Can I Shoot Nude Film Photography If I Can’t Afford Expensive Equipment and Film?

Absolutely.

There seems to be this strange idea floating around photography that before you can make anything worthwhile, you need to own the right camera, the right lens, a handheld light meter, several lights, expensive film and preferably a bag full of equipment heavy enough to require physiotherapy afterwards.

You really don’t.

And to answer this question properly, rather than just talk about it, I decided to prove it to myself.

For this shoot I used a Minolta Alpha 7, a 50mm f/1.7 lens and a few rolls of wonderfully ordinary Kodak Gold. No expensive professional film. No elaborate lighting setup. No studio strobes. No separate light meter.

Just the camera, one lens, ambient light and a beautiful model willing to spend some time creating photographs with me.

That was it.

Cheap Doesn’t Mean Bad

Film photography has become fashionable again, and unfortunately fashionable things have a habit of becoming expensive.

You can spend an extraordinary amount of money on certain cameras today. Add a fashionable lens, premium film stock, professional processing and scanning, and suddenly taking twelve photographs feels like a significant financial decision.

But none of those things automatically make the photograph better.

The Minolta Alpha 7 is a perfect example. It isn't the camera people normally place carefully next to a cappuccino and photograph for Instagram. It is a relatively inexpensive autofocus 35mm SLR from an era when cameras were designed primarily to take photographs rather than become collectibles.

And it is brilliant.

Stick a simple 50mm f/1.7 on the front and you have almost everything you need.

For nude photography in particular, 50mm is such an easy focal length to work with. It feels natural. You can step closer when you want intimacy, move backwards when you need more of the body or environment, and concentrate on composition rather than constantly changing lenses.

The f/1.7 aperture also gives you plenty of possibilities when the available light starts disappearing.

And Yes, I Shot It on Kodak Gold

Cheap-ish, cheerful, readily available Kodak Gold. And I loved it!

There is something wonderfully liberating about not treating every frame as though you're loading a tiny strip of gold bullion into the camera. Of course, film costs money and every exposure still matters, but using an everyday consumer film somehow removes a little of that pressure.

I used ambient light.

Whatever light was already there became part of the photograph. If it was soft, I worked with softness. If one side of the body disappeared into shadow, I let it disappear. If the room became darker, rather than immediately thinking about how to correct it, I started thinking about how I could use it.

That is one of the things I enjoy most about photographing the nude on film. You don't necessarily need to reveal everything. Sometimes a shoulder catching the light while everything else falls away is far more interesting than perfectly illuminating the entire scene. And no, I didn't carry a separate handheld light meter either. The Minolta already has a perfectly capable meter. I trusted it, made adjustments when I felt they were necessary and got on with taking photographs.

Conclusion.

If you're waiting to start photographing because you think you need a Leica, Hasselblad, expensive lenses, professional lighting and a freezer containing discontinued film stocks, stop waiting. Buy an inexpensive film camera that works, put a 50mm lens on it, buy whatever film you can reasonably afford, find some interesting light (or don’t), then concentrate on the photograph.

And yes, `you can blow cigarette smoke at a model to create smoke cloud effect (or maybe don’t, unless you know the model and she thinks it’s a great idea!).