Back in March, I wrote about how I’d bought a film camera. A couple months after that I got a hold of another one, this one with a 50mm lens and manual focus and exposure. Yeah, I went full hipster.
Anyway, my sentiments towards shooting on 35mm film, in that it is a bit of a rebellion against a digital, always-online world. But I’ve also started getting my negatives scanned because, well, they’re cool and I wanna share them with people. I have a Grainery account that I probably oughta put stuff on because, y’know, the Internet, but I still haven’t. Part of the joy of it isn’t from seeking out those likes online, but the photography in and of itself.
There’s also the ~aesthetic~ of it all. I’m not informed enough to know about all the differences between film and digital; I can’t tell you the details about how light is captured differently in each form. I’m sure there is, but I don’t know it. I just know that things look different when captured on film (and I know there’s a difference between 200/400/800ISO film too, but knowing there’s a difference and knowing how to use it besides “it’s dark, I need high ISO” is another matter). The overall effect for me is that film just feels different, the way things show up on film looks different than when I use my phone as a light meter.
On the other hand, while I like not seeing the results immediately (that suspense of did-this-photo-turn-out is a cool part of it), I do get impatient on seeing the photos. But then, that’s also part of the charm of using an outmoded medium, having to exist within the infrastructure that remains. Will I become someone who also develops his own film? That I can safely say I doubt it (but who knows). Maybe the delay makes me more intentional with what I shoot, or maybe it stymies me from doing it more often and experimenting more with different sorts of film.
In any case, I’ve become someone who shoots on film as much as, if not more than, he does digital.
How did I become this person?
Essays, Not Rants! 