Holiday Hotels

Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn

In the analog days people hardly took pictures 'just for the fun of it'. Not many people owned a camera, let alone used colour film, therefore most of my baby pictures are in black & white. Colour prints were more expensive to develope, so untill the late 70's and early 80's B&W film was used often still.

Colour film was only used for special occasions like a wedding, graduation or maybe a holiday. If you couldn't afford a colour film you bought postcards. After World War II with more money and free time then ever, the average Americans went on a roadtrip. Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn, the United States were explored by car. In the 50's and 60's America blossomed. Not having to rebuild the country like torn down Europe, leisure was the new gold.

A decade ago I started collecting old B&W postcards to create Double Exposures fine art. I also bought some 'Kodak Chrome' postcards. I just loved the bright colours, but did not use them in my art yet. In my wedding photography I did cross process slide film to get those fab blues with bright yellows and reds, as Photoshop or a good quality digital DSLR weren't available yet. I will write about this special wedding photography later.

In 2014 I created my first series Holiday Hotel, available as fine art photography prints in all sizes. I come from a graphic design background, as in the late 80's when you could draw and paint you had to become a graphic design artist and you worked for an advertising agency. So I did my time at Sint Lucas (intermediate vocational education in graphic design) then ran to AKV|St.Joost - School of Fine Art and Design in 1992. St. Joost Academy is part of Avans University of Applied Sciences and offers undergraduate (BA) and graduate (MA) courses in fine art and design.

My love (and hate) for printed matter remained, I never really lost it. The first half of my carreer I was often called too artistic for commercial jobs and considered to be too commercial to be a 'true' non-commissioned artist. Whatever. I did what I did, and created a photography carreer still feeding the 4 mouths of my family. Graphic design knowledge wasn't all bad, I was able to design birth and wedding announcement cards in my own style using my photography, way before the cheap print websites emerged.

With Holiday Hotels I am experimenting with the Kodak Chrome postcards, as I am fascinated by the details of old fashion 4 colour print, also known as 'CMYK colour model'. Nowadays, just like photography, all is made digital even the print process. With full colour CMYK process a print is made in 4 layers, with Cyan (blue), Magenta (pink/red) and Yellow as main colours. To get the best density 'Key' (black) is added. CMY together create black as well, but this doesn't look fully black though.

I am now working on more Post Pop Art Prints of Holiday Hotels. The process of Seeing a special, new image in these old photos is wonderful way of learning how to See fresh without leaving your house. I remember being a student and taking macro photos of magazine images, only to use a small detail of the photo in art class. I used the 50 mm lens the wrong way, just held it to the camera and wow, super macro photos were born. I love these experiments and will never quit. Eyespiration!

My last analog wedding films sold

Fuji Reala, Fuji NPH Pro 400, Kodak BW400CN and Kodak Elite Chrome film

This week I've sold my last Fuji Reala and NPH films, and gave the student my last Kodak BW400CN as well. Together with Kodak Elite Chrome film, this typical set of films I used in the analog days of shooting a wedding.

My Last Analog Wedding
I don't even feel sad, though seeing the lot like in the photograph above, it brought back memories! This, or same set with one or two extra Fujicolor Press 800 films and maybe one extra BW400CN film, was my ultimate wedding kit. I've been taking wedding pictures for over 20 years now, and the analog days were the best, considering how clients loved their photos and paid well for a good wedding album, as hardly anyone had the guts to shoot a wedding in those days.

It was hard work! Carrying two cameras, lenses and flashes. Always having extra batteries and enough film with you. I still have my two Nikon F100 bodies, and one of the two SB28 DX flashes still works. My two 24-70 f2.8 Sigma lenses are written off, I can only use these lenses to teach our students where to find aperture on a lens etc. Same for the flash, this flash doesn't go well with the digital camera bodies and can even damage the camera.

Me with two cameras

My last analog wedding was the wedding of Annemiek and Wilfred, in 2007. This is me taking a selfie in the lamp of the wedding car. You couldn't take any decent photos with your phone, so often I used the last frame to take a photo like this, just to finish the roll of film.

Variety of Films
Having two cameras and wanting to shoot in- and outdoors, as well as B&W and crossed E6 film, I was always juggling which film to put in what camera at what time, as 36 exposures sometimes was too much. E.g. after a portrait shoot outdoors, using the Fuji Reala (100 asa) entering the church, you do need 400 asa (Fuji NPH) and sometimes there were quite some exposures left.

But shooting 100 iso film inside a church simply wasn't working, so you did need to change to 400 or sometimes even 800 iso. It was fun too, to try to get the most out of each film. I did like to vary in colour and B&W, so by picking your film wisely you created the best wedding series.

Using Black & White film added variety to an analog wedding serie

The E6 (slide) film was always cross processed so the colors would come out bright with big grain

Using one roll of slide film helped me to get some bright and over the top colours into the series. Fuji film, especially Reala, was the best and most neutral film with awsome skin tone and natural colours, but I always liked to add bright reds and blues to the posing portrait photos. I'll tell you more about how we got those colours without Photoshop in another blog later.

So in general I used 6 to 8 colour films, and 1 slide and 1 or 2 B&W films, meaning 360 exposures max. Clients would get an album with 80-100 printed pictures, and that was it. The book told the story of the day, with a roughly average of about 5-6 hours of photography per wedding shoot. Fuji Reala film is discontinued, as well is Elite Chrome and other Kodak film. It won't take long untill all professional films will be gone, leaving photographers with consumer films only.

Digital Era
Well, in these days clients don't mind I reck. When seeing all the photos of weddings shared on e.g. Facebook and other social media, all comments say "Beautiful photo!" etc. No matter what quality, as long as the bride's dress is visible in the photo people will like the it and say how beautiful the bride looks. Soon after the first digital cameras were good enough to shoot a wedding with, the lomo photography kicked in. That might have been the first sign that we don't care about getting the best quality (in film) anymore.

The poorer the quality, the more a lomo photographer likes it. The student who bought my films though, was really looking for the Reala film, as it's discontinued and she really love the specs of that particular film. The difference between Kodak and Fuji was really about bright colors versus natural colors, as both brands were excellent film producers. A lot of analog film will be gone soon, just being discontinued.

Fortunately we can still have a look at the photos and relive the moment of (one of) the most beautiful days on our life. Thank you Annemiek & Wilfred, the last analog wedding I did was awsome and I'll never forget the fun we all had!

Ode to Kodak

Coney Island, May 2012, NYC - analog photograph, taken with Kodak colour reversal film, cross processed, more analog NYC photography: Google+ album

Crossing Yosemite

Today Kodak announced to stop producing slide films... [Yosemite National Park, crossed Kodak Elite Chrome Film]

*sob*