About
Single Roll Photography: A Blog for Learners and Thrifty Photographers
Thank you for stopping by to visit my blog. Whether you’re here to just read about cameras and film, or here to learn about how to shoot them, I would like to welcome you and express my gratitude for giving me some of your precious time to read my thoughts about them.
My name is Mike and I’ve been interested in photography and what it can be used to express since I was a teenager in the early 90’s. It was a time full of Hypercolor t-shirts and acid-wash jeans. I was enthralled by the “Image is Everything” commercials starring Andre Agassi and the plastic fantastic Canon Rebel cameras. I didn’t know much about photography but I really knew deep down in my soul my life would be better if I could just get my hands on that camera. Unfortunately for me, my family just wasn’t in the place to spend $650 ($1440 in 2023 dollars) on what most likely would be a fleeting hobby for a 15 year-old boy.
What we did have however was a heavy black Minolta X700 bought at Sears with the same fabric “Hippy” strap every new package came with at the time. I had no idea how to use it, no understanding of shutter speed, ISO or Aperture and my pictures showed how important all those were. I wasted so many rolls of film trying to make even a half decent photo, and was very rarely successful. I felt incredibly important every time I was allowed to use that camera and still think about a trip to Chicago with it every time I take my current X700 out of storage. I went back to Chicago in 2021 and was able to recreate most of the photos I took in 1992 but now with an understanding of how to use light and settings. Even using a camera launched in 1988 (Nikon N8008s) the photos were infinitely better. I also got a lot more attention shooting a film camera than I expected. Shooting film does not seem to be a hobby for someone that doesn’t want to get asked questions and talk about film photography.
As much as I wish I had started photography in the early 90’s and continued through today, I just didn’t. It was an expensive, and quite frankly, overwhelming pursuit. When I would try to learn even a little bit about it, there was just so much confusing information about how to create the photos I wanted. Seeing Ansel Adams’s prints on friend’s walls and even combat photos made me want to learn but there was just no way I could dedicate the time and money to getting any satisfaction from it. We had young kids, a mortgage and jobs with multi-hour commutes that just consumed so much of everything I didn’t even consider taking just a little at a time. Somewhere around 2019 a friend posted some photos on Facebook they shot on film. They had just gotten back into shooting 35mm film a few weeks earlier and to be quite honest it resparked my interest and I decided to buy the next camera I found at a garage sale. I didn’t know the first thing about what I wanted, but I knew I wanted to try it out.
As it turns out, the summer of 2019 seemed to be a banner year for garage sales and just about a quarter mile from our house I found my first film camera stuffed into a khaki canvas bag with an extra lens and a book on how to use it. For $20 I had a very nice Canon AE1 Program with the standard 50mm f1.8 lens and a telephoto I ended up giving away. Despite my best efforts I just never felt comfortable using the camera even though every article I read said it was considered to be one of the absolute best for a beginner. I gave it my best effort to grasp the concept, but after a few months and on the verge of just giving up again I decided maybe I just needed to try something different. Canon makes an excellent camera, but as I’ve told many people over the last few years everyone that shoots photos will have a different preference. The most important thing is to find what works for you and learn to use it to its best ability. I landed on Nikon as my brand of choice entirely by chance when a local guy was selling “a box of cameras” as he had fully switched to digital and had no need for film bodies anymore. When I asked what he wanted for the two I was interested in he asked me what I would offer for the full kit. I ended up getting what has turned out to be my favorite camera (Nikon FM2) for $16 after I resold the rest of the collection. Using the FM2 has generally become the standard for other bodies I try. I still look online for new gear and specifically like to look for “box of cameras” type ads because there’s always a treasure in there somewhere, whether it be a new camera, a vintage tripod or some long expired film I have no idea will even properly expose a photo.
The journey I’ve gone on to learn photography, use new (vintage) cameras and try as much as I can led me to create this blog. My intention is to document more of what I learn, where I go with my cameras and offer help to others make decisions when they want to buy new gear. I am not a technical details kind of shooter, but I like to make photos and some of them turn out pretty good. Does everyone need a Leica or even a Nikon? No, absolutely not. They work great for some people, but for others it’s just an expensive status symbol. I believe every camera can be used to create an amazing photo in the right circumstance and with the correct technique. Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier Bresson and Vivian Maier didn’t have autofocus cameras and created amazing works using only Black and White film. Shooting a roll of film through a 70 year-old Rangefinder is a pretty incredible experience. Over the past four years I’ve had cameras from Anthropologists, professional photographers, combat photographers and retirees that shot a roll of film before putting the camera away for the past 40 years. Single Roll has been born through my desire to use every camera that passes through my hands by shooting at least one roll before making a decision to keep it or let it go on to it’s next owner.
If you’ve made it this far into my writing and have any suggestions for future posts, have gear you’d like me to write about or just want to help me improve I would love for you to reach out to me. If you want to purchase a copy of any of the images I post here I am happy to get one to you. They are all taken by me and I do my best to use them unaltered besides getting rid of dust and scratches on the negatives. Even now it can be pretty difficult to keep negatives clean.
I hope to see you all when I have more posts and I am really looking forward to learning along with you.