Using film in Antarctica

Unless otherwise noted, these images were taken on Kodak Portra 400 or Kodak Ektar 100, in 35mm format, scanned into digital format by the lab and otherwise unedited.

The scans are only medium resolution – film scans get better than this.

It’s 2020. Why would you take film to Antarctica? No, it’s not because I am some superannuated 40-something wishing I was a hipster – despite what at least one friend definitely thought when he read that first question. I do love film, for many reasons, but the most modern digital cameras surpass it in most ways, at least for an Antarctica visit. So why do it?

For me, film photography is nostalgia for loss. Somewhere in the past is a me who no longer really exists; somewhere in a parallel universe is another me who never existed at all. What I wanted most badly for several years at university, deep down inside, was to become a photographer. I didn’t know how – I didn’t have a clue – and the well-intentioned life guidance I received sent me in other directions. I’m not saying those directions were bad – I’ve been lucky and privileged in life and worked hard to make the most of that luck and privilege. But back in the film era, when I was first inspired to travel and explore and discover, I discovered photography, and wanted to pursue it. I looked in magazines like National Geographic, eagerly anticipating the turn of the month when the library would have the next edition. I marvelled at the photographs and idealized the photographers. I learned about Magnum, about war photographers and photojournalists, and referenced Salgado in my politics essays.

But I also took my first SLR out to the nature reserve near home, and packed two and a denim vest to document student protests against French nuclear tests, university fees and racist politicians.

This was the 90s; for the protests I used black and white for images that went in a hard copy student newspaper, not a website; I had a 90s goatie and long hair until I went for a buzz cut. I saved all my money from part time jobs through the year, and in summers travelled around Europe and Central America. I travelled to Asia for the first time too. All with film, all with those same cameras.

And I tried hard to teach myself photography – enrolling in darkroom courses, waiting eagerly outside the mall for the minilab to process my films, studying the pictures (usually with disappointment) to see how I could improve. I did this all alone, never realizing that I needed exposure to others to really learn and improve, or knowing where to find them if I had. Sometimes I was very alone, not just in photography, and it’s true to say that the focus on photography helped me see that in a new light, too. Luckily so.

Later, well into this century, after spending more time away from home, I had a second wave of interest and growth. The internet helped massively – there was much more information available, and even better, platforms like flickr connected me and my images to other people. I learned a lot from their feedback, and settled into a style I liked.

I even held two modest exhibitions – one in 2004 about the peace process in post-conflict Bougainville and the other in 2008 about pre-Olympics Beijing. I sold a few prints at each, including, most proudly, four from the first show to what you might call an institutional buyer – that is, a museum, rather than my grandmother. Later I set up my own darkroom in a tumbledown old courtyard house in Beijing.

That darkroom supported my entry to a 2009 photography contest offering an Antarctica trip as first prize. I came third with my documentary photo essay on the rise of China. Missing out so narrowly hurt – especially when I came second in the same contest the next year – but I didn’t give up on the idea of visiting Antarctica. True, I buried it very deep when I wound up as a parent, but it was always in there.

And then, out of the blue, I had the chance to go.

I was incredibly lucky to win the trip. The previous year had been difficult and I was not so keen to splash money on associated costs. But each night as I looked at film online and never quite sent it to the cart, a little voice in my head told me to do it. While this trip was an incredible stroke of luck, it wasn’t exactly how I’d always envisaged reaching Antarctica. Why remove film as well? “Had you won the trip in 2009”, this voice reminded me, “you’d have taken film without a second thought”. It was right – I didn’t even have a digital camera then.

So suddenly, with just a week to departure and four days estimated delivery time, I bought up as much film as I dared. It arrived the day before I left.

I wasn’t sure what camera to take, so I took them all. I’d collected this stuff slowly over many years, but I did buy two new-to-me second-hand lenses. My film SLR was a Minolta Dynax 9, a pro-spec camera from about 1998 which I bought used in 2012 after my beloved Minolta 9000 fired its last frame. The dSLR was a pro-spec full-frame Sony a900 from about 2008, bought second-hand in around 2012 too. Sony bought out Minolta when that old camera firm ended, and kept the lens mount. This means beautiful pro-spec Minolta lenses fit on Sony dSLRs.

I used this to my advantage in two ways. First, the simple practicality of being able to use all my lenses on both cameras. Second, the ability to get high quality lenses like the 300mm f4 APO G and 80-200 f2.8 APO at a fraction of what they would cost for Canon or Nikon (even used). I wasn’t sure what to go for – I researched hard but found no good guidance. So I got both, just to be sure, and for less than what one equivalent would cost for the bigger name, at the same quality. Quite pleased? Yes indeed. I also took my lovely Bessa rangefinder, which I bought in 2007, and the three fantastic three lenses I have for it – a 35mm f2.5, 50mm f2.5 and 75 mm f2.5. I also brought my Sony RX100 digital compact and an Akaso action camera (it’s like a GoPro).

Story continues after images.

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But back to film.

People talk about the “look” of film. So much in life already seems like its value is only drawn from or measured by how it looks, so why add the “look” of film to that? Especially when people barely see photos – their own included – on anything bigger than the screen of their phone, not even a computer screen, and almost never a 16 x 20 inch print. What does the “look” even matter?

People can discuss, argue, or flame each other about the technical or artistic merits of film or digital. I don’t care about that. For me, every time I see a film image, every time I touch a film camera, all of that emotional experience comes back to me in a way that doesn’t happen with my digital images or cameras. That’s what the “look” of film is for me, and the “feel” too. I wind the film on with my thumb and my soul is taken back to any of a hundred different places where I’ve done that same action fifteen, twenty, even thirty years ago. I quickly switch lenses or change film or hear the loud click-whirr of a motordrive and I’m taken back to those first frantic, adrenaline-pumping experiences at protest rallies, hoping I’d done it right and I’d get the shot of the kid being arrested or the politician making his speech in front of the burning coffin of higher education, quickly changing film before the next moment of action. I think taking film to Antarctica was about living that life from a parallel universe – the one I never led in this life.

Only a few people on the ship noticed that I was using film. That, of course, was fine by me, because I wasn’t seeking attention (remember, not a hipster!). One person saw me reloading my Bessa rangefinder and said, “that’s a really nice camera”. A couple of the guys in my Zodiac were professional photographers, my age or older, and we talked a bit about their memories of using film on assignments.

But there was a pretty cool moment on the last day down south. Everyone was up on the bow of the ship, because the lookouts had seen a pod of humpbacks. I’d raced back to my cabin and grabbed the whole lot – the two big cameras, their giant lenses, and a pocketful of film. I hadn’t backed up my compact flash cards to my laptop, and I knew they were close to full from the day’s activities. Now there wasn’t time (lesson – you can never have enough memory cards).

The pod of whales were hungry – they were thrashing around guzzling down boatloads of krill, flapping their tails and flukes and generally having what I can only assume was the proverbial “whale of a time”. Everyone was fascinated and because I was using my 300mm lens like a telescope so I could see up close, I was instinctively firing off frames as I did. Thirty, 29, 28, 27, down the frame-counter ticked. The next five or six frames went in about a second as something dramatic happened. As we got closer, there was even more to see and before I knew it, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then the dreaded flashing zero.

Blink, blink, blink, 0, 0, 0.

Just then, something fun happened. I set aside my dSLR with its big 300mm lens, my mind yelling “I’m DRY!” like some character in Aliens dropping his empty pulse rifle when the monsters storm the compound. On my hip was my trusty old film SLR, the big, heavy Minolta with its big, heavy 80-200/2.8 zoom wrapped in plastic and duct tape. Back to basics.

As I put it to my eye, gaggling on the bow rail with all the other people, the expedition guide behind me said, “here it comes guys, this is as good as it gets. Get your cameras out”! The whales splashed about, foam flying, flukes flapping, tails thrashing. Transfixed, I focused and hit the shutter.

Whirr-whirr-whirr, that 90s era motordrive churned Ektar through at five frames a second. It’s really loud, and it’s that classic camera sound your cellphone uses to tell you you just took a photo. As that first five second burst rang out, the expedition guide obviously liked what he heard.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!”

Happy to oblige, sir. Less than a minute later, the Minolta coughed up an even wilder tune – the higher-pitch scream of it winding back the finished roll. It sucks that film back inside the yellow cannister in about four or five seconds (you can set it to slow and silent but it takes a lot longer).

I didn’t want to stop watching the whales, but now I was dry on both cameras. And then that body memory kicked in from those protests in the 90s and all those backpacking trips with film. With my eyes fixed on the whales, I flicked the switch that opens the camera, and let the film fall into my hand. I dumped it in my pocket and grabbed a new roll – feeling for the flappy film leader to make sure it was a new one. By feel, I loaded it into the camera, my thumb finding the little spool head at the top of the film and orienting it downwards, clicking the film snugly in place. My fingers gently stretched the film leader out and felt that it lined up with the winding spool in the camera. Just one sideways glance was all I needed to check, then I snapped the camera shut and in just a few seconds I switched lenses too and looked back up. A little whirr as the camera advanced the film: I was back in action, looking at those crazy whales through my lovely, clear 300mm lens, having nothing less than a whale of a time myself.