Joshua Tree - California

One of the things I was most looking forward to about Photo Native, was meeting Savan from Savan Photography. I started following her in 2013 after she left a comment on one of my photos I posted while at the United Conference in Santa Barbara (this was before DM’s). She has been a constant support to me over the years and I have loved watching her journey with Film grow and flourish. She’s amazing! So, of course I registered for her styled shoot at Photo Native even though the last time I shot film was probably 15 years ago?! My plan was to take her class and just shoot digital the whole time, but all that changed on the ride out to the class. I shared a ride with Casey from Casey James Photography and he encouraged me to try shooting a few rolls of film and even let me borrow his camera!

My film images were taken on the Pentax 645n with Kodak Portra 400 film. I shot 2 rolls of film which is just 32 frames. After shooting digital for 10+ years and knowing that I can shoot 32 frames in just a few minutes, everything changed once I had that film camera in my hand. I had to slow WAY down and really contemplate every shot before I pushed the shutter. And out of habit, I kept looking at the back of the camera thinking I would see my image?! Such a different experience. Overall, I am thrilled with the results and when you find out that these images are basically SOOC (I only tweaked exposure a bit), I’m even more impressed by what film can do.

And just so you can compare…here are the digital shots I took.

A little behind the scenes during this shoot!

Thank you to the incredible vendors for putting together such a gorgeous styled shoot - everything was fabulous! And can we talk about this amazing location? This was my first time to Joshua Tree and I can’t wait to go back someday.