New Project: RAW Film

One thing I've learned about shooting with film is that it seems to encourage a theme or project mentality. For example, you discover you like the look of Kodak Portra, especially how it renders sunny skies and 1950s commercial architecture on Route 66. That inevitably leads to more Portra, trips on Route 66 ( or any local retro variant), and really painful trips to the pump. Or you might love Fuji Neopan Acros and what it does for monochrome cityscapes. 

In my experience, digital does not seem to "juice" this sort of creativity. Don't get me wrong; you can be as creative as you want with any format and medium. But digital RAW files start out somewhat flat. it's in their nature and a function of how the technology works. Film output, in contrast (pun intended), shows up with its first "preset" already applied; it's an essential component of the film stock, and a reason why you select it. [NOTE: I think this is one of the appeal points of Very Good's latest project, an app named Very Good Camera that builds in filmic presets and encourages you down a point-and-shoot path, film style.]

This all makes perfect sense. Choice of film is, by definition, a choice of theme, or at least a first step. As part of our film work, we already have a roadside motel project in 6x17 (admittedly languishing):

Languishing or not, it's not going anywhere, and that's okay. The only thing to worry about with such vintage projects is that your desired subject my disappear beneath a wrecking ball.

But another project came to me this morning, and mundane as it might sound, I am very interested by it. Rather than a subject or compositional theme, I want to pursue a theme based on SOOTC ("Straight Out Of The Camera"), with zero post-processing. The only processing will be the nature of the film itself and how the lab developed it. Unprocessed digital files are called RAW files. This project will be called RAW Film.