This is the final part of Shoot Film, I’ve really enjoyed writing this series, many thanks to Jen for the opportunity to share some film love and I hope you have enjoyed reading, and have felt inspired to give film a go.

For this final post I will be exploring ways to share your beautiful photos online.

Of course there is always good old flickr, but would you like something a little more professional looking rather than a social networking site; a free, portfolio-style site to upload your favorite images to? Well firstly you will need to do one of several things to get your photographs ready to upload. Either ask for your negatives to be scanned to CD at the time of developing, or you can buy a film scanner and learn how to do it yourself. There are many to choose from, for a wide range of budgets, or you can simply scan your prints with a regular scanner.

These are my five favorite, free portfolio sites and believe me, I’ve pretty much tried everything out there! Don’t be put off by the professional photographers that use the premium versions, the free packages are a great way to show off your best pictures to friends & family, link to your blog or email signature. all require no html or design knowledge and are super-simple to set up.

1. Cargo has a great set of customizable templates and a nice, clean look. You can follow or be followed by other users, but it’s not really a social network as such. The free service gives you 12 different projects, 3 pages (great for an ‘about me’ and blog link) and 100MB storage.

{{genevieve bjargardottir on cargo}}

2. Shownd is used by many freelance designers and photographers, and can seem a little too professional, but don’t let that put you off. It has a huge amount of free space – You can have up to 15 projects, 75 images, and you can import your flickr files easily too.

{{isabelle bertolini on shownd}}

3. Paspartout gives you 5 projects, 35 images, and 3 pages. You can connect your facebook and twitter profiles, it has a really helpful online support and has several customizable options. (I use this site for my art portfolio here)

{{marco woyczikowski on paspartout}}

4. Although Carbonmade has the least storage of 35 images and 5 projects, it is really simple to use. It is also the least customizable options too, so all the free sites tend to look fairly similar unfortunately.

{{evita weed on carbonmade}}

5. Finally, my own favourite is Portfoliobox. The free package gives you 50 pictures, unlimited galleries, fully customizable designs and even password protected galleries if you want to keep some pictures private.

{{manuela morgia on portfoliobox}}

So that’s it! Enjoy a wonderful summer of creating some beautiful and amazing photographs, and then show them off to the world! If you do create a mini-portfolio, I’d love to see it, I’m very nosey like that. Just pop by my blog or send me an email with the link and I’ll swing by.

- Suzie Chaney runs Shooting the Breeze film photography e-workshops, blogs at Black-eyed Angel and sells her film photographs on etsy. Her column, Shoot Film, runs bimonthly on Mondays.

This post was supposed to go up yesterday, but I goofed, so it’s going up today. – jen

Ilse Bing

This week I’m going to inspire you to try an artistic staple, a tradition that stretches back over the centuries. Yes, I’m talking about self-portraits, people.

Self portraits are tough and they can make us feel vulnerable and exposed, but they are a huge challenge, often quite cathartic and certainly a learning curve and a wonderful historic discipline. Think Albrecht Dürer, Egon Schiele, Frida Kahlo, Robert Mapplethorpe or Nan Goldin just for starters.

Egon Schiele

Robert Mapplethorpe

Now think of the advantages; you know yourself better than anyone else, so who better to convey the real you? You have an instant willing subject and it is the perfect opportunity to take your time to experiment with creative techniques and improve your photographic skills and vision without badgering someone else to get involved. Me time = bliss!

Avoid by Eldad Carin

Let’s start by thinking about ideas. How do you want to portray yourself? Do you want to make use of your features, do you have anything unusual or distinguishing about your appearance that you want to feature? Perhaps you want to use props to say something about your personality, or where you are in your life or to tell a story about yourself. It’s important to try and imbue some sense of narrative or strong identity to your photograph, to convey who you are. Easy to say this (and I should take my own advice), but vanity is best left at the door here.

An Exercise in Self Portraiture by John Hill

Getting a selfie right is usually a process of trial and error, getting the perfect pose, exposure and focus. But remember, we are shooting with film, right? We need to nail this! No chance to shoot it over and over again. We just need to prepare well and take our time. The pay off will be worth it. Think about whether you wish to use b&w, which can be faulous for portraiture, a flattering and fine grain colour film such as Kodak Portra or something whacky if that’s the kind of guy you are! (Check back to my last post for film help) Be sure to use the right speed film for your light conditions.

Depending on your camera, chances are you will already have a self-timer on it. Use the smallest size aperture and therefore the widest depth of field you can get a way with, as accurate focusing will be less critical. Set your camera up with a tripod or on a stable surface such as a table or sturdy chair, get an object, a pillow, a stuffed toy or even another person and place them exactly where you will be. Set the focus and exposure, and mark the spot accurately with tape. Most old cameras will probably give you 10 seconds at best on the delay timer, so getting all the elements accurate before you fire the shutter is crucial.

If your camera has a screw fitting on the shutter release, you can pick up a long cable release usually quite cheaply secondhand. They are a flexible long length of tubing, with one end that screws into your shutter release and a trigger on the other. You have to be careful not to include the cable or trigger in your shot, but this will allow you much more time to get yourself set up before you take the picture.

Film by Ryan Jacks

So what if you don’t have a self timer, a cable release or even a tripod? Or maybe you use a polaroid or toy camera. You could try any of the following.

1. Try shooting in a mirror or another reflective surface. In most cases your camera will be included in the photograph, but you can experiment with holding it further away from your face or to one side. You could play with the idea of ‘reflected’ and use props in the mirror with you that say something about you; perhaps memorabilia, or other photographs of yourself as you were growing up ‘reflecting’ your personality. Or what about shooting yourself reflected back through the window of your favorite shop or your home or any building that says something about who you are. You could even photograph yourself reflected back in a puddle.

Testing…..by Christine Holm

2. A self-portrait doesn’t have to be of your face. What about your hands, your feet. You could aim the camera down your body from eye level. Or perhaps you could try photographing your shadow. Best done either early or late in the day when shadows are long, and choose a simple and light colored background such as a pale wall or path.

Polaroid Self Portrait by Leanne Surfleet

3. How about just turning the camera round and tripping the shutter, à la Facebook! Risky, but it can work beautifully, if you get the focus right. You may need to set the focussing ring to the focal length indicated to roughly the length of your arms. For example, 2ft and again use the smallest aperture you can get away with.

Car, Shades, Film by Lauren Skillen

Self portraits with film are a real challenge for many reasons; you can’t see yourself to know how you look until you get your pictures back. Setting up the picture is for sure more time consuming, you spend a lot of it running back and forth from your camera. Focus is difficult if you are using the self timer because you can’t see exactly what your point of focus is, plus there is always a chance you weren’t in the frame when the shutter fired! But they are a completely absorbing undertaking, a lot of fun and very rewarding to do.

So go spend some quality time with yourself and until next time, à vos argentiques, mes amis!

- Suzie Chaney runs Shooting the Breeze film photography e-workshops, blogs at Black-eyed Angel and sells her film photographs on etsy. Her column, Shoot Film, runs bimonthly on Mondays.

photograph by Johan Lindberg

In the last post I gave you some advice about choosing your camera, and what to look for. This time I will be helping you to get started, throw away any reservations you may have about shooting with film and to get stuck in! (Just in case you need any more convincing, take a look at this).

Let me start off by saying one of the main criticisms of film I hear is ‘oh, film is too expensive to buy and develop, that’s why I use a digital camera.’

Well I have to disagree. A secondhand vintage SLR camera is certainly cheaper, far more robust and will probably outlive a DSLR, minimal editing needs means no expensive photoshop or similar required plus no memory cards, rechargeable battery packs…

The next main gripe is that you will waste shots. With your digital camera you can shoot as many as you wish, right? Well let me help you rethink a little. By slowing down, really thinking about your picture taking, how you will compose and frame the shot, and getting the exposure right is a wonderful and totally absorbing art-making process. A discipline once learnt you can also take with you when you use a digital camera, and one that get easier the more you practise.

So now you want to go out and take some photographs. How do you either give yourself a kick start or break yourself out of your photographic rut?

Try some of these suggestions, depending on whether you are a film newbie or a re-visitor to this wonderful filmy world, but in all cases no flash or auto exposures allowed!

• This is something I keep banging on about on my Shooting The Breeze e-workshops, and that is to stop looking for a reason or subject to take photos of, but just get out there and do it! Look at William Eggleston, he saw the beauty in the mundane and everyday, shooting everything from kid’s bikes and roadsigns to dogs. The whole world can be in your own backyard.

William Eggleston

• Try shooting the same thing, landmark or object at different times of day and different weather conditions.
• Step out of your comfort zone; If you usually take posed portraits, go do some street photography, stealthily snapping strangers. If you like a still life, take some action shots. If you take macros, try shooting architecture or if you shoot with a shallow depth of field (ahem, that’s me) try a smaller aperture. If your shots are always urban, get out in the countryside….see where I’m going with this?
• Photograph yourself. Self timer, in the mirror, whatever. When you’ve had enough, go photograph your friends and family.

Self-portrait by Jay Kullman

• Get a little notebook and jot down your apertures, shutter speeds and any other useful notes to refer back to.
• Start a blog, join flickr, share what you have taken and connect with others, look at other photographers’ work. FIrstly it forces you to have to take pictures and keep learning and secondly it’s fun!
• Create photo assignments for yourself, or shoot a project. For example, document a journey; take a sequence of related images that tell a story; or perhaps just a series of purple flowers, whatever grabs you
• Edit nothing.
• Practise, practise, practise. And then practise some more. Concern yourself with your ideas and not your gear. Don’t worry whether your any good or not, just keep on doing it. What’s good to some people is rubbish to someone else; art is subjective so just please yourself and ignore trends.

and above all remember this:

A technically perfect photograph can be the world’s most boring picture.

–Andreas Feininger

Happy shooting!

- Suzie Chaney runs Shooting the Breeze film photography e-workshops, blogs at Black-eyed Angel and sells her film photographs on etsy. Her column, Shoot Film, runs bimonthly on Mondays.