Marissa Lewis - An Interview
I was flicking through my usual feed of Instagram photos when I came across Marissa Lewis' account. I immediately sent her a DM to see if she would collab and give me an interview to put on here.
2 days later we were chatting over Facebook chat like we'd been friends for years. Want to see her photos and read our chat? Wait no more; here it is.
Marissa: Hey lady! I hope this is the correct Facebook haha. I just received your email! ☺️ So do you want me to send you my top 10 favorite pictures or talk first? Whatever is easier for you!
CarolanneRose: Heyyyy! It sure is! ✌ nice going! Ok if you're ready lets start! Tell me a little about you?
M: I was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and I am still living there to this day. Definitely hoping not to live here forever but just going with the flow of life! I love traveling and seeing new places which is a lot of what my photos are from. I am currently 23 years old, not in school -haven't really found what my calling is in life just yet! Currently enrolled in a traditional black and white dark room class at one of Alberta's colleges' and this will be my third time taking it, it is just for fun but it is something that I love so much! It is a great escape from this crazy busy world!
C: That's great that you're taking darkroom classes. You're really surrounding yourself in the art form! So when did you first pick up a film camera?
M: There's something about the darkroom that is really relaxing and allows me to stay in the present moment. My mind is constantly wandering and I worry about silly things but that all seems to go away in the darkroom. It's a great escape. I would say I picked up my first film camera in grade 10. I used to skip French class and spend time with my good friend at the time in her photography class. We took a couple pictures of each other then she later on developed them and made prints in the schools darkroom. It was a very brief experience with a film camera. About 4 years ago my boyfriend bought me a lomography fish eye toy camera so I really began with that. It would have been almost three years ago now that I got my first SLR which was a Pentax k1000. Now I own about 12 different cameras!
C: Oh woah! I find that with a lot of film photographers. We can never stop at one. Can you list them all?
M: I have 2 Pentax k1000, canon ae-1, canonet 28, pentax mz-5, lomography fish eye, Diana mini, ultra wide and slim (although I have never had luck with that one), Ricoh 35 flex (this one is actually their first SLR camera), Olympus trip af 5-2 and I have 4 instant cameras (instant 210, instax mini 90, Polaroid 420, and a Polaroid 600) but I honestly mainly use my canon ae-1.
C: That is quite the collection! A lot of people rave about the ae1. What's so great about it? Do you have a favourite shot taken with it?
M: I mainly like to use my canon because I love taking portrait double exposures. With my canon, the process of taking double exposures is much easier and it's something I can't do very well on my Pentax. My Pentax I will mainly use for long exposures of the stars which is another one of my favorite kinds of photos to take. If I had to choose my favorite picture as far as double exposures on that camera I seriously have so many favorites. But one of them would definitely be this one from a couple summers ago.
(That photo was taken using rollei black bird which is a very high contrast film. With black and white photos for me personally, the more contrast the better!)
C: That's such a gorgeous photo. What's your favourite film to shoot on for black and white? (Apologies for the delayed responses) Do you play around much with different film?
M: Personally I love rollei black bird, but also ilford hp5 you can never go wrong with! It's an all around great black and white film. I also like to try mostly all of the ilford films, currently trying out the panF plus 50 for the second time! I tried it for the first time in San Francisco last time summer and I loved the results! It's a very slow speed film that gives you a very fine grain. But this time I am trying to do more double exposures with it rather than the travel photos. I find with the black bird it really gives the contrast that I want for double exposures. With color film, I have tried various films such as velvia 50 which produced one of my all time favorite shots on my way up to Yukon Territory a few years back. Lately I find I am shooting more black and white than anything. Usually I only use color films for shooting long exposures of the stars which usually I'll resort to a standard fujifilm or Kodak film! But I've tried some lomography films (such as lomochrome purple), some revlog film, ektar 100 and some rollei slide film!
M: This was one of the shots from San Fran last summer using the panF plus 50 and I was super happy with the results. It's a very gloomy photo and I feel that it really symbolizes that day perfectly. It was a very beautiful day weather wise but my boyfriends car was stolen that morning and we were just hanging out by the pier trying to make the best of what happened and all these birds were flying around and I thought it would be the perfect shot!
C: Oh woah yeah the mood in that photo is outrageously gloomy. I love it. You mention your night time star photos a lot. How did you find your first attempt at these? I have never tried this type of photography but it has always intrigued me. Could you tell me about your first shoot?
M: To me that photo really symbolizes a moment of grief, but also learning to accept things as they are and to move forward! My first ones still turned out pretty great! It all started when I first got my Pentax and shootings stars was something my boyfriend and I did together. And it still is something we do together. It's pretty neat how our photos will always turn out different for each other's! You need to get out of the city, the lights from the city really affect the amount of stars you can see. We went out to Bragg creek which is about 30-40 minutes outside of Calgary. Winter is the best time to shoot stars because it gets darker much earlier. The sky needs to be clear or else you won't get the photos you are looking for. I was still learning how to use my camera so at that time my boyfriend did help me quite a bit. It was very cold that night, spent a lot of time sitting in the car (keep in mind it's winter and we are close to the mountains!) it takes a lot of patience and a lot of waiting. (Your exposure can go anywhere from 10 minutes to as long as you want!Depending how long of star trails you want! Thank god for shutter cables!) but it's was like Christmas! With long exposures you don't know what to expect! It all really has to do with film speed, which for some reason I have always liked a 100-200 iso which seems odd since you would think a 400 would be best but I find it can add too much light to your photos. After that night, my boyfriend and I were hooked and it was something we always did together. Unfortunately the last time we went was New Year's Eve and we went out to Kananaskis country where I shot one (out of many) of my favorite shots! It's something I wish I could do much more often.
C: These look absolutely stunning and in fact are the main reason I wanted to talk to you. In terms of next steps for your photography What are you looking to try next?
M: Honestly I've never really thought of it haha. Right now I'm trying to focus more on making prints since I am in that darkroom class again. There's really an art to it and tons of trial and error. It's a great learning process. The teacher I have in that class is truly magnificent! He's so great at helping you think about what you can do to make the best possible print. I've been taking his knowledge and using that to make the best prints that I can. If you ever get the chance to look up George Webber photography you will not be disappointed! I also want to further my knowledge when it comes to developing and processing my own film to be able to do these things on my own and not to rely on someone else doing that for me. Personally I hope to one day to be able to do the whole process myself.
C; It's interesting that you are so involved in the post part of photography as many photogs leave it up to a shop these days. What would be your best piece of advice be to someone starting out in the darkroom?
M: One thing I have learned is patience. Sometimes it will take me a whole class to get a print to exactly how I want it to be. Sometimes you need to do tons of dodging and burning and it takes lots of printing paper and lots of time. But at the end of it all and you get the print you want, that's the best feeling!
M: I would love to eventually try a color enlarger! I have only tried traditional black and white enlargers!
I love the fact that Lewis is so heavily into the printing process. With the interest in film taking such a big hit from the digital age its even more rare to find photographers who are so into the post processing part too.
Please see below some more of Lewis' photos! They are absolutely stunning. If you want to check out her instagram page - click here: @Marissa_Amy.
Hey! Yeah, you. Do you like reading these interviews? Know someone that's awesome that you think I should showcase? Then you should click on the EMAIL ME button at the top of this page and let me know.
Tweet me: @carolannerose
Find me on Instagram: @carolannerose
Pinterest: @carolanne35mm