jamescater

Film vs Digital: Shooting a Wedding in Fujifilm ACROS

On my last shift at the film lab in Bondi, I picked up one of the last rolls of Fujifilm ACROS film. It seemed poignant -- as my job at the shop was finishing, so too was the production of this film stock.

5 Basic Tips for Starting a Fashion Portfolio

When you’re just starting out, building a fashion photography portfolio can be quite a daunting task. Having to organize and prepare shoots can be difficult, especially if you have no budget. These are my tips for shooting on a shoestring when you’re just starting:

Shooting Dreams and Nightmares: An Interview with the Bragdon Brothers

Great photography tells a compelling story. Weaving narrative into photos and photo series is a challenging task -- the storyteller cannot simply make the world conform to their imagination as the author or painter can. Photographers only have one frame to convey meaning -- motion and action have to be paraphrased and the moment of transformation captured.

Experiments in Antique USSR Film

Want to hear a communist joke? Well, they are only really funny if everyone gets them, but if you still want to hear it, then Soviet: A worker standing in a liquor line says: “I have had enough, save my place, I am going to shoot Gorbachev.” Two hours later he returns to claim his place in line. His friends ask, “Did you get him?” “No, the line there was even longer than the line here.”

Film is Alive!… But it May Have a Terminal Illness

The defiant cry of the nostalgic hipster that’s become a hashtag: #filmisnotdead. But why? It’s 2019, people -- the digital camera reigns supreme; why won’t this analog trend die? Rationalism abandons the old way in recognition of the new’s superior efficiency. The combine harvester supplanted the scythe, clocks replaced the sundial, and electric lights extinguished the candle.

4 Good Reasons + 1 Barely Adequate Justification to Shoot With a Rangefinder

The SLR has been the dominant camera type in photography for the last 70 years. SLRs are more intuitive, easy to focus, and versatile when it comes to mounting lenses of any length. So why does the rangefinder, as a design, persist into the modern era? There is not a single reason why anyone should be using these archaic and fiddly cameras when more advanced and efficient machines exist.

A Guide to Shooting Portraits with Kodak Ektar 100

Kodak Ektar is the reason I fell in love with film photography. My first roll completely blew all of my digital shots out of the water. I was used to the ugly JPEGS that my old Nikon D40 spat out and Ektar just gave me what I wanted -- sharp pictures, with silky grain and a look that I didn’t know how to edit for.