What I Talk About When I Talk About Film Photography

When I started film photography, I really didn't know what to do with the medium. Should I use it for portraits, street photography, architecture, or landscape photography? After the first year of shooting with film I've found a pathway or a purpose for that medium, which is "documenting." What I mean by that is that I've found myself documenting my daily life with film. Some of you will say that we can document also with our digital cameras and phone, it's much easier and faster and phone cameras are getting better with each release, but with film it's different it's special and almost unreal sometimes(It depends on the film you're shooting.)

Film is different, film is organic, film makes you choose the moment you want to keep, makes you more conscious with your surrounding and the daily things that happen around you, you can't just keep shooting indefinitely and choose afterward what are the best pictures. You have a definite number of shots you have to make a conscious decision before even looking into the viewfinder.

After that, you have the choice of film you are using, color or black and white, and white each choice you make, you will have different results and I will spare you all the technicality about what film to choose the speed of the film, over or underexposing, pushing or pulling a film and so on. What matters is that you have a whole world to choose from and play with it as you like without touching your laptop or your phone to edit your photos.

For me, it's the best way to document your daily life without making any other choices. Just decide shot and wait for the results from your local lab or for those who develop at home. With digital, you can snap a picture and if you don't like it you can take another one, but that first moment is lost forever.

"A picture is worth a thousand words" as they say, so for that instant, you can have a picture with a lot of meaning a lot of memories, it sure can not be perfect maybe a little bit blurry, but you can remember the whole story behind that exact moment.

All I can say now is that I love photography. I love that medium of expression, it gave me a way to express myself as a self-conscious human being, it gave me the opportunity to travel, to meet new people that as passionate as I am, and I prefer by far film photography because it's more organic, more alive, and the whole process is a unique experience.