This week I’m taking the kayak out onto Lake Baroon for a morning of film photography, testing a new film stock and chasing those little pieces of the landscape that always seem to catch my attention. The plan was pretty simple: get on the water, explore somewhere beautiful and put a roll of Phoenix 200 through the camera. The results weren't exactly what I expected. The colours felt muddy, some of the exposures didn't quite land and, somewhat annoyingly, the digital camera I originally packed mainly for metering ended up producing some of my favourite photographs of the entire morning. Which left me wondering — did I expose the film incorrectly, does this stock just need more light, or is this simply what the film looks like? It also raises another question: why not photograph the same thing on film and digital? Along the way I talk about some of the things I find myself constantly drawn to in landscapes — minimal colour palettes, textures, reflections, simple shapes, grassy banks disappearing straight into water and those little details that somehow make being outside infinitely more interesting than staring at a computer. A morning of kayaking, landscape photography, film photography, digital photography and trying to work out whether I actually know what I'm doing. If you've shot Phoenix 200 before, let me know what you think. Did I underexpose it, should I give it more light, or are these simply the colours this stock produces? That's a genuine question because I'm deciding whether to grab another roll and give it a second chance.
