GRAIN

my formative years in film

By Ellie Pritts

January 28^th, 2026

looking back

2013 marks the ten year anniversary of my love affair with photography. Rather than share my best images from this year, I've decided to go all the way back to the beginning: I'm sharing photos that I took in the very first years I began photographing. Many of these pictures have never been shared publicly before. They are all film, shot primarily on my Minolta X-570 and Canon AE-1.

Let's take a look at some of the first photographs I ever printed.

The photo above was taken with a Mamiya on Hoyne St. in Chicago. I loved working with medium format cameras but had a hard time finding darkrooms with the proper enlargers. This was one of the only prints I ever made from medium format film.

The photos below were taken while I was studying photography at Marwen. Marwen is an art education center providing free visual arts classes to under-served Chicago youth.

As students we all took turns modeling for each other, sometimes in front of makeshift backdrops made of bedsheets. In retrospect we probably should have ironed the sheets first.

Both my high school and Marwen are located in downtown Chicago. Whenever I got a chance, I would walk around the busy streets and take pictures of people. Most of the time they didn't notice me. Sometimes they did.

The photos above were taken on Chicago Ave. near Orleans.

The handsome fellow below is my father.

On my first trip outside of the U.S I decided to only shoot black and white film. A lot of people thought that was silly. I'm still not sure if they were right.

Above: photos from Paris, Lac Vieux Desert and Athens

Below: photos from Waukegan, Paris and Chicago

These photos are imperfect, and that's probably why I never felt compelled to share them. My negatives were dusty. My focus was off. But these photos are important and they're a huge part of how I ended up where I am today. I dedicated myself to mastering the technical skills of shooting, developing and printing with film for 6 years before I allowed myself to "go digital". I haven't really looked back since I made that leap but I'm glad I've finally taken the time to.

Photos above and below from Chicago and the islands of Crete and Santorini.

Button Label

The Tom Project

Uncovering the archives of the late Tom Pritts, one photo at a time.

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