Process 053 ☼ New Kodak Gold film for Medium Format!
GIVEAWAY: a bag of Kodak Pro Gold film
Dear friends,
This week’s letter is an exciting one! Kodak has announced a new medium format color film stock and I got to test some of the first rolls of Kodak Professional Gold 200 for medium format.
This week’s Process Giveaway is a bunch of rolls of these exact new Kodak Pro Gold courtesy of the good folks at Kodak Alaris.
This issue of Process is sponsored by my friends at Glass, an ad-free and algorithm-free photo sharing app. More below!
A New 120 Color Film? Be Still My Heart.
When I was invited to be one of the first photographers to test Kodak’s new Pro Gold 200 film for medium format I was thrilled. We needed some good news in the analog photography community after Fuji discontinuing more great stocks, price hikes due to manufacturing costs, and delays due to supply chain issues during the pandemic.
When I say new I’m slightly misrepresenting the situation because Kodak Pro Gold already existed in several variations during past decades until they were discontinued years ago when film photography looked to be a thing of the past. The two images below were shot in 2018 and 2019 on Kodak Pro Gold 160 that expired in 2000.
But enough about the past! Process is all about the future and with that I present to you another Process video piece wonderfully shot and edited by Luc Satter in which my good friend Dan Rubin and I shoot the first few test rolls of Kodak Pro Gold 200!
Below are some of my favorite frames from the shoot with models Gregory and Latifa. We used only natural light for this shoot at Studio 13’s beautiful daylight studio.
All film was developed and scanned by my friends at Carmencita Film Lab, unless otherwise noted. Use code “PROCESS” at check out to get a free size upgrade for your scans. They accept film from anywhere in the world and I love working with them. Thank you CFL team!
Takeaways
After shooting five rolls of this film, including one outdoors (see below) I can confidently say I love this film stock. The colors render beautifully, the grain is smooth and organic, the latitude is gentle and forgiving, and I just love how it feels. At the risk of blasphemy, I may even prefer it to the classic Kodak Portra for some shoots especially when there is lots of light.
A very welcome piece of news is that Kodak Pro Gold 200 will be around 25% cheaper than Kodak Portra 160, with the exact price being determined by your retailer.
For now, make sure to scroll down to the subscribers-only Process Giveaway to win some rolls of Kodak Pro Gold 200 of your own. Can’t wait to see what you will shoot!
Next week I will share a special shoot from the archives during which I received my most valuable piece of advice from a beautiful and powerful living legend.
Keep shooting and take good care of yourselves and others. See you on Sunday!
Wesley
Special thanks to Latifa and Gregory, Daisy at DMA, Anna Dave for assisting, Luc Satter for the amazing video work, Liske and Elzo at Studio 13, Fotohandel Delftshaven, and of course Dan Rubin for joining me and making everything 10x more fun.
➳ Process Sponsor: Glass
Glass is a photography community and photo sharing app. It's a place where you can share your work, get feedback, experiment, and find inspiration. One of the things I personally love about Glass is that they don’t compress the images so no pixelating!
I asked Glass co-founder Tom to share one of the things he loves about the app and he said: “We built Glass to be your home for photography. To do that, we had to make it safe and that’s why we have a strong community Code of Conduct. By using Apple ID for login and our a small membership fee ($5/month or $30/year), we've had less than a dozen spam accounts since launch. As a Process reader, enjoy a free month trial.”
As a thank you to Glass for sponsoring Process this week I’d love for you to try out Glass for free. I’m a paying member myself and love what they’re about.
Process Giveaway
The good folks at Kodak Alaris have made available a bunch of rolls and three lucky Process subscribers will win three rolls of Kodak Professional Gold 200 in 120 format.
To enter email me at hello@wesley.co using the subject line PROCESS GIVEAWAY 053 before 11pm EST on March 23rd and answer the following question:
What is your favorite non-photographic inspiration? (Name one or more.)
(My answer: The movies Pi and La Haine, the graphic novel Sentient by Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walta, and the album Illmatic by Nas.)
Three winners will be randomly drawn and notified. This giveaway is for Process subscribers only. Subscribe by clicking the button below:
Make sure to show Kodak Alaris some love on Twitter!
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So cool to see you speaking at Substack Tour last week, keep up the great work! 👋