A change in direction.
April 6th. Wiper & True Taproom in Bristol. The vibe was an industrial working brewery (during the day the brewery was kegging up, very cool) mixed with a really clean, contemporary taproom space. We got lucky; the weather was beaming sunlight all day, cutting massive, sharp shadows through the warehouse windows.
This was the first real test of my new direction, bringing Super 8 into the mix alongside the 35mm and a digital setup. Honestly? It just clicked. Working this way feels entirely personal. There's no pressure to perform or stage moments for the camera; the workflow just feels right.
I shot five rolls of film that day. For the ceremony, I kept things mostly on digital to ensure I had the baseline archives covered safely. But once the formalities were out of the way, I used the film where it belongs: on the candid, sentimental stuff.
Like the older couple I caught dancing while clutching a slice of pepperoni pizza from Pigs Pizza. I got the close-up as a still frame, and then caught the reverse of the moment on Super 8. You can't script that stuff, and you definitely can't stage it.
When the scans came back from the lab, they were incredible. They aren't "perfect" in the digital sense, I don't have 20 identical frames of the same second to choose from. It’s more organic and real than that. But looking at them, it’s really nice to see that my instinct for capturing aligns with how the moment actually felt.
This is exactly what I wanted Studio Eiko to become when I started three years ago. Less noise, more craft.
