I often use an old $100 camera, i made most of my self portraits with that. I shoot only black and white, and process the images in my darkroom. I use a not too popular printing method called lith printing which is a silver based process but you can get rich tones and interesting texture. I dont use digital manipulations at all.
I dont really plan my work. Sometimes there are images which I compose in my mind, and I have to wait for a proper place to make them, but thats rare.