Film Photography

This is not going to be a film versus digital post, I am sure we have all read and heard enough of those.  This is more about why I like shooting film and the how it can make your photography better.  Wait a minute....I am sure you have had enough of that too.  Oh well.

When I started taking pictures there was no digital cameras around but even when the first digital camera was released it was not until smart phones came out that I started taking pictures using digital.
The reason being that film was what I was used to and to be honest I found digital cameras very fiddly.  Lots of unnecessary buttons to push and pull and lets not start with the focusing.

So roll on a few years and I get my first  smartphone which, lets face it has basically turned the entire world into photographers.  I was really impressed with how you can just take a picture and then edit it in the palm of your hand and then ping them on Instagram and have an instant audience.
I had lots of fun doing this for a few years,  mainly family snaps that would be uploaded to Facebook and I also started experimenting using black and white and some lomography featuresas well.

So roll on another a few years and then I start to realise a few things about photography and the direction it is heading.  The first thing is that I started to feel I was losing a real skill of taking real pictures.  I started to get board as well.  The things you can do with a digital photo is endless so it was a bit strange that I would get bored.  I think the main reason why I got bored was I did not feel connected to the pictures I was taking and they started to become a bit "throw away".  It all became a bit too easy in the end.  When things get easy for me I loose interest very quickly.

Shall we roll on a few more years.

I then stumbled across one of my old battered film cameras in a box in my loft.  It looked a bit worn out and extinct but was certain it had enough life to take some pictures again so I bought some film and took it for a test roll.  It was actually really exciting just wandering around taking pictures of random things, not really knowing what I was doing really and not really think about the subject matter,  just content with shooting film again.  You really have to think about your shots where as before I was just snapping away and not thinking hence why I was becoming less and less connected to the photos.  I am not a gear head and certainly not a technical wizard when it comes to taking pictures so I wont be able to explain to you why I got hooked on film again.  All I can say is that digital and film photography both have a place in the photography world. One is not better than the other,  they are both equal and young photographers should be encouraged to take pictures using film and get involved in the development process.  As more and more Street Photographers use film and looking at how fast the genre is growing I cant see film going away anytime soon.

Here are some of my film photos.

Pictures of the Day 030615

Been bombing Instagram recently.  have not posted on there for a while so decided to hit it hard.
Here are some pictures taken over the last couple of days.
Got my film photos back and hoping to post those at the weekend.

Photos of the day 280515. The Hip Shot

Been alternating between shooting film and digital for the last 2 weeks.
I love shooting film, it can also be expensive but there is something about looking through an analogue viewfinder that really interests me.  I am hoping to post some of my film photos taken so you can see the big difference there is between film and digital.

So anyway I am in the process of mastering the technique of hip shooting which is going really well.
It is a bit sneaky but you can get some really good shots of people without them knowing.  So most of the pictures I took today are shot from the hip.

I really thought my interest in street photograhpy would start to wane by now but I am actually finding it more fun then when I started.  I have also got my eye on a new camera which will be a Ricoh GR.  I am not a camera geek but I feel I need to learn a bit more about the setting rather than just point and shooting all the time. Getting this camera will hopefully make my pictures better due to the fact you have full manual mode and can also shoot RAW.