Period Correct
I only have eight frames, so the first one waits. A Lamborghini Diablo stands in the half-light of the studio, a softbox tracing its roofline, and I'm looking down into the waist-level finder of a camera from the same decade the car was born in. Long minutes pass before I press anything. I set the light, look, breathe. Then the light meter comes out, and I adjust, aim and make notes. The closest thing I can compare it to is meditation. I like it when the car and the tool that records it come from the same era. They are period correct.
I'd rather wait for an image that comes slowly. It may not be perfect, but it's true to its time. I shoot film on cameras from the '80s and '90s, mostly Japanese ones by Fuji, Yashica and Canon.
A suitcase that locked with a key
The Fuji GX680 came from an auction in Japan. It took weeks to arrive, wrapped in foam and newspapers covered in kanji, packed inside a suitcase that locked with a key. It was clear straight away that this would not be an everyday piece of kit.
The first time I saw one, it struck me as equipment from a time when function came before form and quality meant everything. It is enormous and heavy, with bellows focusing and a fold-out waist-level finder. Anyone who thinks the Mamiya RB67 is a big camera has never held this Fuji.
It was built for the studio. It has precise tilt and shift movements, so you can move the plane of focus, and you compose on a huge 6x8 ground glass. Everything about it is slow and deliberate, close to ritual, and some of what it does would still embarrass a modern digital body. I like to think the photographs for the ADVAN brochure could have come from a camera like this.
A bit like time travel
Shooting film is a bit like time travel, or an adventure I invent for myself and then deliberately make harder. There are easier ways to take a photograph; this one is less convenient and a lot more satisfying. When everything else is instant, it's good to have one thing that keeps its own pace, and I want the feeling that the world went onto film and not into the cloud. Sometimes I grab a simple point-and-shoot, load my favourite film and take a few shots through the tiny viewfinder, waiting for the flash to fire and not really knowing what I'll get. Then I wait for the roll to be developed, scan it and turn the negative into a positive.
I caught the photography bug at school. We had a small darkroom with a few enlargers, a red bulb and the smell of fixer, and I learned from the ground up. Then I put the film camera away for a long time. Digital arrived, then work and everything else that needed sorting out. When I came back, I came back more consciously and with more patience. Working at Ultrace, a car culture event, puts me close to real track cars, Japanese legends and supercars from decades past, and that may be why I care so much about showing them differently. When an owner proudly fires up a Porsche from the '80s, I try to photograph the atmosphere of that moment, which is the part a carspotter's picture leaves out.
Take your time
Car owners often get curious when they see me shooting film. Some ask, surprised, whether you can still buy it. When I'm using a compact, someone will joke that they had a camera like that on holiday in Bulgaria, years ago. The thing I hear most often is "Alright, take your time. Do it properly."
More and more I get the feeling that the world is drifting back to the '80s and '90s, in its aesthetics and in its approach to design. I don't think it's nostalgia. It looks more like a need to return to things with their own weight and their own tempo, and film fits that story, which may be why it makes sense again. Cars from that era are wanted, and not only by collectors. People drive them, modify them and live with them. Kazuki Ohashi of Madlane in Japan understands this culture from the inside. He isn't afraid to lay hands on Porsche icons. He created the 935ML, reworked a 930 Slantnose and made both of them his own.
Eight frames at a time
Sometimes the film doesn't wind on properly, or the light doesn't land where I wanted it, or someone walks through the background, or I realise the ISO was set for a completely different roll. But when the light, the frame, the car and the moment do come together, I feel the photograph has been "made." Film teaches patience, and it teaches you to accept mistakes. Maybe that's why it never bores me: I can't fully control the process. A classic car is the same. Part of it drives itself, and the rest you have to feel.
I know it's only going to get harder. Film keeps getting more expensive, the chemistry is running out, equipment is harder to find and labs keep closing. At the same time the love for classics is growing, and I see it more and more among my friends. Maybe because we're getting older. Maybe because we can finally afford them. Or because some things are simply good to live with, and you love them for the sound and the shape and for the fact that they don't do everything for you.
I have one drawer full of negatives that nobody has ever seen. They're nothing special. Each roll was a day and an attempt, with its own lighting setup, a twist of the focus ring and that distinctive click, and even if only a few good frames come out of it in the end, I know it was worth it. Sometimes I don't even know what's on a roll, and a label that reads "May 2022" doesn't help much.
