Barbados landscape shot on Kodak Ektar 100 film — Hawthorn Photo

I picked Kodak Ektar 100 for this trip intentionally. The light in Barbados is serious — direct and saturated in a way that asks something of you — and I wanted a film that could hold its own against it. Something with enough backbone to match the environment rather than get washed out by it.
I was right to bring it. But it surprised me anyway.

I shot mostly landscapes and florals. Slow subjects. The kind of shooting where you’re not chasing anything you’re just standing somewhere and deciding whether it’s worth a frame.
What I kept noticing was how Ektar handled the edges of things. The line where a petal meets the sky. The shadow a flower casts on itself. The horizon where Caribbean blue stops and something else begins. There’s a contrast to this film that gives everything a kind of definition not harsh, just present. Like it’s paying close attention.
That felt right for Barbados. Nothing there is vague.

I’ve shot a lot of Portra over the years and I love it, but Portra remembers the way we want things to look. Soft. A little golden. Safe in the best way.

Ektar remembers how things actually were. It doesn’t editorialize. The blue was that blue. The green was that green. There’s something almost stubborn about it a refusal to flatter when the truth is already enough.

I’m still going through the scans slowly. Some of the florals stopped me in a way I didn’t expect — there’s a specificity to them that feels less like photography and more like looking at something for the first time. The color is so committed, the structure so clear.
I don’t know if Ektar is for every trip. But it was right for this one.

Shot on Kodak Ektar 100 | Barbados