Gen Z photographer takes a chance on shooting Big Ears on film, and finds beauty in the process – Knoxville News Sentinel

I grew up in a world of digital photography. My very first camera was a Canon digital camera that my grandpa gave me when I was in high school when I was learning how to take pictures. When I was a freshman in college, I used a Pentax film camera to take some pictures around campus.
I lost the film and never got it developed.
Cut to a recent week as I was catching up with our senior photographer on staff, Saul Young, as he went through the old cameras in the Knox News studio. They hadn’t been used in decades, especially now that we all use mirrorless Sony cameras.
I thought it would be interesting to use a film camera again. The Big Ears music festival was coming up and I figured that would be a cool event to shoot on film while simultaneously photographing it with our Sony cameras.
If you attended Big Ears, you may have seen me lugging around the Nikon F5 camera that I swear weighs 20 pounds (it’s closer to 5) alongside the Sony cameras. When I was riding the trolley to my next venue, many people asked me why I was shooting on film and predicted how cool the photos would look. They hadn’t seen a film camera in a while, either.
Even some of the photographers in the photo pits with me called me brave for photographing Big Ears on film. Some of the lighting at Big Ears venues is purposely moody. While photographing artists with the Sony cameras, I had to go up to 10,000 ISO in order for the images to be bright enough to use. ISO is how sensitive your camera is to light, so if you are shooting at 100 ISO, it is a very, very bright day outside.
When I was buying film for the assignment, the highest ISO I could find was 3200.
I had 200 ISO in my film camera for another assignment and had to shoot a couple of frames before I was able to put in the other film. When my film was filled, I wound up the old film and tried to put in the new film.
It would not go into the camera.
Another photographer in the photo pit at the Mill & Mine saw my struggle and asked if I needed help. I felt a little embarrassed, but he kindly showed me how the roll fit into the camera.
So with the new film in the camera, I was ready to photograph Beak>. The Nikon F5 automatically adjusts your shutter speed and will focus on your subject in the lens, which helps for someone who does not know exactly how far to push the camera. Since the camera was in automatic, it wouldn’t take a picture unless there was enough light ‒ if there was, it would photograph the subject in a low shutter speed, making them blurry.
Sometimes the blurriness adds to the photograph. Other times it was just a loss.
Over the course of the weekend, I remembered to turn off the camera to save the 8 AA batteries. One night I forgot and paid the price when I went to photograph Larry and Joe at the Knoxville Museum of Art. The camera would capture Joe playing the harp, which is a photograph that I really wanted.
With my camera in tow and feeling defeated, I asked the front desk if they had AA batteries. I always have extra Sony camera batteries in my backpack but not regular batteries. The staff helped me out and I was able to get the picture I really wanted.
The experience made me realize I had developed little habits while photographing, such as looking at the back of the camera to see the image I had just taken or wanting to take the picture as soon as the subject enters the frame. Digital photography allows you to get 20 pictures within seconds.
Film work also teaches you to wait for your images as they’re being developed. I kept checking my email every day to see if they were ready.
It was worth the wait. A lot of the photos in black and white were good.
Photographing the Big Ears on film allowed me to slow down and wait for the right lighting or focus more intensely on the subject as they were performing. I had to factor in the fact that the photographs were going to be in black and white, but certain colored lights at the Mill and Mine, or the Tennessee Theatre, were going to look cool.
With film being so tactile, I understand why people love it.
Angelina Alcantar is a photography intern at Knox News.

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