Nam Quan was sitting in a coffee shop. He cracked open the film box, popped off the film container top, there was a whiff of film, extracted the cassette, clicked open the camera's back, pulled out the rewind knob, inserted the cassette, threaded the leader, closed the back and finally advanced the film. Now he was ready to shoot the world. Compared with digital camera on/off buttons, what a sensuous experience!
Nam Quan, a 20 year old promising photographer, is one among those youngsters fall in love with old-school camera. Although using film, photographer has some difficulty by the certain number of pictures a photographic film roll could contain. But it’s a sacred journey for those who love the smell of Film.
Tell us a little bit about yourself ?
I'm Nam, 20, Vietnamese - have been doing photography for more than 2 years now (started in March, 2008) - starting as hobby and been doing professional work for over 1 year now. Mainly doing portraits, documentary, wedding and commercial.
Why on earth do you switch from Digital to Film Camera?
I started photography 100% with digital. But, over a year ago, my mentor told me to try shooting with film to train myself to be more careful when shooting a picture. Since then I'm starting to do it and love it for many reasons, the color tone, the feeling of shooting film, things that you have to do "make a picture", not just "take a picture"... and a bunch of other reasons. Seriously, it might take you another article to answer why I love film rolls.
What film camera do you own ?
I'm having with me a bunch of different film cameras now. The first film camera I had, also the one that I used to shoot most with all the time is a Minolta X-700. But in the last year, I switch to medium format and hardly ever shoot 35mm format again, though I keep the X-700 since it's a great thing to have and it's a great buddy to me, it taught me a lot. I also have a Pentax K-1000, a gift from my very best friend.
With medium-format, I now mostly shoot with a Hasselblad 503CW after experiencing the Yashica-A and Yashica-D TLRs.
Toy camera is fun and amazing for whatever I do, I have a HOLGA to shoot fun stuff with friends and sometimes do some experimental photography. It's a gift from a young Japanese photographer whom I used to work with.
I see your buddies adopt a film camera as well. Do you know the reason why youngster decide to stay with film?
It's really hard to tell a reason but maybe mostly because young people think it's "cool " to have a film camera in your bag (photography, in the last 2 years, has been becoming more like a trend than an art), some kids consider a vintage film camera around their neck can be a fashionable and trendy accessory, like leather bag or Jason Mraz's hat.
Others who really love doing photography experience it because - as I said, it really push you through all these feelings of making a picture yourself. You'll realize how much you love photography and how serious you are about it when shooting film.
Do you develop your own film or send it off? How often do you use Photoshop?
I shoot color film mostly and hardly anyone develop color film by hands nowadays, they do with B&W film but you can hardly ever find B&W develop chemicals here in Vietnam. I have all of my film developed at the photolab.
I'm not really deep into Photoshop but needed, I will use it to make my picture closer to what I want.
What lessons about photography can someone learn by shooting in film as opposed to digital?
Being careful and patient are the 2 general things that young people will get to learn when shooting with film.
Name your top 5 sources of inspiration.
New cameras, old places in the city, indie music, my expat friends and my girlfriend.
Do you use film for your own project or work ?
I do a lot for my own project/portfolio but never for my work since I never went to photography school and got fully trained to work with film .It's a risk if I try to do work with film without knowing and understanding it. But surely I will do it someday.
What's your favourite topic ? Besides your girlfriends, of course.
Streetlife and documentary.
Btw, I knew your love story but I feel like people would like to hear it. Tell us about her.
Her name is Phuong Trinh. We knew each other more than a year ago after getting into contact with each other onFlickr, , but actually we never talked. I strongly admire her work and check her site all the time.
One day there was this writer working for a Vietnamese teen magazine interviewed me to write about young and remarkable Vietnamese photographer on Flickr as well as the photography trend in Vietnam. I didn't know that she was also interviewed.
When the article was out, she left a message on my flickr site like: "hey, I notice your names is next to mine on the article, congrats..." . And we started talking since then.
After more than 3 months knowing her, I decided to visit her in Hanoi and it's been more than a year since then, I've been visiting her like 7 times during the last 14 months. And I am in Hanoi when answering your questions.
She's using a digital camera - a Canon 450D and a bunch of film cameras as well, a Minolta X-700 like mine, a Olympus Pen-F, a Yashica-D... and some other toy cameras. Of course she's so deep into film photography, too.
What is your biggest challenge as a Film photographer?
The amount of money you have to pay for buying film, having it developed and scanned at the lab... Things getting a bit more expensive than they used to be now.
Who is your most favourite - most influenced photographer?
My bad point is that I don't spend a lot of time looking at people's work and seriously don't get to know many famous people in the industry, but if I have to pick a name to tell, Robert Capa is the one who inspires me a lot in doing documentary photography.
What is your biggest dream?
For myself? A Leica M6 and the production of film rolls never get stopped.
On your Facebook, you more than once said the smell of film is sexay. What about it?
It's real photography.
Here are some of his works on film
Official website : http://www.nam-quan.com/
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/namquan1989
Flickr: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/namq_photo/
Bonus: Nam Quan is a very "bad" influence. He gave me his baby and taught me to shoot. Since then, I am addiction to the sexay smell of film and the shutter's sound. Here are my very first film photos.
