I’m Still Shooting Film!

The above photograph was made using a Holga HL-P lens mounted on my Pentax K-01.

It’s hard to believe that this blog is now in its third year. On the one hand time seems to have just flown by. On the other hand I feel like I have been doing this for a lifetime. I guess in a way I have, not blogging of course. That is something new, but 1961, when I got my very first camera was almost literally a lifetime ago.

The Kodak Brownie Bullet camera (shown in the photo above) my aunt gave me for my ninth birthday along with a couple rolls of 127 black & white film introduced me to the world of photography at a time when I needed a hobby. I don’t know what happened to my original Brownie but I recently bought another on “The ‘bay” and I am once again shooting 127 film. The fascination of capturing an image, and more importantly, capturing the memory associated with it, has never left me. If anything I am more excited about photography now than I was then.

The latest digital cameras are nothing short of amazing in their ability to allow anyone to capture excellent images with or without any significant photographic training or knowledge. I have several of these wonder-gadgets including the one used for the image above and use them frequently. The quality of the images and the convenience of having to do literally nothing but point & shoot the camera is a testimony to what technology can do. Of course, for those who wish to be a bit more creative and have more control over the images being produced there various manual or semi-manual modes as well as a host of special creative filters and scene modes.

For the ultimate in creative control photographers used to go into the darkroom. Today there is “Lightroom” and other similar computer programs for post processing your digital images in much the same way as the darkroom tools and techniques that once were as commonplace as film itself. Then there is film.

Above is a photograph made with my Holga 120N loaded with Tri-X and processed by The Darkroom.

Contrary to conventional wisdom film is not dead – or even dying! For the last couple years now Kodak and other film related companies have reported increases in film sales and companies like The Lomography Society and The Impossible Project are cashing in on the new wave of film shooters as old timers like me return to film and the younger generation discovers it for the first time. You see as great as digital photography is, it just doesn’t do what film can do.

So I have digital cameras and I have film cameras, and I will continue to shoot and enjoy both. The convenience and instant gratification of digital photography is there when I need or just want it, and the incredible beauty and sense of satisfaction that comes only with film when I don’t. Beyond that, for me there is also the excitement of making beautiful photographs with cameras and processes that are as old as or sometimes even older than I am.