Why I Still Shoot Color Film: Inside a Darkroom Print

I got serious about photography in 2018. I've written about this in an earlier edition, but I was staying in New York for three months back then, and meeting street photographers there — and running into William Eggleston's work — is where I really began as a photographer.

When I started out, I shot color film. Smoking Lady, the photo I'm probably best known for, is from that same year. Shot on Portra 400.

Smoking Lady - 2018

Then around 2021, I moved over to black and white.

Back in 2018 in New York, a roll of UltraMax was something like 4 bucks. In Tokyo, Fujicolor Industrial 100 was around 380 yen, roughly $2.50.

Color film has gotten expensive since then, and honestly? I don't think you need to go out of your way to shoot color on film anymore.

People say things like "film just has that texture," or "the colors are better."
But if the photo is only ever going to end up on social media, shooting digital and pushing it to look like film is easy. Trivially easy.

And if you shoot it properly and scan it properly, film gives you something far sharper and more beautiful than a digital file anyway.

These 5x7" prints are $35 as a set with the newspaper zine, with free international shipping. Orders close on the 10th.

Still, I do shoot color film sometimes. It's when I want to make a color print in the darkroom. So this time, let me show you what goes on behind one.

A little while back I rented the darkroom at Place M, a gallery in Shinjuku, and spent the day making color prints. Place M is a gallery whose owners include Daido Moriyama.

I can make black and white prints in my own darkroom at home, but color needs a processor, so I always rent the darkroom at Place M.

In case you've never heard of a processor: color darkroom printing has to happen in complete darkness.
No red safelight, nothing. It's so dark you lose track of whether your eyes are open or closed.

Normally you'd move the exposed paper through developer, stop bath and fixer by hand, tray to tray with a pair of tongs.
With color that's extremely difficult, so you use a machine called a processor that automates everything from development through fixing. (You can still do it by hand, of course.)

The processor used for color darkroom printing

But the dark isn't the hard part. The hardest thing about color darkroom printing, for me, is building the color.

In a darkroom print, light passes through the film negative in the enlarger and exposes the paper, and the image forms there.
Photography — literally, drawing with light. And you have to build the color yourself, working with the primaries.

The enlarger has CMY dials — cyan, magenta, yellow — and those three dials are all you get. You use them to hunt for the color you're after.

Say your test print comes out leaning a little red overall. Then you dial up the magenta and the yellow.

Color cast in the print	Filtration to adjust
Too cyan (light blue)	Decrease M and Y
Too blue	Decrease Y
Too magenta (deep pink)	Increase M
Too red	Increase M and Y
Too yellow	Increase Y
Too green	Decrease M

Honestly, I still lose the thread sometimes. So I keep adjusting and keep making test prints.

For this one I made 5 test strips before I got to the color I wanted.
In this photo, I like the bluish one second from the right — but I wanted the warmth in the woman's skin to come through, so I took the redder version as my base and worked the brightness from there.

Writing down the filtration for each test print. Future me needs this.

Just making test prints like this, an hour goes by without you noticing. But a print you've put that kind of time and effort into, you end up attached to it.

Some of you have already ordered one, and I really want you to hold this print in your hands.

Everyone defines "film-looking" differently, but you won't find any of that low-resolution film-ness here.
If anything, some people might be surprised it was shot on film at all. What you will feel is the particular color you can only get from film, and only from a darkroom print.

This is the August issue of the monthly zine project: the 5x7" print and the newspaper zine as a set. You can also buy it on its own, and international shipping is free.

This is the only time you'll be able to get one of my color darkroom prints at this price. Orders close this Thursday, the 10th. Go check the page now.

GET THE PRINT NOW