One of my New Year’s resolutions was to shoot at least one roll of personal work on film every month. Fail. Fail fail fail. Part of it’s been the fact that I keep my Contax in the closet, so I’m not constantly looking at it, and the other part is just plain fear of being disappointed with my work. Both are stupid reasons.

Last month I was looking over the last film post I blogged and realized something: the reason film wasn’t working for me last year was because I was trying to shoot it the way OTHER people shoot it. The creamy pastels of José Villa’s work, the soft, artistic posing of Elizabeth Messina, the romantic feel of my sweet friend Laura Gordon’s images. Every time I raised my Contax to my eye, I’d ask myself “how would José/Elizabeth/etc shoot this frame?” before taking my shot. My film and digital photography were two entirely separate bodies of work and it became REALLY difficult to make them feel cohesive, hence why I stopped shooting film for anything but my personal work. Once I realized that the question I SHOULD have been asking myself is “how would Abby Grace want to shoot this frame?” it changed my approach.

I’m still trying to work out the kinks that naturally accompany a shift in shooting style, but after receiving this first batch of post-epiphany scans, I’m REALLY excited to shoot more of the stuff this year! I’d been contemplating leaving my Contax at home while we’re in Europe but now, I realize that would be a perfectly good waste of an opportunity to be inspired.

Enjoy this hodgepodge of frames from our weekend on BHI!

Those first few frames were all shot on Fuji 400H, and these next images from William & Meg’s actual e-session are all Portra800. I think I’ve found my new favorite film stock- I’d been shying away from Portra because the 400 is SO yellow when overexposed, but with a little tweaking, the 800 is BEAUTIFUL!! And it fits so well with my digital style! What do you guys think?

SO DREAMY. These colors! The softness! And Meg, get outta here with all of this gorgeousness.

Happy, happy Tuesday!