Solaris Red

Red is by far my favourite colour. Unsurprisingly, it pops up all time in my photos, and I suspect it always will. Check out my portfolios, especially the MISC series, to see numerous examples.

Interestingly, having shot a lot of red subjects on film, it has become clear to me that film stock is incredibly important when it comes to capturing red. A rather unsurprising statement, as film stock is probably the most important choice wrt to the general “look” of one’s photos. Not only does stock matter, it also matter how you expose it. Some emulsions change how they render red when you over or under expose it, or just shoot it at box speed. It’s one way of manipulating the final outcome. All good fun, but the quest for the “perfect red” remains active for me. Kodak Ektar often comes close, but it’s not a very forgiving film. Slide film like Fuji’s Velvia 50 can be great but is very restrictive. Kodak Portra 800 seems very good, but it’s expensive.

There is one film stock however whose reds I love above all else. I discovered it by accident as I bought a slightly expired roll on a whim at a camera stall on Spitalfields market. It is called “Solaris”, and was made by Italian firm Ferrania. I loved the name so much that I took a punt, and I ended up shooting it at golden hour on holiday on the Isles of Scilly. When I got the roll developed and scanned I was blown away by the warm and vintage feel of the photos. What an amazing film stock this was! See some of these images in the “outside” series to illustrate that point.

I started to research it with an eye of purchasing a good amount for every day use, only to find out that it had been discontinued, and that these days only expired stock could be bought. Curses, what bad luck.

Eventually I decided to take a gamble and I bought some expired rolls of the same stock. I shot a variety of subjects, with some trepidation as the film was quite expired. When I looked at the result it was clear that some rolls suffered bad colour shift while others were still ok, but all results had one thing in common: absolutely GLORIOUS shades of red! Deep. Lush. Technicolor. Vintage. RED.

How sad that I finally found a superb film stock for my favourite colour only to have to face up to the fact that it would soon be completely unavailable. I mourned for a bit, but eventually stubbornly decided to be on the lookout for affordable batches of expired Solaris, and just keep trying to shoot it as long as I could.

Recently I finally found a bunch of rolls that seem pretty darn good, at least in strong light, so I SHOULD get consistent results with them. I think I will shoot them purely dedicated to capturing red on film, and name the series “SOLARIS RED”.

So, to kick things off, this post features test shots. Some of these may end up in the series. I haven’t decided yet. If I can produce enough good images with the rolls I have left I will dedicate a full project portfolio to this.