One body, One lens, One roll, One challenge

Great little idea this from Colin Edwards..

Basically, the deal is this. You take one camera body, one fixed lens, one roll of film, preferably mono ‘cos you’ll be devving it yoursen, and you go out and shoot. The project is called Shoot 36, and you can find loads more info on that link.
From the site:

Why?

“Why not? … One body, one lens, one roll is all that’s needed…
To revisit those skills that helped many of us become photographers.
To hone our skills in composition and content.
To use light and the photographic process as they were used for decades before the advent of the digital image.
To remember and relearn our photographic heritage, pay homage to the great photographers of our past and bring some of their brilliance into our photographic futures.”

Here’s some rules:
“One body, as old or new as you like! But film only.
One lens, fixed focal length.
One roll, 36 exposures… B&W, Colour neg or Tranny…shot recently…
No Flash, unless the photograph is impossible without it (caption as such).
Do not change focal length mid roll and make sure you turn off your auto focus (If you feel the need to zoom then move!).
Process your film by hand (using a lab is OK, but caption as such).
Scan images Full frame only and leave in the rough edges direct from the film or print.
Absolutely no cropping!…
Post processing is limited to:
Sharpening to compensate for the scanning process.
Brightness and Contrast to mirror traditional darkroom techniques.
Dodge, burn and spotting to finish.
Captions should be “camera, lens, film and process details”.
Yes …. It’s a challenge but that’s the idea…. Show how good you really are!”

I think it sounds like great fun. One little thing…when I initially read it, and especially the ‘shoot 36′ moniker, I thought you had to show a contact sheet. You don’t, just 6 pics from that roll. I’d like to see a similar comp for the contact sheet. Two reasons…it would prevent anyone from cheating (quell horreur!! cheating photographers? never…not in this modern day and age, surely….) by using frames from different rolls, and you’d also get to see the thought processes, the cock ups, the lead ins, outs, and roundabouts. I remember reading a magazine about 20 years ago called, imaginitavely “Photography”, and each month they used to show a contact sheet surrounding a famous pic. It was always fascinating to me to see how a pro photographer worked a scene or situation.

The above are minor points and I don’t want in any way to detract from the sweet idea.
Go on – what are you waiting for? Oh, a dev tank.
There’s one in the loft.

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