SHOOTING CARS ON FILM: FROM SEATTLE BACKSTREETS TO THE INDY 500
Whether it's a morning walk through Seattle or the Indy 500, Staff Writer Victoria Scott keeps her film camera on her at all times.
I'm Victoria Scott, Staff Writer here at Motor1. I'm back with another installment in my series of film shots of vintage cars I've found on Seattle streets. I had been neglecting my walks—and my health—a lot, which is why it's been a little while since my last gallery of film photos.
Since I sit at a desk all day, I was getting increasingly restless and depressed from a lack of movement. I'm also an anxious person, which means I struggle to stay present, instead fretting about past regrets or future worries. It wasn't tenable. I needed to change my habits.
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The first step: make my walks a routine. I wake up at 5:00 AM now, and I roam the streets of Seattle near my home for an hour or two, depending on how I'm feeling. I take different routes, I go different distances and paces; It's more about getting movement in and feeling present in my body and in the day I am living in than it is any sort of measurable exercise.
A big part of how I stay present and actually enjoy the summer weather is carrying around my trusty Nikon F4. By constantly looking for shots, I'm enjoying the moment—the breeze on my skin, the leaves gently rustling, the sunlight beating off the front fender of a 1970s Lincoln—and it starts my day off right. The developed images are almost a side effect at this point, albeit a very happy one.
I've also been getting more adventurous with how I approach film photography, which has led to shockingly good outcomes. I took my F4 and a single roll of film—Kodak ProImage 100, a consumer-grade color stock—to the Indy 500 as a way to make the experience enjoyable for myself. I didn't actually expect to get anything decent, but...
It turns out I could get some good shots, even when panning with a long lens! That was my first Indy 500 and I am incredibly happy I took some film with me (although next time, I'm definitely bringing more than one roll along), because I have some great memories and I still spent most of my time at the race actually watching the race, instead of checking my shots on a screen.
I also recently got a medium-format camera that I've been experimenting with, so my next goal will be to do some kind of automotive shoot on massive 6 x 9 cm film. It's expensive—an entire roll yields just eight photos—so I need to make it special, but I have some ideas.
In the meantime, I'll keep walking the streets of Seattle every morning, looking for anything old and interesting that the light hits just right, and I'll share 'em all when the negatives come back from the lab.
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