I used to shoot a lot of film back when it was super convenient for me to drive down the street a couple of miles to a local pro lab (Rainbow Photo). Ever since it closed, I’ve had to switch to labs that are at least 10-15 miles out which, in this area, equates to about 20 minutes of driving one way without traffic. All that driving sort of turned me off to shooting film, simply because of the hassle of getting out and back during business hours.
However, I was recently going through some old film scans from a couple of years ago, and the desire to work with film is back. I want to shoot medium format. I want to cross process slide film. I want to work with the limitations/quirks of a particular camera and exploit those. I want to play and have fun.
That’s not to say that my D300 isn’t fun (far from it), but it doesn’t really have any character to it. My Lomo LC-A has character. My Olympus XA has character. My Holgas definitely have character. And, not to get into a film versus digital debate, film still has a certain aesthetic that digital doesn’t have (yet).
As I look through old film shots of mine, I keep thinking “Wow, that looks cool!” I don’t have quite the same feeling looking through my old digital shots. Maybe that says something about how and what I shoot. Maybe I’m just more “inspired” when I work with film. Who knows.
I do know that I enjoy the experience of shooting with film cameras much more so than with digital. Perhaps that is the difference in what I’m seeing in my images. When I see my film images, I remember which camera I shot with, how I got the photo, and what it was like taking the photo. When I see my digital images, I get caught up in the technicalities of the processing and lens types and whatnot.
I think it’s time for me to get back to shooting with film cameras again. Actually, I think I need to shoot with film cameras again. I need the challenge of working with different cameras and film types to spark my creativity and to break me out of the photographic slump I’m going through right now (did I forget to mention that I’m in a photographic slump right now?). I want to have fun with photography again.
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