The Riddle Of Film

Film. 35mm, 120, sheet, 110, APS, Instant, slide and negative. It's all great stuff, the result of decades of research and development.

Film offers a look and feel that can't be replicated digitally. Work your way through a roll of 120 in an old Twin Lens Reflex and you'll come to appreciate the beauty of a ground glass view finder.

Watch an instant film develop in front if your eyes, or even better share the experience with someone else and the idea that film is yesterday's technology will seem terribly short sighted.

Shooting film restricts us much more than digital. With many choices taken out of our hands, we're forced to concentrate on the artistic side of photography. We shoot tighter and tidier because each frame has an actual and perceivable cost.

Give any digital-only photographer a film camera for a couple of months and they will improve their hit rate and spend more time shooting and less time in front of a computer sorting through images and editing them.

To put it another way, shooting film can be great for your photography.

There is however, a catch.

Films greatest strength can also be a serious drawback. The fact that with every press of the shutter we are creating an artefact, the negative, that has a monetary cost and value, means that perhaps each photo becomes an investment, and as we all know, investments can be hard to let go of.

For the professional photographer film is a commodity that can be costed into a shoot or project, but for the amateur that cost can have a finite limit, which might mean that we become a little too attached to our film photographs.

Whereas with digital shots we don't give a second thought to discarding, with film that can be difficult, especially when you've taken a whole role of 35mm and they're all duffers...

So, next time you're looking through your prints back from the lab, or your negs from the developing tank, try and let go of the natural attachment you'll have to those images, and edit and choose the best like you would with digital.

Shoot your digital camera like it was film, but edit your film photographs like they were digital.

What do you think?

Cheers, Rob.