I’ve said it more than once that if I could afford it, I would only shoot film and there are multiple reasons for that. There has been a revival of film photography among people my age (Gen Z’s). That revival of old forms of keeping art has not only been observed in photography, though. We, Gen Z’s, are a generation that has lived the majority of our lives in the digital world. We are used to not being able to actually touch our music photos and even notes. The physical touch gets processed in a completely different way by the brain and the reason for it is pretty obvious. It stimulates more than one sense…
So, what’s the problem with digital photography? At first glance it makes absolutely no sense to exchange a nearly perfect 24 megapixel (or more) digital sensor for a grainy, usually low ISO film. Nearly perfect is exactly what my problem is with digital photography. It’s simply too good, to a point where it has no personality. All these megapixels, the tack sharp fast autofocus and perfect colors are great, but they are losing the artistic element of photography.
In the past couple of months, I bought both an analog and a digital camera. My analog Nikon FG-20 is just beautiful. I love the focusing circle in the viewfinder, the film lever, the need to load the shutter, the fact that I know there’s almost no electronic elements inside. It provides a much more personal experience, it makes me feel more like I’m doing something myself and not that a computer is doing it for me. Another thing I adore about film photography is that you don’t get to see the shots you’ve taken for at least a couple of days or weeks, depending on how often you shoot. When I first started shooting film around 2 years ago, I loved the feeling of going to the studio to leave my film for developing and scanning and then some hours ago getting my photos emailed to me. Sometimes it would happen that I’d actually forgotten that I’d taken a shot which is like a surprise from me to me. Another result of the fact that I can’t see my shot immediately is that I put a lot more effort into getting it right as there’s no way if I actually did till it’s way too late to retake it. One more reason to motivate myself to take more thoughtful shots is that I only have 36 shots per film. As I mentioned in my last blog post, the ultimate limitation to creativity is the absence of limitations, and what a better one than only being able to take a handful of shots?
The reasons to prefer film don’t end there. Even though I’m currently using a Fujifilm digital camera and its colors are just stunning, there’s something so charming in film colors. They simply have a different feel to them. They have A feel to it, unlike digital. That is, of course, due to the fact that film always has at least a little bit of grain. Here grain doesn’t ruin the shot as noise usually does in digital, it makes it better, makes it cinematic.
There’s no doubt that digital cameras are way ahead of film cameras but, we are emotional creatures. Even when we think being rational, we are still basing our actions on emotions. That is exactly why film is coming back. There’s simply not nearly as much emotion in digital photography… It’s a completely irrational form of art and that’s what makes it beautiful.
Comments