It came out first in 1940, when Europe was plunged into war but America was enjoying the dying days of calm before the storm. It was Kodak’s new black-and-white film, designed to be shot on location. The only problem was, it was only available in large format.
Fourteen years later, it came out in 35mm and 120 and quickly became a staple of news photographers and photojournalists; a monochrome film that could be pushed and pushed and pushed again, creating atmospheric pictures on overcast days and in gloomy interiors.
Along with the long-lost Kodachrome, Kodak’s Tri-X might be the most iconic film the American photographic giant has made. It is 62 years since Tri-X was released; a 400-ISO black and white film that, it seemed, could always get an image. Its characteristic grain and chalk-and-charcoal contrast were matched with its flexibility when it came to development. Tri-X became a staple for everyone from war photographer Don McCullin to rock photographer Anton Corbijn, punk legend Pennie Smith to the masterful street photographer Garry Winogrand.
I started shooting my Soundcheck Sessions project in 2004 photographing Nashville’s Lambchop in the Croatian capital Zagreb, and had a few rolls of Tri-X with me. One of the band’s crew had developed Tri-X in a previous job working in a photo lab. “Man, you can push that stuff so far it comes round the other side,” he said over dinner. He’s not wrong.
If the picture couldn’t be captured at ISO 400, then Tri-X could be pushed to 800, or 3200, or even 6400; change the camera’s meter to the desired ISO, and you or your lab make the necessary adjustments to the development time. The grain increased, sure, but the contrast remained. As Wired put it, Tri-X has been stamping it’s “gritty authority” since the 1950s.
Back in 2014, as Tri-X celebrated its 60th anniversary, the Economist’s Intelligent Life magazine put Kodak’s veteran monochrome film under the spotlight, interviewing the likes of McCullin and Corbijn about their experiences using the tried-and-trusted Tri-X. “The story of Tri-X is unique. It goes to the heart of how we see and what we see and what we may be losing as billions of casual, digital snaps are taken daily and as photographic integrity is subverted by the dead, flawless, retouched faces of actors and models that gaze blankly out at us.”
Corbijn and McCullin had both panicked at the news of Kodak filing for bankruptcy protection at the beginning of 2012. “I bought 2,500 rolls,” Corbijn told Intelligent Life’s Bryan Appleyard. “My studio in Holland has three floors and there’s a fridge on each floor, all full of Tri-X.”
Corbijn and McCullin’s fear proved to be overstated; Kodak Alaris, the film-producing company that emerged out of Kodak’s restructuring, has pruned its portfolio of films but Tri-X remains.
Tri-X wasn’t designed for the safe, predictable light of studios. It seemed a film best suited on location, in subdued light.
It’s no mistake that many music photographers, shooting bands under the hard lights of the stage or in unsophisticated set-ups backstage or in hotel rooms choose Tri-X. Pennie Smith shot the cover of The Clash’s 1980 meisterwork ‘London Calling’ on a Pentax ES II and Tri-X, freezing in time bassist Paul Simonon’s destruction of a four-string.
Jane Bown, The Observer’s portrait photographer par excellence, shot Tri-X her entire career. Her keep-it-simple approach married Tri-X to an Olympus OM-1 SLR, set to f2.8 and 1/60, and what light she could work with from a window. It’s in such off-the-cuff situations that Tri-X shines.
Then there’s the grain. Tri-X has never had the smoothed out even-ness of many black-and-white films. Grain was always apparent, more so if the rolls were cooked a little more in the developer for push processing. But that characteristic grain seems to have been one of the reasons why Tri-X is still part of the Kodak roster; many photographers are finding a real difference between film grain and digital noise. As the Leica blog Leicaphilia put it, “the organic quality of the grain and how the medium itself, with its random imperfections, was a necessary part of the image itself. And now we shoot film for the grain.”
I used Tri-X a lot in the early days of my Soundcheck Sessions project, alternating between it and Fuji Neopan 400 from shoot to shoot, before deciding to stick with Neopan for the soundchecks and Tri-X for most of my other mono work. I’m not going to pretend that it was a toss-of-a-coin moment, but Neopan was a fantastic film in its own right; Fujifilm decided, in their wisdom, to pull the plug on it back in 2014.
What I have used Tri-X for is for travel and portraits. Any time I travel I’ll bring at least a few rolls of Tri-X with me. It’s fantastic for shooting candids in low light, environmental portraits, and the details of everyday life captured through windows and doorways. ‘Always keep a camera loaded with black-and-white film’ is a pretty good maxim, and most of the time that film will be Tri-X.
Tri-X won’t be a film for sunny summer’s day, but then that’s usually an arena that cries out for colour. But for me, it has been the film that’s captured market traders taking a cigarette break in Ulan Ude; a hostel cat staring at raindrops on an Istanbul window; the moody solitude of a Brussels metro and the greyness of a November evening in Ghent. Portraits on overcast days and in the lamplit gloom of pubs and cafes.
I know that there’s many film photographers who find that crisp contrast of Tri-X too hard – many seem to prefer the more graduated contrast of Ilford’s HP5 (an excellent film in its own right). But Tri-X, like Kodachrome, is a film that helped define photojournalism in the latter half of the 20th Century, and it’s something of a miracle that you can still shoot with a film that documented 1950s jazz clubs, the Vietnam War and the birth of punk.
When you load a roll of Tri-X into a camera, you’ve joined a club, one that includes photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, W Eugene Smith, Josef Koudelka and Jane Bown. A club that’s captured the world, in all its beauty and tragedy, with the gritty grain of a Kodak classic.
* Check out more of my Tri-X pics on Flickr.
* Read Erick Kim’s post about what he learned shooting 100 rolls of Tri-X on the road
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
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I’ve never tried this film (oh, the shame!), but I think I’m gonna buy some (if there’s no B&W film anymore, because I’ve promised myself to use all the film in the frigurator) 🙂
Do try it,. Eva… it’s a truly great film.
Yes. Yes it is.
I currently work with Tri-X! For me it is the only film that matters. When I started my photographic career, in the far ’90s, it was common to find Agfa and Ilford and the world was different. After several tries, I realised how Tri-X was versatile and unique and bound to a selective photographic chemistry. This is the world of “classic” photography: light outside for the picture, dark in the darkroom for the second part of the job. You can’t separate them. If you want to master black & white photography, you have to master both sides of the job.… Read more »
First: I didn’t know the story behind the London Calling cover. So I Googled it and saw the original photo and glory be, there it is: the Tri-X signature look. And I love it that the photo was shot on an ES II! I have one and really enjoy it, and it’s nice to feel a connection, somehow, to that image.
Also: I’d kind of backed into Tri-X being my default film on a gloomy day, and it’s validating to read you sing its praises on days the sun goes hiding.
Cheers Jim! The only reason i shoot with ESIIs is because I was taking pics at a Manic Street Preachers show and Pennie Smith was there too – still shooting on ESIIs. In fact, the one she was using that night was the one she shot that pic with. It still works. I’ve met her since – she’s a great laugh. That picture is rightly lauded, but she told me: “It’s not even the best shot on the contact sheet.” Yep, there are no doubt many photogs who get great results from it on sunny days, but to me Tri-X… Read more »
[…] About the author: Stephen Dowling is a transplanted New Zealander who has been living in London since 1994. He is a writer by day and a photographer in his free time. You can find his photos and writing on his blog and Flickr (where more of his Tri-X photos live). This article was also published here. […]
[…] Is Kodak Tri-X the Greatest Film Ever Made? – Zorki Photo […]
My friend introduced me to Tri-X film, as well as film photography in general, years ago. My first attempt at using Tri-X was nothing short of pretentious. I was eagerly ambitious, carefully composing each photo as I found how different film photography truly is compared to digital photography. And when handed it to the photo clerk in to be developed (I don’t have a darkroom), every single picture blank. With the roll of film turning out to be transparent. Needless to say, I had wasted six dollars, including the fourteen dollars needed to develop the roll, and a whole week… Read more »
Love that film. Makes me want to dust off the Nikon 8008. I stopped taking photos for a long time. Felt like I was walking the planet with a camera stuck to my head. I’ve started taking photos again with a Fujifilm X100t. Good fun. Like most of the others here, I love that this gave some backstory on the Clash photo. My favorite band. Also liked hearing the reference to flickr. I’d sort of forgotten about flickr, and now I’m curious about how it is doing. It was instagram before instagram, but it seems like it didn’t catch on.… Read more »
[…] on film types to shoot before they disappear. Relatedly there is a interesting article about TriX here: “Corbijn and McCullin had both panicked at the news of Kodak filing for bankruptcy protection […]
Sorry for my english… I don’t like triX since the film curves as hell when drying. I prefer Ilford brand for that purpose : films are perfectly flat after drying. From time to time there are quality issues : The last roll of triX I used in 2016 had a strong scratch in the emulsion, all film long. Nothing to do with a dust problem since the scratch was present at the base of the roll.
I have used several 100 foot rolls of TXP & TX over the years. Pushing this film is like pushing any film as the film is processed to produce a usable ISO higher than it rated speed. Push to 800 ok, pushing it to 1600 or 3200 most tones below middle gray in the scene go to black. Some like this look for certain compositions other times it falls apart.