Film Photography in the Digital era

Its 2019 and digital imaging technology has matured more than my 33-year-old brain will ever be. It has never been easier to take photos and access top quality equipment that out resolves most people capabilities.

Despite all of this there is a growing number of creative types who have been taking a step back and going the way of capturing photons with Silver-Halide Crystals painted on a thin piece of plastic…film that is!

When I first started taking 'mindful' photographs in the late 90's and early 2000's digital photography really wasn't a thing. Yes, there were digital cameras such as the Nikon D1 although it was $17,000 and a whopping 2.7 Megapixels making it both inaccessible and pretty useless to all but those working in photo journalism for one of the large daily papers or news agencies. With this in mind, 35mm and medium format film were the industry standard.

When I purchased my first camera, a Nikon F80 I remember drooling over the medium format cameras that were at the same price point as the digital Nikon D1 although these had significant resolving power in comparison to the digital cameras of the day. Back then it was not the norm to talk about resolution in megapixels like it is today although to put things in perspective, if scanned on a Drum Scanner these medium format cameras would resolve between 50 and 80 megapixels! To contrast this, 35mm film generally can resolve up to 13 megapixels. Not bad for camera technology that have been around since the turn of the century!

As I settled for the much smaller and more affordable Nikon F80 SLR and began the addicting journey of combining the creative process of photography with my passion for climbing. It did not take me long to discover the work of Galen Rowell who to this day I still find to be the most inspiring photographers of our time.

Galen who was both a badass climber, racking up many first ascents, and was also known as the leading adventure sports photographer of his time. Despite being at the top of his game and in a spot where he could most likely have any camera in the world, he still chose to shoot on 35mm Nikon SLR's, just like the one I had. This allowed Galen to maintain his role as a climber while also documenting the climb on film. Looking at his photos it's hard to believe that many of them were taken as far back as the 1970’s with their vivid colours and action-packed scenes, sharp with detail. As I continually look back on Galen's work to this day I am still awe-struck by what he accomplished between the early 1970’s and early 2000’s. His work, despite utilizing decades-old technology still rivals that of the top adventure photographers today, both in content and technical merit.

This inspired me to carry my camera everywhere and‘Be a witness’ to the events and natural scenes around me. That Nikon F80 and the cameras to follow came with me everywhere, from high school to climbing trips and nights out on the town with my friends. I was that kid, the nerdy one with a full-size SLR out all the time, interpreting life through the lens.

Fast forward to current times, digital is king and has enabled us high resolutions, fast cameras, forgiving workflows and fast turn around times. It is really hard to complain about this evolution and to honest, I am super thankful for it.

That being said, as someone who started out in the film era I have bared witness to this evolution first hand and seen a new bread of photographer be born. One who lacks the discipline of having no more than 36 shots per roll and not being able to see those shots for sometimes days after.

As a film photographer, you need to become extremely confident with your craft, and visualize photos in your mind and not on the back of a cameras LCD screen.

Despite starting out on film, watching this new breed of photographer be born and ultimately critiquing their lack of craft, I can't deny that I too have adapted to digital and taken advantage of its instant gratification to see if I exposed the frames right, nailed focus and share those frames quicker then you could shake a stick at me.

Being realistic, I doubt I could deliver the work that I do today without the advantages of digital. Does this mean that film is dead to me though?

In late 2018 I found myself being a nerd (nothing unusual here) browsing cameras on the internet and discovering a bunch of used film cameras. Many of these were notable cameras that I had owned and shot with such as the flagship, Nikon F5. There were also many medium format cameras listed. The crazy thing was that despite all these cameras being thousands and thousands of dollars back in the day when I last looked at them, today, thanks to digital they were almost all under a thousand dollars! Whoa, I could have my dream camera, a 6X6cm medium format for less than the cheapest piece of principle camera gear in my digital kit. I was weak, in need of some retail therapy and just could not resist snatching up a Bronica SQ-A Medium Format Camera, two lenses and two film backs.

I justified this with an assignment which had some merits to being shot on film (that is my story and I’m sticking to it!) and figured I'd keep the camera around to shoot personal projects on here and there... That was all true although I quickly became addicted to the near meditative process of shooting film again, especially on such a large format such as 6X6. Everything is bigger with medium format. The depth of field makes 'full-frame' digital cameras look like tiny sensor point and shoots, this makes focusing much harder, with a much bigger negative means only 12 shots per roll. The shutter is also much bigger which can provoke notable vibrations, causing slight motion blur at slower shutter speeds as well if you are not careful.

All these hardships though have their rewards. You truly have to work for the shot and no doubt you will come home with a roll of film that might only have a few frames that turned out well... but when you first see those few frames you will be struck with a warm, fuzzy feeling of joy. Those few frames you earned!

It didn't take long for this addiction of shooting film to get the better of me. Before I knew it I had re-taught myself how to develop film at home which not only saved me a ton of money on processing, allowing me to shoot film more frequently but also allowed me to remove that one negative of shooting on film which was the turn around time of dealing with a photo lab. I was now able to shoot a roll of film and by the next morning have it scanned in and ready to distribute.

Although I still primarily shooting digital, I have made a commitment to keep my now trusty Bronica in my bag as much as possible and shoot it on as many assignments as I can. Even if it's just a few frames, I think there is something special to be said about not taking a picture but rather making a picture. When shooting and subsequently developing film you truly have made a physical photo. This is something that cannot be done on digital.