I’ve made pictures of people for many years and still get a thrill from it. There comes a time in any creative’s journey when they look back to evaluate the successes or failures that stand out. Of both there are many but the ones that stand out get blurred into an endless stream of moments shared together with perfect strangers. If I’m not careful, it all gets distilled into work, I’m hoping to redefine the joy in the work.
“What keeps the creative spark alive and what keeps us pushing?”
The answer isn’t all that clear sometimes.
I photograph portraits for people who are working towards an upward trajectory in their own life, and I take my role in that very seriously. People are getting promoted, seeking new opportunities or chasing their dreams. Studio Portraits of business people, artists, actors, models, authors, dancers is my way of providing for my family but its also a major hobby. I get so excited to help a friend with their images.
Recently, I’ve looked back to film for a familiar challenge. I have written about my love / hate relationship with shooting film. Over the years I used film cameras that were gifts and I enjoyed using them tremendously until there were malfunctions and heartache over failed results. At that point the decision was to not play around with film unless I invested myself into it and focused. Without the right tools, you are left playing or wishing your idea will come together but I was done playing and wanted results I could be proud to share.
I picked up a Mamiya RB67 from my favorite photography store in Sacramento, Photosource. Jose helped me decide on the older version of the Mamiya, the classic studio photographer’s choice when film cameras dominated the fashion and portrait world. Personally, I love the size and cumbersome nature of this system. I wanted better quality than my fun Yashica Mat 124 and a different, slower experience as compared to my trusty Canon R5. What I love about the Canon R5 system for my work is the ability to capture faces in a variety of locations and in studio with exceptional accuracy. Everything about the R5 is designed to allow the user to walk away from a shoot with more winning shots than ever before. This same approach is why I ultimately decided to make an investment in the best portrait camera available to help realize my vision with a more successful track record. Below is a comparison of these two very different camera systems. They are both just hunks of plastic, metal and glass made decades apart but the real specifics are basically the same.
Maymiya RB67 vs: Canon R5
Next came the lighting, in the last few years I’ve really focused on a table top approach to business portraits that bring something else to the world of corporate portraits. Do all clients love it, no, but you can’t win them all. What I have enjoyed in the tabletop studio approach is the ability to light them in a unique way. Although I normally don’t like to do the same shoot style twice, I have started to hone in on an approach that works well with most people. I needed some light for these film portraits to work and I didn’t want to rely on my normal strobe lighting. Aputure makes some incredible lighting I first saw on a commercial shoot. The lighting tech for the production assured me that all still photographers geek out on these lights when they first see them on set. They are powerful, reliable and maybe the best feature is that its a Bowens mount so I could use all my favorite lighting modifiers. Now I saw the potential to make film portraits in my studio in a similar way to my digital approach, things were beginning to look doable.
“Ideas are great but unless we act or make steps towards them they just linger as ideas.”
A bit of practice with all of these elements has produced some wins but the biggest one of all was the fact that it was happening at all. I’m glad the process of making a picture on this new system is tricky and slow, this approach is not for clients, this approach is for me and my joy.
The first really strong image from this approach was my son and Aunt, then my wife. I was thrilled with these rolls and it helped me realize the potential. I’ve known Brian Johnson for a while now and first learned of his work on instagram, he was photographing people in the street on film and it sparked this love of the craft in me. Shooting just to shoot and as a way to meet and interact with people in the community. Since then he’s started making clothes and has progressed into making clothes for the Opera. Brian Johnson ( @ambitiousjohn ) came to the studio with some of his latest designs and we played with different looks.
The below image is special to me in a lot of ways, one being that it even exists. Without a lot of thinking about, researching, tinkering, and follow through on an idea this image wouldn’t be a reality. I was the client again and it felt great to see the idea come together in the way I intended. Both of us have done considerable work to get to this point of being able to share this image. Along side his steady love of film photography, his skills with designing clothes have grown. This print is his signature and I was thrilled to see it carried through on the pants, jacket, hat and bag.
For me its the culmination of a love for working the craft and working the process in order to see the vision through.
Brian Johnson, Photographer and clothing designer in Sacramento. 2024 Portrait made on Ilford XP2 with a Mamiya RB67 at Kevin Fiscus Photography Studio.
You can see more of my work and follow this film portrait journey on this website and my Instagram: @fiscusphoto