Junk Drawer but it's Just Old Rolls of Film You Got Developed; Featuring Families on Film
A Little Bit About Film Photographers | Q & A with JLS
What is a film photographer?
A film photographer is someone who still shoots with the original style film: a negative, that gets loaded into the back of the camera. The camera opens and the shutter allows light in, that snaps the photo then the image is captured on the roll of film and its wound up and then developed at a nearby photo lab or sometimes the Photographer will develop it themselves - which I do on occasion. However, I do prefer to send it out to the lab and allow the professionals there to do it when my budget allows. Just because, I know that the quality control is there and it’s one less thing for me to do myself even though I enjoy it. It does take a little bit of time, chemicals are also expensive so you’re not saving a lot of money there and you’re using a lot of your time to do the process and you can’t make any mistakes or you’ll lose a whole role. Sometimes it’s a little bit easier just to send out even though just cost a little bit more money.
How does film photography differ from digital?
Film photography is different than digital photography because film photography is the actual process of a physical negative absorbing light and chemically reacting with the negative. And then, that is developed and then using an enlarger it is printed or for color images, it uses a machine to print the actual images from the negative. Where is a digital camera has a sensor inside so there’s no actual film in the camera and that digital sensor allows it to have a similar effect of letting light in and “developing “ onto the “negative“ and those images are stored on a memory desk that goes into your computer after you’ve taken the photos and then everything editing wise is just done digitally.
When you’re dealing with a film photographer, that photographer is gonna be a little more conscientious of each pose. They’re gonna shoot a lot slower. They are going to be mindful of the lighting in a little bit different way than a digital photographer because digital photographer can fix all of those things later. Digital takes lots of data when it takes the photo where as film is really only taking one snapshot or one layer of data and you don’t have the ability to alter and adjust film the way you do with digital. Because of that, it can be a little bit more challenging to get the exact shot, which is kind of the magic film. However, with digital photography, they’re gonna shoot a lot quicker. The photos are pretty much disposable. There’s not really an urgency to be mindful of how you’re setting up your shot.
Why hire a film photographer instead of a digital photographer?
The reason I suggest hiring a film photographer vs. digital photographer would be if you prefer nostalgic look if you want to have grain and grit and have a different feel to your photography however, I personally do a little bit of both because I don’t think that one is better than the other and I think that they both have benefits and I want to encourage my clients to have the nostalgia and have that experience of working with film (a much slower medium) and having those physical prints delivered to them, but I also want them to have the safety and security that comes with digital photography and a little bit more guarantee that those images are gonna be able to be edited to their standards. Especially if I have clients who are branding clients, for example, that want to print posters or billboards or large scale depictions of their images, where as film photography doesn’t really allow for quite the same experience, but it definitely does give you a more retro nostalgic feel.
Is film photography more expensive?
Unfortunately, film photography is more expensive than digital photography because you have to develop the photos using chemicals and you have to scan the negatives or print the photos which also takes time and skill and physical supplies. Whereas digital is a lot less expensive after the initial cost of the camera but with film, you have an archival negative which does last for up to 100 years stored in the right conditions. I don’t know about you but my hard drives tend to corrupt within at least 10 years. It’s very rare for my hard drives to survive longer than that. I’m constantly having to move my digital files to different platforms or two different paid services to ensure that they will be available for me whereas my negatives are literally just sitting in a box safely in my Home and they will last for 100 years.
