Frugal Film Project – Marius Voicu

FFP 2020 – May – Lines 

May arrived with hope that we will go out more and have the possibility to shoot (more) photos than we could during the COVID-19 outbreak. And, with some exceptions, that is exactly what it meant. Here in Romania the government reduced the restrictions and we could go out, with masks on all the time, but it was a small price to pay. And so, with these lesser restrictions, I went out to shoot my May roll. 

I prepared my roll (I need to cut the plastic edges of the roll so that it fits in the camera) and went out to shoot some lines, dammit! Only that after you spend some time without shooting, the creativity does not come so easily. Eventually I got the juices flowing and went to shoot downtown, since we were not allowed to leave the city. I planned my street photography session, since I could not waste time and I had some other additional things to do as well. 

I don’t know about you, but I like a city without any people. At least when I shoot. Coming from a background of landscape photography, I have grown to hate having people in my shots. So now, even if we are allowed to leave the house, people still find it hard to go outside, out of fear that they might catch some COVID-19 virus. This situation was perfect for me as I saw Bucharest like a ghost town (and I liked it). 

Went and shot my 12 frames roll of Lomo 800 with the hope that what happened in April was bad luck. I had a lot of light and overall I was very pleased with the frames that I got (at least from the composition and amount of light point of view). I would see what I really got after development, of course. And I wanted to check that everyone’s opinion on Lomo 800 being very good, pleasing and does need a bit more light than a normal color negative film stuff was true. 

After developing it I can confirm that I had bad luck on the April roll. Not sure how I got the markings on the backing paper onto the negative…but oh, well, this has to happen sometime, no? 

The shots are well lit and OK-ish, but there are some things that I don’t like. First there is a purple-pink tint on every frame. Yes, it can be corrected in post, but that does not make me like the film. Also, I am not a fan of the colors that it outputs. They are warmer and similar to Superia, but Fujifilm’s colors are richer and more pleasing. Lomo has some washed out colors, which I am not very fond of. I feel like Lomo 800 is a film that I could use on a specific project to highlight something old, forgotten (I’ll keep that in mind for future). 

Anyway, after some minor processing of the images I got something that I like. Unlike April, this month’s selection of photos is more challenging, from the selection point of view. I have got a few good ones that fit the theme. But I chose the one photo with some bent iron boards that make up a fence near my home. I took 3 shots, one for each focus setting on the camera “lens” to see which would look better. The one with medium focusing turned out to be perfect for this month’s theme.  

Having shot June as well, I can say that I look forward to shoot some rangefinders (Fed 2 and Zorki 4) until the rest of the year, just to have more shots per roll. Yes, the resolution will be lower but I need more chances to get that perfect photo for each month’s theme.