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The real hero of my drive to the airport would be my wonderful girlfriend who drove me to the airport and made sure I was right to security, and that was driving right into the hell of Toronto traffic. I would like to start off by thanking the Canadian Boarder Services, with their excellent job searching every single film canister I had brought with me, I feel so much safer. But they were very polite with me and the guy who had me empty my pockets and bags was very nice and very friendly, and most interested in the camera gear. The Porter lounge was excellent. Drinks of every sort, not to mention munchies, and even wifi (not that it mattered my netbook was packed away already checked through) but they had some iMacs setup for anyone to use, so I killed some time by surfing the Google reader.

The flight itself was fun, and really in the long run didn’t seem that long either, the scenery was great but it made me realize how much Google Maps has ruined me, shame I can’t have a GPS and over lay on my glasses so I could figure out where I was. I think I found the QEW and maybe the 406. Most the flight took place over land, and with a window seat I caught some wonderful shots of clouds and the landscape below. Not really that rough of weather just a tiny bit of turbulence just before we started descending into Newark (yeah, I got to see the NYC skyline…I tried to get a photo, but the haze was interfering. Also for some weird reason my teeth hurt, the whole flight, maybe it was because right outside my window was the propeller. I don’t know. It was just, odd.

Security and Homeland Security at Newark wasn’t as friendly as Canadian, the rather bored looking agent wasn’t too talkative, but thankfully I wasn’t questioned too closely, nor was I searched (that’s for next week, oh joys) again. Then it was a matter of finding my way through the airport to the airtrain then I found the wonderful courtesy shuttle right to the hotel. The room and hotel restaurant are both excellent. The hotel wifi, however leaves much to be desired.

All in all not a bad experience, what tomorrow holds, I know not. That’s it for now, more tomorrow!

Customer - Wow, I’m surprised you still stock film, I used to shoot a lot of Fuji Chrome back in the day
CSR - We still have a few customers that shoot film, we don’t have a big a selection as we used to.
Me - I still shoot film, a lot of film. I like the look and feel of it, the need to really pick your shots.
Customer - Really? I would expect someone of my age to say that, not a young man like you.
CSR - This one probably shoots more than the “old guys”

This little conversation happened yesterday at my local Henry’s store while I was picking up one of two rolls of film that I had dropped off earlier that week for developing. Most people give me a strange look or question the fact why I still shoot with film saying it’s old, obsolete, and not really needed these days with the wonderful world of instant digital photography. (Oh and yes, I have a Polaroid camera as well, two of them, which I also shoot when when I have film from the Impossible Project on hand. The birth of instant photography right here.)

Why I still shoot film, because it’s a unique look, there’s something special about looking at a slide negative, there’s a depth and sharpness of colour that I can only achieve on digital with a certain amount of tweaking in post processing, or using various filters and in camera tricks. I remember when I saw my first 6×6 colour slide, and then of course my fellow film nerd and friend Julie showed me one of her dad’s 8×10 slide film shots….yeah.

Also with film it makes you think, since you are very limited in the amount of consumable media you carry, and the amount you get per roll you have really make sure you are shooting what you want, and how you want it. Black and White is great for that because the colours won’t matter (much, everything is in shades of gray) so you really have to make the composition of your shot carry what the image is about.

That’s why I shoot film, not only that put the selection of film cameras out there is amazing, large format crown graphics, medium format Twin Lens Cameras, to sleek 35mm range finders.

And if you’re a film nut like me, you might want to check out the Film Photography Podcast, produced twice monthly by two awesome guys from New Jersey.
You can find them on:
The Official Website: http://www.filmphotographypodcast.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Film-Photography-Podcast-Internet-Radio-Show/382315292393?ref=ts
Flickr: http://www.filmphotographypodcast.com/