READING GARDENS
by GINA DOVER-JAQUES
Why Analogue Photography
Why I Work With Analogue Photography
On craftsmanship, connection, and falling in love with film.
I didn't set out to become an analogue photographer.
What I knew was that I wanted to create photographs of exceptional quality. Images with a beauty and permanence that might allow them to be treasured for generations. Photographs worthy of becoming heirlooms.
It was rather by chance that analogue photography entered my life.
I had invested in a one-to-one session with an internationally renowned photographer, without realising that she worked with film. During our time together, she handed me her analogue camera and encouraged me to try it.
Something rather wonderful happened. I fell in love.
Not simply with the photographs, which I had yet to see, but with the experience of making them.
The tactile pleasure of handling a beautifully engineered camera. The deliberate, unhurried process. The attention given to what was happening within the viewfinder. The feeling of crafting an image, rather than simply taking a photograph.
It felt natural almost immediately.
And I knew that this was how I wanted to work.
Learning to see with film
When the scans from my first rolls of film arrived, something extraordinary happened.
From then on, I found that I could look through the viewfinder and visualise how film would interpret what I was seeing.
It wasn't something I had consciously set out to learn. It seemed to happen instinctively.
That ability has stayed with me.
There is something immensely satisfying about seeing a photograph before it exists, trusting the film, the light and the choices I make in that moment.
I don't need to look at a screen immediately afterwards to reassure myself.
I can simply remain with what is happening around me.
The beauty of film
For me, analogue photography has a beauty that is difficult to replicate.
I am particularly drawn to its rendering of colour, and nowhere is this more apparent to me than in a garden.
The authenticity of its greens, the depth it brings to trees and foliage, and the softness of the resulting images are enchanting.
Gardens contain an extraordinary variety of greens, each responding differently to light, shade and the changing seasons. I love the way film interprets those subtleties.
Film doesn't necessarily reproduce colour with scientific accuracy. It has its own way of interpreting the world. Yet there is something about the way it renders the colours of a garden that feels extraordinarily natural to me.
The subtle variations of green, the depth of foliage and the gentle transitions between light and shade seem to reflect not simply what I saw, but how I experienced being there.
Skin tones matter equally to me, particularly when photographing the people whose lives and work are connected with gardens.
I work with a highly skilled professional film laboratory whose understanding of my colour preferences is an important part of the finished result. When my processed photographs are returned as digital scans, I don't alter them.
What you see is the photograph as it has been interpreted through my chosen film and the laboratory's carefully established process.
The pleasure of craftsmanship
I continue to work with vintage analogue cameras, including my Canon 35mm and my much-loved Mamiya 645 AF medium-format camera.
If I could keep only one, it would undoubtedly be the Mamiya. It is a glorious camera.
The Mamiya and its 80mm f/1.9 prime lens are a marriage made in heaven.
There is something wonderfully natural about the photographs they produce together. The lens performs beautifully, even when used wide open at f/1.9, giving me the freedom to work without feeling that I am making compromises.
The exquisite sharpness at the point of focus, the beautiful grain of Kodak 120 film, and perhaps most enchanting of all, the separation between subject and background. The subject can be wonderfully sharp while everything beyond it falls gently into softness.
It creates a depth, an intimacy and a distinctive character that I find utterly beautiful. A look that very few lenses, in my experience, can match.
But my affection for it goes beyond the photographs it produces.
There is something wonderfully romantic about working with a mechanical and physical process. The feel of the camera in my hands, the sound of the shutter, the ritual of changing a roll of film.
I don't experience the limited number of exposures as a restriction. When a roll is finished, I simply change it.
And I love doing so.
It is difficult to explain that pleasure to someone who has never worked with medium-format film. But for those who discover the same connection, I suspect very little explanation is needed.
There is craftsmanship in the equipment itself, certainly. But what matters most to me is the craftsmanship it makes possible.
The opportunity to create something considered, beautiful and enduring.
Connection, on both sides of the lens
Perhaps one of the most important things analogue photography has given me is the freedom to remain present.
I have no desire to interrupt an experience by continually checking photographs on the back of a digital camera, or making repeated exposures simply to be certain I have captured something.
I would rather give my attention to what is unfolding in front of me. And that matters just as much for the person being photographed.
I believe photography can be a more pleasurable experience when the person behind the camera remains genuinely connected with the person in front of it. There is less interruption. Less attention directed towards the equipment. More room for the experience itself.
This is especially important within Reading Gardens.
I don't ask people to repeat an action, pause what they are doing or turn towards a preferred viewpoint. Their experience takes precedence over my photograph.
I observe, respond and accept what presents itself.
Analogue photography feels entirely at home within that approach.
Something worth preserving
I began this journey wanting to create photographs of exceptional, heirloom quality.
That aspiration has never left me.
But along the way, I discovered something I hadn't anticipated.
The experience of making a photograph could be every bit as meaningful as the photograph itself.
The craftsmanship. The attention. The pleasure. The connection.
All of these have become inseparable from the way I work. And perhaps that is why I continue to choose analogue photography. Not because it is the only way to make beautiful photographs, but because it is the way that feels most natural, most rewarding and most entirely my own.