Artwork: Film Photography

3.10.2011

I really miss film photography and all of its perfect imperfections. I miss being in the darkroom and the studio, I even miss the smell of chemicals and the way daylight felt so funny after being in the darkroom for hours and hours.

I spent the better part of this afternoon hunting for some of my old prints. I wish I'd been more careful with them, but I didn't know how precious they would be to me down the road. I majored in fine art photography for 3 years in college and I wish I knew exactly how amazing that was while I was living it.
Taken with a Sinar 4x5 view camera- Polaroid 4 Film
(that's my finger print on the left side of the right print.. oops)

35mm Canon Rebel - Kodak High Speed Infared Film
35mm Canon Rebel- not sure on the film, could be infared
35mm Canon Rebel- Kodak T-Max 400 Film
I went into my first darkroom during my first week as a 9th grader. When I started college in 2003 most classes were still completely focused on film.

The first digital camera for consumer use made it to the market in the early 1990s. The MSRP was about $13,000.. so needless to say it wasn't widely used. Isn't it crazy how much has changed since then? I think I had my first experience with digital photography towards the end of my first year and there was still a lot of uncertainty over where digital was going.

Clearly digital photography made it, but it's sad that film photography has to pay the price. Most high school students that want to take a class in photography don't even get to use film at all. That's crazy to me. You can't cheat on a manual 35mm camera, you have to learn how to achieve the right exposure, when to use what f-stop and iso... and you can't fix anything in photoshop.

I love digital, but like I said.. I miss film.. and all of the challenges it presents. I miss having to work harder behind the camera to achieve amazing results.

6 comments:

  1. What beautiful photographs. My very first job as a teen was working at a photo lab. I used to have to mix the chemicals, even though we used those big machines! I must admit, even though I love photography... I don't miss the work that goes into getting film right, but I miss taking in the film to the photo lab and waiting an hour for it to be developed. I miss the excitement of waiting to see how the pictures came out.
    With digital, they're all on my Mac book Pro and external hard drive... they hardly ever get printed. Sad.

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  2. That is beautiful. I think the fingerprint gives it more of of a story. I also love digital photography. I never did rolled film before.{except in photography class in high school.. I never went to school though! so I missed out!} I wish I had access to a dark room so that I could learn. Oh how grand that would be

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  3. I took photo my senior year of high school and i LOVED every minute of it. I wish I would have taken a class or two in college. Photography is such a wonderful thing. Great pics!! Truly talented :)

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  4. I love photography & I am so thankful for my digital camera that I have been able to figure out with& see instantly how I can improve or change. There is such beauty in photography & I wish I had taken classes in high school & college!

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  5. Ohhh I love that pic of the house! I wish I was cool and good...or even mediocre at photography. :)

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  6. I miss the dark room as well, never got to spend much time there in the first place as I only studied photography in college for 2 semesters before taking a different life course... but I plan to build my own dark room in my home one day... you know, when we have a home with more than one bedroom :)

    As far as the high school classes skipping film in favor of digital... that makes me just about as sad as the fact that many schools are removing cursive writing from their curriculum!

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