João Oliveira on Recoloring an Expired Slide Film with AI

Film photographer João Oliveira (@SHOAO) returns to the Lomography Online Magazine to talk to us about his 2023 expired slide film project, where he used a combination of editing programs and free AI tools to recolor images from an expired Fujichrome Provia 100D. The slide film, which held memories from his trip to Patagonia with friend and fellow film photographer Juan Marino (@JUANMARINOARG), became his project for a few months.

As AI finds its way into the media we consume, many of us have no doubt been wondering about the threats or advantages such programs pose to film photography. But with this project by João, we look at one way we can use AI with discernment in order to fulfill our goals with film photography: to help immortalize important moments on film.

Hello, João! Welcome back to the magazine. How have you been since Lomography's last interview with you? Have you been working on anything film-related?

Since the last interview, I've moved back to my home country, Brazil, took some sabbatical months, traveled a bit, learned how to bake, played with cyanotypes, and started to create a board game. All sorts of unrelated creative activities, but one that never quits me is film photography.

I always try to bring a camera with me - the Lomo Fisheye No. 2 being the latest addition to the family - which has been really fun to use.

We were intrigued by your project where you recolored images from expired roll of Fujichrome Provia 100D with AI. Can you tell us where you got the idea for this?

This project actually started with a bad idea: to buy a slide film that had expired more than 15 years ago and was poorly conserved. I found this Provia 100D in a flea market in Buenos Aires, sitting there more like a decorative piece, and for some reason, I decided to take it with me on a trip to Patagonia.

All was good until the lab told me there was nothing to see in the developed film. They wouldn't even scan it. When I got my hands on it, there were some hints of shapes. So, I sent it to a second lab, which did a good job scanning what was almost invisible.

That's when the idea hit me. It was about persistence, nostalgia, and reviving what seemed lost and gone. The whole process took a few months, from shooting to recoloring. Sometimes we just forget what's inside an unprocessed film roll, right? And there they were, washed out, colorless, and lifeless pictures of an important trip to me. They deserved better, as all good memories do.

Which programs/apps did you use?

Adobe Lightroom for contrast and color adjustments, Palette.fm for colorizing, and Bigjpg for resizing. I used free AI tools available at the time. The tech has evolved a lot since then, and there are probably tools that could do it a lot quicker and better now.

Please walk us through your process.

After deciding to revive the photos, a long and time-consuming process started: enhancing contrast on Lightroom, testing eight to twelve color palettes for each picture on Palette.fm, selecting one variation and resizing it on Bigjpg, one by one, then back to Lightroom for fine tonal adjustments. I'm not the biggest fan of extreme digital modifications over film photographs (also not against it), but in this case, it was necessary.

The intention was never to be authentic to the color tones I had captured in Patagonia, much less to the Fujichrome Provia, which I haven't ever shot before or since. I just wanted to recover the life of those ghost images, and thus my own memories as well.

Speaking about the photos themselves, can you tell us about the trip and what you photographed? Why did you decide to take a film camera and expired film?

It was my second time in Patagonia. I was visiting my good friend @juanmarinoarg, who is also a great photographer. We were hiking, kayaking, and biking around the mountains and lakes for 10 days or so, always carrying our cameras.

That was the best kind of trip I could have back then. As in all of my most creative moments, I was healing. Maybe that's why I put so much effort into getting those images back to life. They were meaningful to me.

The fact that I took that awfully expired slide film on that trip was the result of sheer curiosity (or ingenuity). It wasn't planned at all. I only made it a personal project months later, after some experimentation with AI. It was a shoot-first-think-later kind of process.

In general what's your opinion of AI finding its way into film photography as a craft?

Here we are, shooting film photography years after the whole industry almost collapsed, right? Sometimes I tune into FM radio when I'm driving. Some of my friends like to collect vinyl discs. AI is just like every other tech innovation, it's probably going to bite a big chunk out of the design, illustration, and photography industries in the next few years.

Those changes can be frightening and stressful for people who worked hard to master a skill that is on the brink of being overcome, or at least heavily modified (as an industry, not as an art form). That's the logic of the economy. But that's not the only logic that counts. I just think we must keep doing things that are good for us, that fulfill our artistic needs. If AI happens to help you with that, use it. If not, keep doing what you do best.

Do you have any tips for other photographers who may want to try out the same process you did?

Don't be afraid to try new things. It doesn't have to be AI if it doesn't make sense with what you want to say or show. If it does, then take some time getting familiar with different tools, explore until you find what works better for you.

You will learn how to do it while you do it. In the beginning, you will probably struggle, but there's a lot of fun to be found at the end. I promise.

We'd like to thank João for sharing about his project with us! To view more of his work, visit his LomoHome and Instagram Page.

written by sylvann on 2024-06-20 #people #places #tutorials #patagonia #ai #shoao #joao-oliveira Share Article