I was recently searching through my photo archives and was reminded how different, and enjoyable, it was shooting film.  Not just shooting film, but also viewing images shot on film.  Don’t get me wrong, I really like the digital age and how much we can achieve with digital images, it’s really incredible.  But, in my humble opinion, there is something missing.  Something that’s very difficult to describe, something that a viewer feels more than sees when looking at a film image.

I stopped shooting film about 6 years ago, and I really haven’t regretted stopping as the cost and difficulties of realizing a film print had gotten a bit more than I was willing to tolerate.  If I had a darkroom, I think I would still be shooting film, but as it is, I don’t have one and the cost and time of developing and then scanning just got a bit much for me.  As I was reviewing my archives, I came across a folder of images shot on film and stopped what I was doing to take a look at them again and take a walk down memory lane.  When I was done viewing the images, I stopped and thought about what I was feeling and what the experience was like, which prompted this blog post.

 

I’ve made this comparison before in some of my writings, comparing film & digital images to music on LP vs. CD. There is something that is difficult to describe listing to music on an analog source.  It feels more “real”.  And by real, I don’t mean resolving of every last nuance of every note.  I mean it doesn’t feel artificial, reproduced or “too perfect”.   LPs have a wave cut in to the grooves of a record, which is then read and played back through the speakers.  It is a sound wave, in essence, cut in to the record, which is the most human way to record and playback music, which is analog. Hearing live music, sound waves come from the instruments and hit our eardrums which is then translated by our brain.  It is these sound waves that are the music and there is no filter or re-interpretation of what the music should sound like.  Listening to music on CDs, though it can be technically amazing, oftentimes lacks soul, nuance or character.  It is an exacting, sometimes even more than realistic, representation of sound, read and interpreted by a computer before being output as a sound wave reaching our ears.  LPs, with cracks and pops, feels more real and connective. The timber of the notes, the nuance as the musician plays a certain way, much of that comes through when the playback system replicates the source as closely as possible.  The goal of listening to music is to replicate an analog source (musical instrument) in the comfort of our living room, why not keep everything in the analog domain.   A phrase that I use when talking about music play with folks is that analog “feels” where digital “reveals”.

Our lives as humans are characterized by imperfections.  We are not perfect creatures and the world around us is not perfect.  Not to get too depressing here, but the reality is we live in an imperfect world.  Why not admit and accept this fact and then revel in the imperfections?  Its the imperfections that bring character, spice, nuance, emotions, etc to our lives.  We all strive and expect perfection within and around us, but this is a horrible expectation that can never be met.  If our lives were perfect, if we were perfect, I will say that we would be quite boring, we wouldn’t learn anything, our natural curiosity would disappear and we just wouldn’t have any fun.

Ok ok, back to photography and the topic of shooting film.  Why I went off on the discourse above with music is because the same thoughts/concepts hold true for me in film versus digital.  Film doesn’t have the resolving power of digital (in most cases), it is limited in dynamic range, it may not accurately represent colors as well as digital.  However, film, being an analog source, is closer to how we “see” the world through our Mk I Analog Eyeballs.  Being that is closer to how we see, the theory is then that film feels more “real” and it captures some indescribable essence of the scene that is fairly elusive for digital capture.  In the darkroom, wet or digital, a lot can be done to enhance an image.  In fact, the power we now have in the digital realm to edit an image is simply incredible and it’s gotten to the point that its getting very hard to distinguish between a “real” image and a composite, or one so heavily modified it is more digital art than an “image capture”.    For me though, it was the feeling I had looking at my old film images that really resonated with me.  Yes, they weren’t perfect or even close to the quality of my latest digital work, but they felt analog, felt real, and I had a deeper emotional reaction to them.  This got me again thinking about analog vs digital reproduction and how with analog reproduction the viewer/listener could have a deeper connection, more emotive, more compelling, despite the imperfect nature of analog.

The saying above for music also applies to image capture/reproduction…film “feels” and digital “reveals”. The level of perfection we can achieve in digital capture/development is simply mind-blowing!  The equipment and software we have today is so incredible and we can capture so much information in our digital file and then manipulate each tone or pixel and get it just the way we want it for the final output.  There are some folks who are masterful in the digital darkroom and can bring out a life-like feel to digital images, but most cannot.  Many technically “great” digital images lack that final bit of nuanced feel that can bring that deep connection.  Likewise, many film images lack the resolving power needed these days (as we are used to consuming digital imagery, our brains are wired to expect the perfection).  There are a few film shooters out there who achieve great technicality and resolve, one being Cole Thompson and his monochrome images.

I hope you don’t think I’m criticizing digital capture/reproduction…I’m not. What I’m hoping to do is just get you to think about the concepts of “feeling” and “perfectionism” in your photography, and life.  Sometimes the “feeling” is better than “perfection” and sometimes the experience is more rewarding than the final output.  Will I ever go back to shooting film?   Right now, I think the chances are pretty slim.  I love the flexibility and ease of digital and feel that I can get most of the way there to the feeling of film with more artful compositions and more refined processing techniques.  Still you never know, I may return to my roots.  After all, I enjoy my record player so much these days 🙂