I know you are probably tired of hearing about film. Analog this, and emulsion that. My brilliant wife pointed out to me the other night that no matter how I try to rationalize shooting film, it does cost more. Flat out. In part because it would take a long time (like 2 DSLR cycles) for the film cost to be eclipsed by the “digital upgrade” costs. And I still store the scans on a hard drive. Ok, so to the point, why do I love it? It’s the process. Similar to building a piece of furniture with no power tools, “just like they used to”. It takes longer, you end up being more deliberate. It’s also less distracting (I keep almost rewinding the film when I try to chimp the back of my film camera). It’s a bit more minimalistic. Technical but without the hoofla of pixel peeping geeks. Sharpness is relative. I was talking with a good friend about it and both he and my wife asked if it’s possible to get the “film look” from digital capture. Sure, it’s possible. But it’s the process. I shot loads of film before I jumped (happily) onto digital. But it’s been nice to slow down. I don’t see my distraction with film as an entirely bad thing. My new challenge is to shoot digital like I’ve shot film. No 8 frame per second “spray and pray”. Single shot. Make them count. So far in the rolls I’ve shot, out of a 36 exposure roll, I’ve had at least 5 keepers (per roll) that’s at least a 15% keeper rate. I wish I could get that with digital (I got 18 out of 36 on one roll, booya!, that’s 18 that were good, not just in focus & exposed properly)
I’ve put a couple rolls through an old body and that will probably do it for me for a good long time. Well, till later this month anyhow. I will confess, that secretly deep down, I think I would love to shoot 100% film. If it was free (or at least only cost as much as digital). Perhaps for now I will just tape off my LCD, and not let myself bracket my shots.
Here is one of my favorite shots from one of my favorite places from a roll of ‘gasp’ black and white film.
Adam Stevens Photography 