Over the past few last months of 2018 I’ve found myself loving film grain, more and more. Fading from the love of shooting ACROS, an almost grain-free film, I’m really embracing the look of grain in film photography.
In fact, when I’m shooting with a digital camera I’ve begun to add faux film grain in the post process. Often when I see a digital shot that I’ve take recently, I’ll find myself missing the life; the character that grain adds to the photo.
I’ve never thought I’d be one of those guys who actually adds simulated grain to a perfectly clean image. It just shows you, you never know how you might change as you progress through your journey in photography.
Turning It Up a Bit
I really loved the presence of grain I got in the photos from an earlier shoot I did with Yuli. I used Kodak Tri-X for that shoot, pushed to 1600 and pretty low light circumstances. For this shoot I decided to use a method that would increase the presence of the grain even more.
What I did, was under expose the shots by one to two stops. I’d learned (accidentally) from a prior experience that when I do this and then compensate by increasing the exposure in Lightroom it would also increase the grain!
Take a look at some of these shots.
How Cool Is That!!?
No, seriously… do you like that much grain, shadow and contrast? Personally… yeah, I do. I can’t say that I would want to shoot everything like this from now on, but from time to time this method will give me that really beautiful moody, edgy look I love!
Doing This with Other Film?
Yeah, I will definitely try this with other film. I’m especially looking forward to trying this with Rollei Retro 400s. I gotta say, these days it seems like I’m going in the direction away from more of a beauty shoot; really focusing more on getting the moody stuff…. more story.
