Why Film?
Some people ask me: why do I shoot film?
Digital is reliable, cheaper, instantaneous. You know what you get when you get it. There are very few limitations. It’s easy.
But I love film. I grew up with a trusty 35mm Minolta. My mother worked at a camera shop and would take me into work with her often. I got to see all aspects of film processing from behind-the-scenes. I was very fortunate to have that experience.
When digital came around, I did get a little digital camera in the early 2000’s. Over time, I stopped shooting film. It wasn’t practical, I wasn’t a serious enough photographer–and anyway, where could you even get your film processed? Most camera shops had closed down. After a while, I lost sight of taking photographs. Life got in the way, in a major way. I was in survival mode and not thinking about art.
A recent image from a new project taken on my trusty Minolta. This photograph was the last exposure on a roll of film.
But in my mid 20’s, I rediscovered photography. First using my cellphone, then with my first dSLR, a Canon Rebel t2i. The passion returned. Once people found out I was back into photography, they started giving me their old film cameras. “It’s just collecting dust, do you want it?” And that is how I got back into shooting film.
Rather than keep these old cameras as decorations, I wanted to learn all about them. What did I discover?
Film can be unpredictable. Unless you have a more modern film camera with automatic mode, you have to know what you're doing, or be lucky all the time, to get consistently good shots. Even so, you don’t always know what you’re going to get. There can be light leaks. Colors shift on old films. I recently had a roll of 36 exposures stop working after shot 18. And my beloved Holga? You can’t rely on it to always shoot at the same shutter speed. I’ve taken two photos of the same scene, same lighting, at the same time. And they both came out different! Rather than this being a drawback, I roll with it. I find it exciting to be surprised by what I see when my film is developed. There are happy accidents for sure, but also some disappointments. That keeps things interesting.
Film is beautiful. Fans of digital tell me that there is nothing you can do on film that can’t be reproduced on digital via post-processing. But pros can tell the difference. I’m a firm believer in getting your shot right in-camera and I generally do minimal editing on my images. I love the way film looks. Each stock is a little different, and some are very unique. Grain can be a beautiful thing. I know that there are certain films I can use where the only editing I do after scanning the photographs is to remove dust spots. As long as I get my exposure right, they come out nearly perfect. That, to me, is a lot more fun than testing out different presets in Lightroom.
Film is simpler. Generally, most film cameras are pretty basic, at least compared to digital. I feel like with a dSLR, there are too many options for settings, too many buttons, too much complication. Let me just set the aperture and shutter speed and I am happy.
Film makes quality images. I found the equivalent megapixel count for different kinds of film (here is a great explanation):
35mm – 20mp
120 – 60-120mp
large format – 300-1200mp
All techy info aside, the quality of my negatives is plenty high for the kind of printing that I do. On the other side of the spectrum, some of my digital cameras (like the point and shoot I use) are actually lower quality than my film cameras, and I can’t comfortably print anything larger than an 8x10. True, I don’t have the most high tech digital cameras because most of my energy and money are spent on my film experiments. But I’m not going to drop $10,000 on a Leica monochrom when I can use my hand-me-down Minolta which also takes gorgeous photographs.
Film has major limitations. This sounds like a negative, but I use it to my advantage. One of the things I love most about film is embracing limitations and pushing boundaries. I make mistakes, I learn, and sometimes I end up with something special. I experiment, try new things, and get creative. And I love that there is no instant gratification. The excitement of waiting to develop your film, sometimes even forgetting what you might see, is just great. Nowadays, even when I do shoot on digital, I wait a while before I look at the photos.
Film is cool. Yes, there is also the “Joe Cool” factor (to steal that quip from my mentor). Some film cameras just look badass. TLRs, Brownies, Polaroids… they are just so neat! What fun to learn how to use a piece of equipment like that, and take good photos with them.
A Holga photograph. Holgas have a very distinctive aesthetic that I love.
So that is, in a nutshell, why I almost exclusively shoot on film these days. It’s fun, it’s full of surprises, and so gratifying when something works. What are your thoughts on the topic?
