Ever since digital cameras hit the consumer market in the early 90's, a growing debate has become a staple in a photographers life - Film vs Digital.
Whether you participate in that debate or not, it's growing by leaps and bounds every day. In fact, we've recently seen the once completely bankrupt, Kodak, bounce back from the grave due to the demand for their film in the world of Hollywood.
At a glimpse it appears that those involved with commercial photography made the obvious switch to Digital. It's faster, cheaper and deadlines become less of an issue. I can shoot a full fashion spread in a day and the photos are in my editors hands by nightfall and ready for publication soon after.
On the other end of the spectrum we have the growing world of film shooters. Compromised mostly of hipsters and vintage lovers and of course the veterans who have been shooting film since before I was born, film photography is growing every day. From dead film companies rising from the grave to new films being produced by veterans of the industry, there is no shortage of film photographers on social media sites like Instagram, Flickr or even Facebook. As of now there are 2,314,697 posts on Instagram under #filmisnotdead.
But who the fuck cares right? Tons.
There are hundreds of pros/cons to both digital and film photography and I don't believe that one outweighs the other but that doesn't make or such a great debate..in fact, one HAS to outweigh the other..otherwise why the hell am I even writing this? As of 2003 there were more digital cameras sold than film cameras and in 2004 Kodak made the announcement that they would no longer sell Kodak-branded film cameras - Nikon soon followed.
Fast forward to 2012 and digital camera sales peaked at 11 million unites/month and Kodak announcing bankruptcy. Then something interesting happened.. By 2014 sales declined to 3 million units/mo purchased with many pinning the decline to smartphones giving the ability to not only take decent photographs but also video. It's no wonder that DSLR's began to introduce HD video into their feature set.
I began shooting in my early teenage years. We would skate around the city filming at every spot. Since I wasn't very good at skating, I would use a busted up Sony VX-1000 to film spots I couldn't skate. The viewfinder ribon was slashed and the microphone was hanging by a thread. After sometime, I figured it may be time to look at photography. I was soon gifted a Minolta SLR and I began to shoot film. At this point I couldn't care less about film photography or even digital, I just needed something to do when I couldn't skate a spot and because of that lack of attention..I soon broke the camera and gave up. 3 years later, I enter the digital photography world.
After the skate trips became few and far between, I started to take my photography a bit more serious and began focusing on landscape photography. I would travel, climb, go under any bridge I could find, and shoot landscapes. Photography was now a hobby..and I soon hated it.
My beer is screaming for a refill so I will keep this short..
Digital Photography became plain..flat and fucking boring. I spent hours in the "field" shooting landscapes, coming home, sliding my SD card into my computer and editing photos making them look and feel "better" - only to share them on social media to people who probably didn't give two fucks about my work..what was I doing? I wasn't doing this for myself..but for everyone else. This is where I fucked up.
I put my camera on a shelf and soon forgot about photography in general. I hated it honestly. Here comes Film.
For $15 bucks I purchased a Canon A1 and a few rolls of film for fun. I soon found that film provided what I was missing from the very beginning..a tangible, real product. From the first roll I developed to the roll I shot last week..it still provides the same feeling that the first roll I shot.
Beer is now empty.
Where was I going with this? Is film better than digital? For me..it is. It provides something that was never provided to me with shooting digital and I don't think ever will be. It provides a tangible, real product and that you can share physically..which I think we lack in society.
Thoughts?
/drunk rant.
I think each has its place. Aesthetically I love film, and I like the process. Digital is good, clean, and fast.
Unfortunately there are no commercial film developers here in Barabados, so anybody doing film has to develop it themselves, and getting the chemicals in isn't that easy either.
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