Shoot Film Co. — Landscape

In the Frame: Film Photography Interview with John Crane

In the Frame: Film Photography Interview with John Crane

Color film photography by John Crane

All Photos © John Crane, all rights reserved

I am a film photographer in Colorado, USA focusing primarily on travel, scenics, landscape, documentary, etc. It's difficult to summarize my involvement with photography and film because it's such an important part of who I am as a person and an artist. I've been shooting for many years - at times trying to figure out a way to assign greater meaning to justify the compulsion. I travel quite a bit, specifically the Rocky Mountain West, and always have a good many cameras of different formats and flavors with me.

Color landscape photography by film photographer John Crane

So many things, really - again, it's difficult to summarize but here goes: I think the core attraction is it's a tangible, analogue process. As a result of exposing a roll of film you have something in your hand transcending ones and zeros. If feels more like you've just created something new.

Color landscape photography by film photographer John Crane

The natural mechanics of shooting film force a more structured, thoughtful approach to each shutter release. There are consequences; costs associated with it, so one tends to pay closer attention to what's in the frame - which to me - is one of the primary reasons for being "out there" shooting in the first place. Being a student of the world, digesting it one frame at a time. There's much, much more behind it, but that's what comes to mind at the moment.

Color landscape photography by film photographer John Crane
I shoot color and black and white in both medium format and 35mm. An ongoing challenge (compulsion) is to see how far I can push 35mm film.

For my black and white work I've moved back in the darkroom to a more traditional silver wet print process. I gravitate towards the Ilford Delta films, Delta 100, 400, and of course Pan F. For my color work I'm still in love with E6 and have my first rolls of the new Ektachrome ready for the lab.

Color landscape photography by film photographer John Crane
I'm submitting a series of images made this past September in Badlands National Park. These were all made on Velvia 50 with my trusty Nikon F6. Usually I try to structure visits to such places to have more time, but on this day I was just passing through for an afternoon. As it happened conditions were favorable and I feel like I got the most out of a single roll of Velvia.

In this case a long lens was used to isolate various features within the landscape - something I tend to do a lot of. Finding compositions within compositions. With so much natural subject matter to work with it can be a little overwhelming. But scanning the land patiently in beautiful light is a delightful way to spend an afternoon/evening outside.

Color landscape photography by film photographer John Crane