Hey everybody!
What is the reason for all you awesome photographers to shoot film nowadays?
Why Film Photography is the Best for Weddings? My view :)
Even though most wedding photographers in the world today will primarily use digital cameras, there are some that love the beauty and uniqueness that film photography offers. So why is a combination of both film and digital the best for occasions like weddings and engagements? There are quite a few reasons that I believe that film photography is a great option for Weddings and Engagements.
First, there is just something about film wedding photos that gives them a timeless and romantic look after they are captured, even without any added filters or editing! As a Vancouver wedding photographer, I feel as though there is simply nothing better to create this unique look. If you have ever compared two photos side by side, one of the film and the other digital, you will be able to see the difference firsthand.
Film photos have a unique look that is very different from digital photos. Some would even describe it as a “creamy” or “smoother” look, as opposed to a sharper image than that from a digital camera would give you. One reason for this is the chemical reaction of the film being processed is extremely different from the digital capture from a digital sensor. Film photos have a timeless aesthetic that is not subjected to any of the “trendy” editing techniques or filters that digital images may be subjected to. That is why Fine Art wedding photographers use film for their wedding photography.
Another added benefit of film photography is the artistic style that it takes when using film cameras. It forces any photographer including wedding photographers to slow down and focus on certain factors that will help create a great image. Unlike with digital cameras that can very quickly take hundreds of images without any type of strategy involved. The film takes much more time and makes the wedding photographer much better and more methodical.
https://www.romancephotostudio.com/why-i-shoot-film-as-a-wedding-photogr...
I believe you have the best of both worlds. 1972 was my first attempt in shooting 35mm on my brother's Pentax Spotmatic. I was infected. In 1974 bought my first RB67 four lens kit. I was a second shooter for a local studio and was baptized on the Speed-Graphic 4X5 for the 'formals'. My mentor was also the photographic instructor of my high school. After a hitch as a Corpsman with 2/9 Marines in Southeast Asia ending in Lebanon, I was offered a news-puke (photojournalist) position with UPI. Came back 57 nations later. I left the camera for over two decades. Just retired from a real 9-5 Government job never, ever to be subjected to a shutdown. Especially after 911. Over the last two decades I'm still shooting B&W film with my massive fleet of RB-67 Pro-SD cameras and lenses. I process my own film and then scan. I don't miss the darkroom at all. Film has Soul. Film requires the photographer to make every exposure count. With film, technique rules over technology. With Digital, technology rules over technique. It allows the photographer to spray and then spend a ton of time praying while culling a keeper was had. And then doctoring that.
Photography, and that's both disciplines, the film and digital aspect, gives you the ability to read minds. You can view an image which opens the door to the mind of the individual who created it.
Images open the door to that individual's imagination, attention to detail, or their lack of it, their ability to laugh, or to inspire, and most importantly, whether or not their mind is disciplined.
You're walking around w/a camera, you see something, you know almost at once that it's a great shot waiting to happen. In order to bring this "killer" into reality, there are 6 issues/problems you have to overcome while still making your shot seamless in execution.
If you have the mental discipline to organize 10 separate things, on 10 separate levels while you shoot an image that won't be there in another 2 seconds, there's a good chance you're going to make the shot.
If you can only juggle 3 or 4 things in your mind regarding the shot you're about to take, which presents 6 problems you have to embrace, and overcome, your execution of the shot won't bring off the idea.
I grew up in film, where you had to do everything, load/unload your film/set the aperture/determine aperture/visualize in you mind what your exposure would do/wind each exposure, and if you miss certain steps, chances are, you miss the shot, all the while juggling your focus, framing, what you want in, or out of the shot, which may only be there in the briefest of moments.
In film you had to worry about a million things, which you had to juggle, and at times very quickly, to bring off that special shot.
The result of being under that kind of pressure, shot after shot, begins to toughen and discipline you ability to juggle more and more things, and your attention to detail. What drives this home is when you had the briefest of moments to get just an all time "killer" shot, and after developing your film, you realize you hadn't advanced the frame, ruining the shot.
So you toughen up, discipline your mind, hone your attention to detail, and you embrace the difficult.
I once mentored a young man, who pretty much came up w/his cameras doing everything for him. I told him that for him to progress, I wanted him to turn off the autofocus, and to think for himself about selective focus, and to turn off the exposure and think through where he wanted the exposure.
I ended up giving him a twin lens medium format camera where you do it all, w/nothing automatic. I told him to buy some film, and start shooting, knowing full well he was going to be frustrated w/the mistakes he'd make while training his mind to juggle the increase workload that he wasn't used.
This didn't end well, he surrendered/gave up, and wasn't up to the challenge, a challenge that if overcome, would've made him a more disciplined shooter, better equipped to deal w/any problem that arose.
It's great that you can buy either a film camera or a digital camera that does everything for you, but that's not how you learn to discipline your mind, you do that by learning to do everything for yourself.
That is what was always great about film, particularly when I came up/ learned photography, it was challenging. I had to work at it. I had to learn how to embrace that, and I felt that in accepting that challenge made me better.