Why Film?

Any self-taught photographer will tell you—research and tutorials are good and useful, but the best way to learn how to take pictures is to take pictures. Lots and lots and lots of pictures. 

Digital photography, of course, is built for this. Even if you’re not a photographer, you know what I mean because you likely have thousands of photos on your camera roll. Any novice armed with an iPhone knows they can take 40 pictures in under a minute. Pick the best one, delete the other 39. (Or, if you’re like me, leave the 39 on your camera roll and then become irritated with yourself at the end of the year when you’re attempting to back up 17,638 photos, the majority of which are complete garbage.)

Shooting film is different. Film is slow, purposeful. Strategic. Intentional. I can’t take 40 pictures in under a minute—first, because I only have 36 shots, and second, because I can practically hear the cha-ching sound as I push the shutter button. 

When every shot costs you something, you approach it differently.

You … wait. 

You wait for the light to be perfect. You wait for the moment. The smile. The breeze. You wait for the kids to do something worth capturing. 

This waiting game goes against every tendency I have. I’ve never been good at waiting. I’m good at moving. I’m good at checking things off a to-do list at rapid speed, answering a dozen emails in half an hour, folding a load of laundry in three minutes flat. This is how I move through the world: quickly, efficiently, never wasting a minute. 

Shooting film goes against my natural state of being.

It’s teaching me to be patient. It’s teaching me to embrace mistakes, to get comfortable with imperfection. Unlike shooting digitally, I cannot self-correct in the moment. I can’t shoot three pictures, look at the preview on a screen, and then correct my composition, my exposure, my anything. 

I simply hit the shutter button, and hope for the best. 

Film isn’t perfect, and when I got my first scans back, I actually came to appreciate that. I like the grain, the grittiness, the soft focus. I also noticed something else: when shooting film, I was less likely to attempt to “perfect” the moment the way I do with digital.

For example, if I am shooting a family on a couch, and after 10 frames realize there’s a cup on the side table, I will remove the cup, and shoot 10 more frames.

When shooting film—I am focused on the light, the subject, and hardly anything else. If there’s something imperfect I don’t notice right away, oh well. I’m certainly not going to waste more frames (cha-ching! cha-ching! cha-ching!) trying to get it right. 

A perfect example? This picture:

Out of my first two rolls of film, 72 shots total, this was my favorite. Can I confess something to you? Had I been shooting this scene digitally, I think I would have paused to fix her hair. But in that moment, crouched down on the ground watching my daughter carefully put rocks into a bucket, I was focused on two things: her, and the light. 

I watched her for several minutes, talking to herself, counting the rocks—one, two, tree, eleven!—and when she paused for a second, I said, “Presley, look at me!”

She whipped her head around, right into the sun, smiling at me with her whole face, and I got it. Click. I didn’t have time to fix her hair. I didn’t even think about her hair.

And now, as I stare at this picture, my favorite in the entire batch, I am so glad I didn’t. Because Presley’s hair looks like this all the time. This was taken post-naptime, after her ponytail had loosened up and she had been running all over the yard. This is such an accurate portrayal of her, age two, slightly unkempt, smiling like this is the best day of her life, just sitting on the ground counting rocks. 

I want to learn to shoot film so I can take more pictures like this—pictures of our raw, ordinary life. I want to learn to slow down. I want to stop being so frantic, running around chasing endless tasks like a squirrel circling a tree. I want to learn to pause, to wait, to savor the light, to focus in on one, beautiful moment. I want to get comfortable with my own mistakes. I want to learn something new. I want to loosen my grip on a constant, exhausting pursuit of excellence and perfection.  

I want my creative work to be more interesting this year.

God is stirring little dreams in my heart, and I want to practice radical obedience. I want to stop hesitating. I want to stop worrying so much about what other people think. I want to embrace courage, and boldness, and be willing to fall on my face. 

This year, I want to make art that makes me feel alive.

Shot with Fuji 400; scanned by theFINDlab.