I spend most of my day designing on a screen where everything can be changed, undone, or tried again.
Maybe that’s part of why I still like shooting film.
With film, I get 36 photos. I can’t check if I got the shot, and most of the time I don’t see what I took until a week or two later.
I thought that would be annoying when I first started. Now it’s probably my favorite part.
I take fewer photos
With my phone, I’ll take ten versions of the same photo without really thinking about it.
Film makes me stop first.
Is the light right? Do I actually like this composition? Is this something I want to use one of my 36 frames on?
A lot of the photos still aren’t good. But I like having to make the decision before I know if it worked.
There’s no second version just in case. I take the photo and move on.
I forget what I took
By the time I get my scans back, I’ve usually forgotten half the photos on the roll.
There’s something really nice about that.
I’m not looking at the photo five seconds after taking it and deciding whether I like it. Enough time has passed that I can see what actually happened instead of comparing it to the photo I thought I was taking.
And weirdly, some of my favorite photos are the ones I probably would’ve deleted.
Someone moved. The focus is a little off. The light did something I wasn’t expecting.
If I’d seen it right away, I probably would’ve taken another one.
I’m glad I couldn’t.
Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to it
I don’t think film makes me a better photographer. And I definitely don’t think everything needs to be slower or harder just because it can be.
I just like having one thing I can’t endlessly tweak.
I choose the frame, press the shutter, and move on.
Then a week later, I get to find out what I got.
See the roll: the film gallery.