It began as a curiosity. I didn’t quite understand it at first. Film is expensive, developing and digitizing film is time consuming, cameras are older and lack modern features like auto focusing, and with film, you are very limited in the amount of shots you can take. Most 35mm film rolls have 24 or 36 exposures per roll versus the virtually unlimited amount with digital. I didn’t understand why anyone would opt for film over digital. Digital is cheaper, easier, and faster.

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However, the more and more film work I consumed, the more I fell in love with the look. The slightly off color shifts, the grain, the artifacts, all made me feel like I’m peering into a memory as opposed to seeing a “true to life” sterile image from a digital camera.

 

And, to me, this is the beauty of this medium. It brings out mystery and interest in places I would have never found with my fancy digital camera. Being able to hold an image straight from light focusing through a lens and onto a sheet of film is also a special feeling. Seeing so much character in film images gets me excited to try to find interesting subjects in what I would otherwise ignore.

 

The shooting experience forces me to look at the world differently. The process of developing and digitizing also makes these images feel so much more real than going through my SD card of 1000 digital photos and throwing out hundreds without a second thought.

 

Film makes me slow down and FOCUS.