being "Synonymous with a sphere, when used in association with the paranormal, an orb is an anomalous globe-shaped spot, either white or colored, that shows up in photographs taken at allegedly haunted locations.") She had a lot to say on the subject as well as her own photographs of orbs, which she showed to us. One set of photos was from a hog farm that had suffered a tragedy and practically an entire barn of pigs had passed away. She had visited the barn and had taken photos of it while it was empty. Every photo was packed with orbs. Orbs of all sizes. Most of them were white, but many were rimmed with other colors. She had an entire little album full of photographs of different locations, all with orbs. How? We asked. We had to know. 800 speed film, she replied. A higher speed film was what was required to capture them on film. Mysteries!?! Spirits?! Mystical balls of floating energy?!! We bought some 800 speed film and drove out to a rural cemetery to photograph the unknown. And we captured our own orbs on film! (In lieu of me rummaging around to find an old shoe box full of old photo prints, here is a link to a plethora of orb photos for your viewing pleasure, thanks to the internet!) When I thought about what type of film to buy for my 35mm camera I remembered that story and decided I wanted to get a high speed film of some type. Not for the orbs though, I've already explored that mystery. For the low light! The orb photos we took back then were in the dark and everything in them is visible without a flash. High speed film = low light capabilities. Yes! I'm working on a project right now where I'm working in several mediums and so far I've used a couple of digital photos of mine in the mix. The possibility of getting some moody photos in low light is exactly what this project needs! So I did some research online for specialty high speed films and discovered Fujifilm Natura 1600; I couldn't hit the 'Buy' button fast enough. It looked like the perfect film for what I have in mind!

I know basically nothing about film. Photography is not "my medium" (acrylic painting is). But I'm completely crazy about this experience I had with this role of film. For the project I need tree photos and really wanted some moon photos. The film arrived Saturday morning, a warm clear day. Beautiful, I thought! I'll go hike around the woods at sunset and twilight and see just what this film can do! Not long after getting to the park I noticed the full moon rising high in the eastern sky. Wow! I was abuzz with excitement, anticipating all the cool full moon shots I could get as the evening progressed. And I got my shots! ..... I hope. That's the (maddening?!) wonderful thing about film. The waiting. Now I've got to somehow get this precious treasure developed and fast! I'm dying to see how these photos turned out. As Tom Petty would say, "the waiting is the hardest part."

Here are a couple of digital photos (no filters) that I took with my phone on the hike last night. I'll post some of the film when they get back; it will be fun to see the difference!

#hiking #landscapephotography #digitalvsfilm #orbs #photographingorbs #unexplainedmysteries #lowlight #lowlightphotography #theartofphotography