This is something that was briefly covered in David Ward's blog and I'm quite intrigued by it.
I don't know how many responses I'll get, as most of the work I've seen in the APUG galleries during my short time here has been black and white.
I'd like to know why a considerable number of British based landscape photographers use solely Velvia over so many other great color negative films? The first roll of film I bought was Velvia 50 and I'm not afraid to admit now that my reasoning was simply to conform. Let's face it, this film is pretty much accepted as 'the' landscape emulsion and has been for a while.
I live in Derbyshire and as you'd expect, I'm surrounded by a vast quantity of green. Apart from the fact that I've, dare I say it... grown out of the high saturation phase of my short photographic life, I wasn't satisfied by Velvia 50's tendency towards a quite ugly green cast when photographing scenes dominated by the colour. Buying warming filters didn't seem as logical a resolution as trying different films.
Besides this failure, I didn't feel comfortable using the same film as many, many other photographers making images in the British countryside. My visual idea of the nature of this country (having lived in the Peak District all my life) is muted colours and subdued weather. I can't see why so many like to depict it as vibrant through the use of (to my mind) an unsubtle, saturated emulsion? I much prefer to show the truth of the landscape and would use a highly unsaturated film over a very saturated one in illustrating the mood and atmosphere of this country.
Of course there's nothing wrong with Velvia and I'm not trying to say there isn't a place for it, but I'd rather see Portra, Ektar, Velvia, Astia than Velvia, Velvia, Velvia, Ektar when looking at an array of photographs of our landscape.
I'd like to hear some thoughts please, if this actually applies to anyone here.
I don't know how many responses I'll get, as most of the work I've seen in the APUG galleries during my short time here has been black and white.
I'd like to know why a considerable number of British based landscape photographers use solely Velvia over so many other great color negative films? The first roll of film I bought was Velvia 50 and I'm not afraid to admit now that my reasoning was simply to conform. Let's face it, this film is pretty much accepted as 'the' landscape emulsion and has been for a while.
I live in Derbyshire and as you'd expect, I'm surrounded by a vast quantity of green. Apart from the fact that I've, dare I say it... grown out of the high saturation phase of my short photographic life, I wasn't satisfied by Velvia 50's tendency towards a quite ugly green cast when photographing scenes dominated by the colour. Buying warming filters didn't seem as logical a resolution as trying different films.
Besides this failure, I didn't feel comfortable using the same film as many, many other photographers making images in the British countryside. My visual idea of the nature of this country (having lived in the Peak District all my life) is muted colours and subdued weather. I can't see why so many like to depict it as vibrant through the use of (to my mind) an unsubtle, saturated emulsion? I much prefer to show the truth of the landscape and would use a highly unsaturated film over a very saturated one in illustrating the mood and atmosphere of this country.
Of course there's nothing wrong with Velvia and I'm not trying to say there isn't a place for it, but I'd rather see Portra, Ektar, Velvia, Astia than Velvia, Velvia, Velvia, Ektar when looking at an array of photographs of our landscape.
I'd like to hear some thoughts please, if this actually applies to anyone here.
Last edited by a moderator:
