Unintended Retro

I took another look at the snaps I grabbed with the little Canon rangefinder I purchased not too long ago. More specifically, I was drawn to the lack of quality in the low-resolution scans made by WalMart when I had the roll processed. I decided the images had a fairly retro feel to them. Could be a new photo genre: Walmarta Obscura.

The pictures, the scans that is, almost look (to me at least) like they were snapped thirty or more years ago and with film that was a little past its expiration date. I dragged one into PS (pictured above) and cropped it a bit, screwed with the levels a little, (un)sharpened a tad, and added some sepia toning. This was the only pretty girl pic, BTW, that didn't have an overly-obtrusive flare from a back-light. (That rangefinder's 40mm glass, sans a lens shade, makes it tough to keep the flare-gremlins at bay.)

I'm somewhat taken with the retro look that's been created, not so much by me but by the camera, the film emulsion, and the sub-standard scanning. I didn't intend to give the images a retro look--all I was doing was testing the camera, insuring that it works--but now that I see the results, I might shoot some stuff with the intent of this being the outcome. I might, besides shooting with an eye towards a retro look, "dirty" the pictures up even more in post. I would also consider pushing the film well past its 400 ISO to increase the grain but I'm not sure WalMart's processor does that. Something to look into.

The picture at the top--once again, I cannot recall the model's name--looks (to me) like a snapshot of a 1970s era dominatrix feigning a bit of modesty. (Nipples covered to get past WalMart's censors.) It's not even close to being a memorable snap but it does look to me like it was shot years ago in a fairly non-descript bedroom with a low-end, point-n-shoot, film camera manufactured in the 60s... which isn't far from the truth, regarding the camera, that is.

Sometimes, new ways of doing things are born of crap.

And sometimes not.

Image captured with Canon Canonet G-III 17 w/fixed 40mm f/1.7 prime lens, Kodak BW400CN, f/8 @ 125. C-41 processing. Crap scan courtesy, Sam Walton.