Sometimes a little motivation gets you pointed in the right direction, but the tenacity to not give up often gets you across the finish line.

In late January there was an announcement on YouTube that grabbed my attention – the Film February contest. The premise of the contest was to shoot a roll, send it in postmarked by March 2nd to be developed by Indie Film Lab, and then be judged on your entire roll as developed.

Andrew and Denae partnered with 10 other YouTube photographers to judge the entries. This is the first contest of its kind I know of – sure there are many photography competitions every year, but none that have you send an undeveloped roll in to be judged.

For me, the Control Freak, this was both a scary and exciting proposition. Scary because I’d have to trust someone else to develop and scan my work. No editing or post-processing. No cropping. No tweaking of horizon or leveling. No removing bits that don’t belong. NONE of that. OMG. But at the same time, an unusual contest like this was just the motivator I needed to put together a series of shots on 1 roll that were cohesive and also spot on – no underexposed images, no duplications, no different perspectives on the same image – just 10 good images. No cherry-picking the 1 image I like the best and submitting just that one.

At the beginning of February, I settled on two possible ideas for themes to shoot on a roll. However, over the course of the next several weeks, my work commitments and other things got in the way, and kept me from doing either one of those ideas.

Best-laid plans, right?

As the end of February approached, I had resigned myself to the possibility that I wasn't going to be able to pull off an entry. But then on Saturday 2/27 I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, refused to give up, and went about formulating a plan to get out and shoot the next day, no matter what.

The forecast for the next day, Sunday 2/28, called for it to be a cold, rainy morning after several days of warmer temps and melting snowfall. Those sort of conditions in Ohio usually mean fog – so I prepped my gear Saturday night for getting out in the morning with 3 landscape locations in mind that I thought *may* have fog and also present some nice compositions.

The next morning there was NO fog at my house, and it was pouring rain. But there was a fog warning for the greater area, and vowing to not give up, I headed out. Bad weather means good photos, right? I think I’ve read that somewhere before. So out I went – armed with my RB67 ProSD, a few lenses, backs, and some Kodak T-Max 100 film.

First stop was the Wright Brothers Flying Field at Huffman Prairie. Thankfully it was foggy, but man was it raining HARD. I was struggling with holding the umbrella to keep the camera dry while trying to ensure it was level on the tripod. The road with the water ponding from the rain, the reflections, and the fog made for a great scene.

One shot down.

I should mention here that I took every shot twice; once on the roll I was planning on submitting, and once on the back-up roll in the other back. You see, my trust issues meant that there was no way I was sending off a roll of good work without a back-up roll at home. Just in case it was lost in the mail, messed up in processing, or another pesky pandemic got in the way.

So it went like this for every shot:

Find the composition
Set up the camera and tripod
Meter for highlights, meter for shadows, calculate an exposure
Double-check focus and composition
Mirror up
Fire the shutter
Swap the back with the other one
Mirror up
Fire the shutter

All in the pouring rain.

The next stop was the Wright Brothers Memorial a few miles away - this sits on a hill so I was surprised the fog was as dense there as it was. I’ve been there many times in the past; as a child I used to sled there every Winter. But I couldn’t tell you the last time I had been there, so it was nice to see it again, with the fog bringing some added drama.

The last stop was Huffman MetroPark, which was a park that was created after the 1913 floods and the building of one of the major dams to protect the city of Dayton.

My intent for the roll was to show a stark, moody and almost surreal landscape nearly devoid of people. Its actually how I felt that day – alone and surrounded by the fog, with only my thoughts and conversations with myself to keep me company. Much like how life had been for the 12 months prior due to the pandemic.

I sent the roll off the next day, and a few days later I developed my back-up roll and scanned it - so I had a pretty good idea of what would be seen by the judges provided that the lab did a good job. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by their results - I'll keep them in mind for future projects if I have a lot of film to develop and don't have the time. Their scans were very close to mine.

Here's an example of one of the images I developed, scanned, and processed at home compared to one from Indie Film Lab. The lab’s scan is on the left. My developed, scanned, and edited image is on the right. As you can see I took some liberties with flipping the frame and cleaning it up a bit, and also pulling back on the contrast. But straight out of the lab the left image is really good.

Fast-forward nearly two months to April 27th. I woke up early to my usual morning routine of coffee, watching the news, checking emails, and watching the latest photography videos on YouTube. David Hancock’s video showed up in my feed, and I immediately noticed that it was his Film February Winner’s announcement.

I won!

This was completely unexpected and very flattering. To listen to David’s words about my images made me feel good, but also in a small way, experience a bit of imposter syndrome. I think every creative suffers from it.

I was also flattered to have honorable mentions by some of the other judges with my images being featured on their vids as well. There were some great images entered for Film February this year, and I was honored to be among such talented photographers.

With a large format 5x7 pinhole camera on the way as my prize, I guess I need to look into picking up some film, and a way to develop and scan the larger negatives. Look for my field test on the new camera and some info in the near future.

Thanks for reading, and never give up.

Jeremy

More info on Film February, the judges, and the winners can be found here.

If you don’t develop and scan at home and are looking for a great lab to develop your negatives, try the Indie Film Lab.