I Shot a Roll of Ektachrome E100 by Romain Valère
I consider myself as rather a newcomer in film photography (and in photography in general), having shot more or less regularly for year and a half. During this time, I fell down almost every rabbit hole possible (« oh hello high-end point and shoots! Medium format? Don’t mind if I do! I should try home-developing! »). However, there is one area in which I haven’t much stepped: slide film.
This is why when Vincent offered me to try a roll of the new Ektachrome 100, I didn’t hesitate much!
I decided to shoot this roll during last holidays with my family in the South of France. I wanted to try this film for street photography under the bright Mediterranean sun, with a very specific result in mind (high contrast, dark shadows and vivid colors).
As always with film photography, things didn’t turn out as I expected. However this time it was because I didn’t use this roll as I first planned. Instead of street photography, I couldn’t help but snap pictures of the beautiful end of day around the old port of Marseille and the littoral landscape.
The Ektachrome beautifully captured the blue and purple tones of the sky, highlighting the warmth of the few remaining sunrays, either escaping from lower points of the skyline, or hitting reflective surfaces.
As you can see in the photos, I shot mostly at the end of the day, under sunset light. To avoid any metering mistake, I used my Contax T, which has a built-in light meter. As Vincent already wrote, it’s a wonderful pocket rangefinder that can turn into a point and shoot when stopped down to f8.
I even mistreated the film by shooting directly face to the sun.
Social distanciation wasn’t much of an issue back then…
The only inconvenient I found shooting this roll is the low iso sensibility which can sometimes result in shaky images.
I finished the roll back in Paris. So there is no continuity compared to the previous photo, but I thought interesting to share the results under more a more subdued lighting. I like how the colors turned out saturated while remaining natural. Next time I shoot slide film, I will look for a similar moderately lighted environment.
I shoot film because I’m a snob at everything I do.
