Something New

My creativity journey has its share of buoyant, inspired momentum balanced by times of steady lull and even a few moments of boredom bordering on frustration. Over the few years, my workflow has been the same and my preferred choice of in camera recipe has stayed the same - My version of Portra 400. I think it is time to change things a little. What else can I do differently? Maybe even just a little change might be good.

 This desire to change arose from a series of seemingly unrelated events. It started from my work life. One year into my new role, I wanted to upskill and learn SQL. I've always wanted to learn how to code in SQL but I did not have the discipline to stick to the course. With a little focus and push, I achieved a good foundation of knowledge in this area. The satisfaction of achieving this long over due task made me ask what else can a little drive do for me? Next came the sale of my beloved X-Pro3 to Richard. I welcomed an X-T5  and said goodbye to my workhorse. In the process, I was researching film simulations for Richard to use on the X-Pro3 and that must surely have been the inspiration to do try a new recipe for myself. Joining the dots, I directed the buzz of achieving something with a little focus and drive to finding a new film recipe for my X-T5.

 The process of experimentation went through a few permutations. I thought I try recipes using newly available film simulations like Nostalgic Negative and Bleach Bypass. I found a recipe using Nostalgic Negative that I liked. It was one inspired by Vison 250D. As I made shots a loved the look, I realised it looked quite similar to my standard Portra 400 recipe. This defeats the purpose of trying something new. More researching on Instagram landed me on Casual Grains' page. Their use of Fujifilm Superia Xtra400 struck a chord with me. The greens were greener and the red redder without the over saturation that can be sickly.

 Fuji X Weekly had a recipe for the Superia Xtra400 film stock and not surprisingly, the emphasis on green and red meant that Classic Negative was used as the film simulation. Apart from a different recipe for my images, I've been keen to move away from my usual images with strong contrast between highlights and shadows. Achieving that requires selecting different times and scenes to photograph. However, I can help that process out in camera by lowering the emphasis on highlights and contrast settings. Pulling all that together in a jumbled mix, I tweaked the recipe from Fuji X weekly to lower highlights and lift shadows.

 Here are some images using this new recipe.

At low light environments, the recipe seems to perform similarly to my Portra 400 recipe.