About a week and a half ago, I posted a few photos from a photo essay I uploaded to JPG magazine. I've just uploaded a second photo essay there. This one’s titled Night at the Fair. Go take a look at it, and let me know what you think.
These photos were shot in 1996 (or thereabouts), when I was still living in Ann Arbor, MI. I had bought a roll of Agfa Ultra film, a slow film (ASA 50) with over saturated color. Knowing that I could easily achieve long shutter speeds, I looked for something to shoot with that film that would allow for some motion blur. I also wanted the subject I shot to be full of color, in order to take advantage of the high color saturation of the film. A small carnival, set up in the parking lot of a local high school, was the perfect location.
The shoot was pretty fun, as I recall. I had my camera, and a tripod, and walked throughout the fair shooting as I pleased. A very different experience from when I went to shoot at a similar carnival last fall.
I love the intense color in these photos. Unfortunately, Agfa Ultra 50 is one of the many 35mm films to be discontinued in the wake of the ascendance of digital photography. While you could probably make the same color adjustments pretty easily in Photoshop, there was something fun about doing it the old fashioned way. I also think that deliberately pairing a particular technology (the color saturated film) with a subject that suits being explored with that technology is a useful exercise.
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