Film photography deserves to be more than an aesthetic from a forgotten time.
There’s a constant, underlying debate between photographers stuck in the film days and those who have outgrown its inconveniences. It’s hard to walk by a seasoned, middle-aged photographer with a mirrorless camera around their neck and two lenses in their satchel without them hounding you about the cost of film these days once they spot your dated technology.
Film photography is seen as a fad for Youtubers and street photographers unable to secure professional work. This image deters young photographers from documenting their own lives while pushing them towards real estate, streaming, and wedding photography—but it shouldn’t.
There are downsides to film photography—if there weren’t, we wouldn’t have outgrown it. It’s an expensive medium, and companies like Kodak don’t help by raising the cost of film at their leisure while leaving us with few options to pursue our creativity.
The turnaround isn’t great, which is a major inconvenience to those who have grown used to the ease of taking a photograph on our phones and viewing it instantly. But film seems to be viewed as an amateur medium reserved for low-quality, grainy images that look like they came out of a disposable. It’s d for its aesthetic appeal, simultaneously allowing companies to raise the cost of film for the younger generation while disregarding it as a superficial medium.
Most people are used to seeing 35mm film and are unaware of the much larger formats that portrait, landscape, and architecture photographers often make use of.
Large Format film photography involves the use of film measuring either four by five, five by seven, or eight by 10 inches in commercial cameras. The images produced from this film can out-resolve modern full-frame cameras, depending on the circumstances, which is why they’re still used in fine-art photography today.
Large format photography, and film photography in general, is a rather slow process which can either be stressful or therapeutic depending on the . It’s an expensive medium to get into, just as digital photography is, but that doesn’t mean one is necessarily better than the other.
There are photographers who undoubtedly benefit from new technology in digital cameras. Sports and concert photographers, for example, can always use the newest IBIS (stabilization) or global shutter technology, but this tech comes at a cost, often upwards of $10,000. It’s simply impossible for many photographers to keep up with the demands of whatever company they’re loyal to.
Shooting film has become an aesthetic within itself, which has has resulted in a lot of broke photographers with fancy-looking gear around their necks. Digital photographers unfortunately have it no better, being d thousand-dollar upgrades for their gear on a yearly basis.
The only winners in the film versus digital debate are the companies advertising their differences, not the photographers.
Joseph is a fourth-year English and film student and The Journal’s Assistant Photo Editor.
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