There's been a lot of (digital) ink spilled about the look and feel of film photos being vastly superior to their digital counterparts, and while that's a question up for debate, there's also something else I've noticed among my fellow film-shooting friends: the propensity to elevate objectively terrible photos as art.
If that sounds like a hot take to you, there's at least one photographer that seems to be in agreement with me. In a new video from UK-based photographer Max Kent, he looks at how a lot of photos he shot on film—ones he thought were pretty good—were actually fairly ordinary photos that just happened to be shot on film for that "film look."
That's not to say all his work was this way. In the video above, he shows many examples of his own work that are quite wonderful, but all of that got me thinking about the last roll of film I shot and just why my photos—and indeed the film photos of many ordinary folks—turn out to be ho-hum.
I remember my last roll of film that I shot was in 2009, using a Canon EOS Elan and some Tri-X film. I clearly didn't find anything useful in the roll since I didn't bother to scan it, but then again, most of the photos were more "documentary" in their purpose. Not in a stylistic way, but rather, I wanted to document my friends and the places I had been. Instead of being bold or ambitious with my photography, I would stand at eye level and point the camera at the thing or person because it was the safest way to get the shot with the limited number of exposures on a roll of film. Basically, I knew it cost me money every time I took a shot, so I generally didn't unless I was sure.
And that's where digital changed the game. It made the film look an aesthetic—one that could be applied to a digital file if you wanted the look. It allowed for a level of experimentation without the cost.
I did some weird things photographically back in the day, like carrying a Canon EOS D30 in 2009 and shooting tons of photos even though I had a perfectly working 5D Mark II at home. I just liked the unquantifiable "feel" of the D30 even though its autofocus was primitive, it's viewfinder crap, and its screen damn near illegible. Oh, and it had 1/7th of the resolution of the 5D Mark II. That last part made choosing that camera as my everyday carry a decision I came to regret in the years since.
But there will always be purists, and with phones and digital cameras in plentiful supply, there's now more space for art with actual film. Me? If I need that old-school fix, I'll just grab the D30 for a look I can't get with my cameras today.
How do you feel about film photography these days? Sound off in the comments below.
