First, I must say, I love photography. This may seem obvious - and I've probably said it before, but I just wanted to put it out there again. Photography is incredibly powerful and has the ability to transport you to places you wish to return to - or places you've never been. It's like time travel, and I'm a sucker for time travel. (Especially the book The Time Traveler's Wife…so good.) How you get to those moments in time - what tool you use - doesn't completely matter in my book.
When I attended photography school, we were all required to use the same camera - a medium format Mamiya 645. All year long we learned how to shoot - how to see light and compose shots, but more importantly we learned how to expose. If you didn't expose correctly you paid for it, because you were the one processing the film and developing the prints in the darkroom. I loved every aspect of the process…especially the darkroom. I loved having my headphones on and spending hours in the dimly-lit room perfecting my prints. Of course, I also spent hours in the digital lab perfecting images in Photoshop too. We learned it all, and by the time I left school I felt prepared to go out into the world of photography.
I began my career using my Mamiya. Many of my friends from school sold theirs and purchased the latest digital cameras. I wasn't sure…digital just didn't have the right feel for me - film seemed real and tangible. However, a year after graduating a friend asked if I would shoot a wedding with him. He suggested that having a digital camera would make the job easier - especially in post. With his coaxing I jumped in, and bought a Canon 10D, which was brand new at the time.
With that camera I was absolutely sold on digital. I had an immediate knowledge of the quality of everything I was capturing. The immediate feedback allowed me to progress as a photographer at a faster rate. This is the reason why I believe there are so many professional photographers today (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). Everyone has easy access to quality equipment - and there's an on-the-spot learning curve that film cameras just don't provide.
Over the last year or so there's been a resurgence of photographers using film - it's become a bit trendy actually, but I think it's a good thing. I'm glad to see photographers learning other ways of creating the images they want to make. Film cameras can be incredible tools for creating images, but they're just another tool - they're not made of magic and they won't make you a better (or worse) photographer. As a professional, I decide what mood I want to evoke in a specific image, and then I choose which camera, which lens - which tool - will assist me in getting to that feeling.
Lately I've been shooting with my digital camera for most of a session and breaking out my trusty old Mamiya for a roll or two. I've jumped back in to using film. Sometimes film can enhance the mood that has already been set. A similar image could be made with my Canon, but I'm choosing to create these particular images with the Mamiya because, for me, the moment lends itself to film. Plus, I can't deny the excitement of getting a call from my lab telling me I have developed rolls to pick up. I've mentioned recently that I love anticipation - what better anticipation than that of the wait for rolls of film?!
I may not always call out the use of film in my posts, but I think that's okay. After all, that's not what it's about - it's about the photograph - the moment captured. I want you to experience the emotions and the feeling of the image - whether the image was made on film or digitally captured is secondary...and it may not even matter at all.
These two shots remind me of each other. One is digitally captured - the other with film...and I love them both.
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