Portra 400, a Digital Film

"Film should be bad. Otherwise it just reality." I heard this from a journalist in a second-hand camera shop in Naha, Okinawa. The words jumped out of his mouth after I asked him how he would rate the Harman Phoenix 200. Just like what he mentioned, the Phoenix 200 was a film with strong personalities and temper. You should never expect that film to burst anything you would normally expect from a digital camera (in most cases, your smartphone). However, the Kodak Portra 400 was like another extreme of the Phoenix where it produces images in high alliance with modern digital cameras. To me, I would say it's a remarkable film but lack of the "film soul".

What I known as the film

I would say that Harman produce the images that most aligns with what I known as "film". They are grainy, lack of contrast, low dynamics, and saturated with twisted colour tonnage. I like how the film was unpredictable and surprise me with a totally different feeling that I encountered at the scene.

I later realized that my tendency towards this kind of aesthetic style inherits from movies. To be more specific, movies that have bald images and colors.

They use color to express intentions, emotions, and impulse. To tell stories without lines but through visual indications. That is the touch that makes an image unique and time-enduring.