President’s Report: Catherine Cattanach talks film cameras

President’s Report

Catherine Cattanach, MNZIPP (Dist.) IV Accredited Professional Photographer

I realised the other day that I haven’t had a film camera in the house for about 20 years. My 15-year-old daughter Eva, like many her age, is suddenly interested in analogue photography and I had very little to show her. Well, to clarify, it’s not the photography itself she’s Olympus point and shoot, but am now the proud owner of an Agfa Billy I with a brown leather case and folding

excited about, sadly - it’s the materials. In particular she wanted some film strips - I suspect she’s been inspired by something she’s seen on Instagram or TikTok and wants to decorate her ever-changing bedroom with them!

I do have a stash of negatives from back in the day but I’m not in any hurry to have them pinned to her wall - they still feel very precious, even though there’s little on them that’s of photographic merit. I was not “a photographer” back then, though I used to paint, and would sometimes take photographs to use in that process. But it would take me so long to fill a roll of film that by the time I got it back from the lab, I couldn’t remember what my settings were. So even if there were and is reading up on the Pentax manual, so we’ll see if that comes to anything or whether she stops once she

some great shots on there, chances were I didn’t know how I had done it.

I did get excited about infrared film and crossprocessing after Alistair and I married in 1998. Our wedding photographer was a house painter and photography hobbyist friend of my parents, who completely lost my confidence on his location-scouting trip to the farm before the wedding. He got excited about the fence in front of the woolshed, suggesting last 20 years!

it would be great to get a photo of Alistair and the groomsmen with their feet up on the fence and their chins cupped in their hands. I decided that all of our photos were going to be cheesy and horrible (which they kind of were, because I never said anything to him), and I was extremely tense throughout the whole shoot. I must have been a complete nightmare client really. We were saved by our friend Ginny, who had infrared film in her camera and who trailed the photographer, lurking behind bushes and taking beautifully ethereal candid photos. Hers are the only ones framed on our wall. Alistair and I are not even in the same photograph, but it doesn’t seem to have boded ill for the relationship!

Ginny inspired me and had a brief flurry of creative film photography before I got my first digital camera at around the same time we had Alexander, in 2003. He was the most beautiful child ever invented, and as it fell to me to document that beauty, the Canon 20D feedback - suddenly I could see my mistakes as I made them, and the learning curve was steep. I don’t even remember what became of my film camera.

But now I suddenly have FIVE film cameras in the house, as of last week. My mum turned 75 so I flew to the South Island for her birthday, and while I was there my Dad got out a dusty box labelled “old cameras”, inviting me to take whatever I wanted. I passed up on the bellows, and Dad’s gorgeous old Kodak box Brownie. He photographed the Queen with the Brownie when he was 14 - held it above his head and pointed it above the crowds in her general direction, and actually got a halfway decent shot with her turning towards him. It wasn’t in focus, but that didn’t stop him making quite a haul by selling prints to his schoolmates.

I also have Dad’s old Pentax ME Super, a Ricoh XR-10 and various lenses. Well, Eva does - she is very excited has her first strip of negatives back! The Ricoh had a roll of film in it, so I’ve brought that back to Wellington and will take it to Sean Aickin at Splendid for developing - I’m so curious to see what’s on it! Hopefully not a whole lot of photos of paddocks and farm machinery.

The fifth film camera is a lomography Simple Use Reloadable Film Camera with colour negative film and an underwater case. I recently gave a presentation to the Karori Camera Club and they very generously gave me a $100 credit at Splendid as a thank you. The lomography camera seemed a fun way to spend it and to get me away from my computer and out in the world having a play this summer. Part of my brain says the results will be awesome just because it’s film and film’s cool, but another part says hmmmm. We will see. It may be that when I get it developed it’s a big pile of poo, but I will have had fun trying, and that’s worth a lot! And hey, it’s reloadable - the perfect antidote for the ‘instant gratification’ self that has developed in the was put to good use. What was best was the instant

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with your families and loved ones, and that you build in some creative playtime amongst all that relaxing you have planned.

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