Shortly before our pilot tour to Côte d’Ivoire (CI) in December 2019, I was inspired by a photographer named Gunner Stahl to purchase a 35mm film camera. He primarily does photoshoots for musical artists, and does so on film, which creates an effect that is hard to recreate on a digital camera. Because this was my first time ever shooting on film, it was a learning process. I should also mention that this learning process took place in CI, mostly on the bus in between the locations we were visiting. After getting comfortable handling and loading the film, my next step was to take some practice photos out of the bus window.

The one downside of shooting on film is the limited number of photos you can take on each roll, but to me, it makes each photo feel more significant. So after I had taken a few practice photos, it was time to get creative. I was able to use up 2 to 3 rolls in the couple of weeks we were there, and was pleasantly surprised with how they turned out. Being that everyone enjoyed the photos the first time around, when I returned to CI just a few weeks ago at the end of March, I knew I had to bring my film camera again. I used around the same number of rolls of film this trip as I did the last time, and once again I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of the pictures came out great.

Enjoy some of the photos that turned out nicely below!