Film for Print Media and the Web Today

[David A. Goldfarb]

So who out there is shooting film for print media (meaning offset printing, not fine prints) and internet usage these days, and why, and for what kinds of subjects and clients?

My motivation for asking is that I'm finding I'm shooting quite a lot lately for work, but it's not my primary job description. The images are all being used for publicity, promotion, news articles, or documentation, and the output is ultimately either print advertising in various forms, web advertising, or internal reports that are submitted online--never fine prints--so the images need to be submitted in digital format, and occasionally I'm shooting some DSLR video, so it's handy to be able to shoot stills and video with one gizmo. My employer isn't likely to agree to pay for my film and processing costs (well, maybe I could eventually convince them, but it's not happening any time soon), and deadlines are tight, and I'm often working in low light, which digital is really good at, so it's hard to justify shooting film for these purposes, except as a self-funded personal portfolio building project that can incidentally benefit my employer, and that benefits me professionally, because it's another reason to keep me around the office if they decide they need to lay people off at some point, and it is in fact a good thing for my portfolio, because I get some good photographic opportunities, and I'm accumulating publications.

So how do I get to shoot film on this gig? I guess in those circumstances where I'm not on such a tight deadline, and I'm not limited to available darkness, and I don't mind spending the money to make an aesthetic choice for the sake of my own personal portfolio-building exercise that coincidentally benefits my employer, it's an option.

I've thought of using my Noblex on some shoots, for instance, because it clearly does what it does way better than a DSLR with stitching. I haven't, because photography tends not to be my only responsibility at the events I shoot, and I'm likely to have other things to carry, so it's impractical to bring another camera bag along, and I end up just bringing a wide lens and doing what I can with it, even though I'd really like to shoot some swing lens panos.

When I've got time, I could shoot some large format portraits of subjects we work with, but it usually would involve bringing lighting, and that can be a deal breaker.

Then there's the idea of film as an "effect," which I think is the motivation behind, say, fashion shooters who use film. They are looking for a very identifiable, authentic "film look," and have the resources and budget to do it.

Okay, so if you're shooting film for these kinds of commercial purposes, tell me about it.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Might have an in. We need something interesting, maybe conceptual, that is somehow relevant to us but not necessarily of one of our events, in panoramic format, and most of what I have that fits that description is on film.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

We went with a different concept on our Winter/Spring brochure, using a piece of line art designed by our graphic designer instead of one of my panos, but now that we're thinking about it, I can shoot more panos to find something appropriate for some future brochure or maybe pano-format postcards, which we do sometimes.

I did manage to get a film image into the brochure, though, that I shot on E6--maybe Agfachrome 400--in 1989. It's not particularly high quality, and it's cropped to maybe half a 110 frame, but it's a historic moment, and I was there, so the grain is tolerable under the circumstances. This was Nobel Prize winning poet, Czesław Miłosz at a packed public reading in Kraków in October 1989, his first trip back to Poland since 1950.