A New Camera and Drawing Some Conclusions

We’re still in that weird intermediate phase between winter and spring, so I thought it’d be a good time to finish up a roll I’ve been working on since I believe February (although the majority of it was shot in the past few weeks as the weather’s been nicer). After trying out various cameras and films, I think I’ve finally drawn a few conclusions.

This was the last of three rolls of Fuji 200 and it took me so long to finish because I’ve realized that I don’t care for this stock as much as I do the other color stocks I’ve tried. I’m not a huge fan of the way the colors look, and the actual film itself is thinner and somewhat more difficult to work with during development. I’ve had it kink a few times when loading onto the reel which is something I haven’t experienced with others.

The other thing is that I’ve finally settled on what film camera technology works for me. This was shot with a Nikon N2000, a cool little plastic-bodied auto advance Nikon from the 1980s. It was actually Nikon’s last manual focus line of cameras, but being a more budget camera it lacks a few features I’ve realized I miss when they’re gone.

The first is matrix metering, as this camera relies on Nikon’s older 60/40 center-weighted metering. For those unfamiliar, matrix metering is a form of “intelligent” light metering wherein the camera looks at multiple segments within a scene and meters for them accordingly. Unlike 60/40, which prioritizes the center of the scene, my experience with matrix metering has been much better since it seems to understand the scene more and avoids user mistakes a little easier. It’s the most common tech on modern camera bodies, which probably explains why it feels so familiar to me.

The second is the lack of a higher shutter speed. This camera features a speed of only 1/2000, which is certainly not bad by 1980s standards, but for someone who’s used to 1/4000 and even 1/8000, that lack of flexibility is kind of off-putting (as it also was with the F2).

Preparing for Spring

I’ve got to admit that I’m both ready for spring and also happy I’m finished with the last of the Fuji. I’ve got some Kodak Ultramax 400 coming up (the first time I’ve shot it), as well as some more Chinese color film.

The season and weather is finally starting to turn in the right direction, and I’m hoping I’ll have more chances and opportunities to get outside and shoot while I can. I’ve also got a few trips planned for this summer, and I can’t wait to shoot those on 35mm.

Maybe a Roll of Film?

The Winter Spring of Our Discontent

It’s that time of year where everything feels stuck. It’s painfully obvious that everyone and everything is bursting at the seams with excitement for the coming spring. But despite what both man and nature wants, things will do as things will do. It seems like if it’s warm, it’s raining. If it isn’t raining, it’s cloudy. If it’s sunny, it’s cold and windy. We’re all ready to catch a break, but we just can’t seem to turn the corner. Despite it all, I tried to get out and shoot in the city as much as the weather permits. There are hints of spring here and there. Little peeks of sunshine. People sitting outside eating and laughing (when they can). Sometimes people are even, if you can believe it, wearing hoodies and sweatshirts instead of jackets.

The roll of film for this post, a roll of Ilford HP Plus that expired in 2016, was graciously donated by a friend who found it in his garage. Or maybe his basement? I’m not sure, but it’s from a film class he took in college. I’ve never used HP5 before, or any Ilford film for that matter, and I have to admit it lives up to its reputation. It’s very sharp, the grain structure is awesome, and it shoots like a true ISO 400 film even expired by 10 years. I shot it at 400, developed it in HC-110 mixed to 1+31, and was really happy with how it turned out. I have to admit that despite the weather I was also quite happy with how this roll turned out overall.

Handheld Night Photography and Trying New Things

The F4 has a really stable shutter, so I actually got out and shot some images at night with a 50mm f/1.4 handheld. ISO 400 was a little slow, but I was successfully able to handhold all the way down to 1/15 of a second which is honestly pretty incredible considering there’s no image stabilization on a camera from 1988. I guess it helps that it’s an absolute brick of a camera body (non-derogatory). Honestly the more I use it, the more it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite cameras. It has all the bells and whistles of a modern body - autofocus, multi-metering modes, a PASM dial - while still maintaining some aspects of older bodies - physical dials, the need to use lenses with aperture rings, etc. It meters and shoots incredibly well and is an absolute dream to use.

Maybe a Roll of Film?

I also tried to focus on things in ways I typically don’t with this roll. Textures. The way a light looks in a stairwell. A lonely door at night lit with a single light. After shooting in a commercial capacity for the past few years it’s more difficult than I often think to get away from trying to show things in a clean, well-lit way. I’m trying to use shooting film as a way to experiment with things and break out of my mold, so to speak, and it feels like each roll is a step closer (for whatever it’s worth).

Creative Restrictions

I don’t think there are many ways to restrict recreational photography more than one mechanical, 35mm camera, one prime lens, and one roll of film. There is no boosting of sensitivity when light gets low. There is no changing white balance on the fly to suit lighting. There is no changing lenses to get wider or closer. Despite this, I think I’ve had more fun bringing this setup places than I’ve had in a long time. I know I’ve heard and seen it before, but I never realized just how much it can add to the feeling of creativity to restrict your gear setup. You have to continuously make adjustments and compromises to your “creative vision” (for whatever that’s worth), and I think it’s these adjustments that force one to think more creatively. More outside the box. I also have to learn to love the result because it’s real in a sense. It’s what I brought; it’s what I was given.

The first part of this roll was a short trip to Philadelphia to see the 2026 Philadelphia Flower Show. I’m realizing that I like Fuji 200 less than other color stocks I’ve used (I don’t love the color cast), but regardless it was a fun trip. I also realized while editing the negatives that there’s a reason film stocks were created to shoot indoors under artificial lights, but I think it worked out alright ok regardless of having the “incorrectly” white balanced film for a lot of the indoor shots.

Shooting Film Like Digital

The 2nd half of this roll is really the first time I’ve shot film more like digital. What I mean is that typically when I’m shooting a roll I try not to spend too much time on any one subject so as to preserve the film. The rolls are typically quite varied and it takes a week or so to finish them. With digital, however, I’m much more likely to spend more time on a single subject or location.

Maybe a Roll of Film?

A few weeks ago we visited friends in Boston who themselves were only visiting for a few months from Japan, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to take some photos of their new baby. Instead of being more precious with film the way I usually am, I thought it would be interesting to shoot through the rest of the roll in an afternoon. Overall I like the way the photos turned out, and it reaffirmed to me that photography, like a lot of other things, is best when it’s practiced through repetition rather than trying to get singular, perfect frames. Especially shooting something like a baby with a manual focus camera it’s important to try things out and go for shots that may or may not work. It’s only through trying that we’re ever able to arrive at something great, and I’m happy with how the photos turned out as I spent time capturing fleeting moments whenever I saw them rather than looking for “grand occasions.”

A New Camera (Again) and Experimenting with C-41

I tried a couple of new things for this roll, to varying levels of success. The first is shooting with an all-manual mechanical camera, the Nikon F2. It’s a beautiful chunk of metal that looks and feels great.

Thanks to being fully mechanical, meaning electronics are only used for metering and not for the actual operation of the camera, it has an amazing wind and shutter sound. Overall it’s a joy to use, although there are some drawbacks.

The main drawbacks for me are the lack of metering options other than center-weighted and a reliance on fully manual exposure settings. While at first there’s this romantic notion that simplifying will make things better, and certainly the camera is a joy to use overall, it becomes apparent rather quickly that the process of adjusting settings for every photo really slows things down. While this can be nice a lot of the time, I did find myself wanting a bit more ease of use in those instances where a quick photo is necessary. Combine this with a lack of modern matrix-metering and the limitations become apparent quickly. While I’m sure a lot of practice would make the process much easier (and me better), I think for now I’m going to stick to the more modern FA that provides a similar experience overall while also including some modern tech if I want to use it.

The second thing is pushing a roll of color film. While I’ve pushed black and white before, pushing color can lead to unpredictable results: stronger contrast, inconsistent images, and color shifts are often the most likely results. While overall I liked the results, I think sticking to the rated ISO of 200 would better serve the shooting style I typically use.

The Blizzard of ‘26

So with that out of the way, on to the images! This roll was really dominated by the historic blizzard at the end of February that dropped 38 inches of snow here in Rhode Island. I spent quite a bit of time out walking, and I wanted to practice metering in the snow. While it can be difficult because you have to dial in over-exposure to compensate for the camera wanting make the brightest areas gray, I’d say the camera and film handled it well overall.

Final Thoughts

While I did like the overall look of some of these, I don’t think I’ll be pushing this film stock again anytime soon. The contrast was just a bit too high for me, and I didn’t love the way the colors, especially the magenta cast on everything, came out with the push. I knew these were possibilities going in, but I wanted to try it anyway. I did shoot a few photos at night which was nice given the 400 rating, but I think I’d rather stick to a dedicated higher ISO film, like Ultramax 400, or better yet push some black and white which I typically like the look of better anyway.

Finally, while I enjoyed the F2 and shot another roll with it after this one, I don’t think the feel and “romance” of shooting the camera outweighs the drawbacks. It’s somewhat difficult to focus, quite heavy given its abilities, and is just not as user friendly as later models. I want to try out my F4 again since I got a different, smaller grip for it, and for my uses I think the FA is the better “manual” camera for me (not that the F2 isn’t a beast and I’m still planning to use it more this summer).

Maybe a Roll of Film?

Film for $3 a Roll?

Film is pretty expensive. I didn’t shoot it enough when younger to say exactly how much more expensive it is now inflation-relative compared to what it used to be, but suffice to say it’s quite a bit more expensive than buying a single memory card. To try and save a little, and fitting with my spirit of testing things out, I decided to pick up three rolls of Lucky SHD 400 from AliExpress for a total cost of $11. This is about half as much as other black and white films I’ve tried, so I was excited to see how it turned out. The film canister is the first plastic split-type that I’ve tried, and the box and logo have a cool sort of vintage look that I enjoy.

Since this film was a bit of a mixed bag, I’ll divide this up into sections of good and bad then give my overall conclusion. This is only roll one of three that I’ve developed (I gave one roll to a friend and haven’t started the other yet), so my feelings might change after seeing the other rolls.

The Good: Nice Contrast and Character, Fun to Experiment

Overall I actually quite liked the look of the good images. The grain structure is nice and it has great base contrast (something I enjoy). Because of the lack of a strong anti-halation layer, it gives really interesting effects around light sources at night that lend a sort of low-key film noir character to the images. It’s also really nice to try new things because of the price. This is my first time shooting long exposures at night on film, as well as my first time trying a double exposure (which turned out so-so in my opinion, but so it goes). If the other roll doesn’t exhibit as many of the issues I discuss below, I actually think it might be a film stock I’ll shoot more of in the future if I can continue to find it at a budget price.

The Bad: Light Leaks, Scratches, and 200 ISO

I had read prior to purchase that these cheaper films in plastic two-part cannisters can be prone to light leaks from the factory, and I believe that’s what I experienced with this roll. I’m almost positive it wasn’t my camera as I haven’t had this happen before, they weren’t in a location I’d expect (and were very consistent), and often didn’t happen after I’d had the camera outdoors in bright, direct sunlight. Apparently it can happen because of quality control issues at the factory where they were produced.

Another quality control issue were scratches in the emulsion. I’m very careful in developing, drying, and scanning negatives, so up to this point I haven’t had any issues with scratches. This film, though, had multiple negatives towards the end of the roll with noticeable scratches.

The final drawback was the film’s actual sensitivity. Much like Fomapan 400, this film didn’t behave like a true 400 speed film. After reading recommendations online I actually opted to shoot it at 200 ISO and am glad I did. If the images received 1/2 less light, they’d definitely be under-exposed.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m tentatively curious about the final roll. While sometimes imperfections can be additive in film, I felt in these instances they were more of a distraction than anything else. I also wish the film could be shot at ISO 400, as that would be really helpful in the darker parts of winter. I’ll shoot the last roll in spring where the lower sensitivity shouldn’t be as much as an issue, but it’s still nice to have.

I guess at $3 a roll it’s nice to see the negatives turned out at all!

Kodak Gold in Winter & First Color Film Home Development

It’s been a hard winter, even by New England standards. Led by two huge storms (photos of the 2nd forthcoming in a few weeks), Rhode Island is at almost 70 inches of snowfall for the season. Couple this with very below average temperatures that failed to reach freezing for weeks on end, and it’s been a rough one. During one of the early season snows I decided it might be fun to try and shoot color in order to take a break from the last few rolls of black and white.

This roll also marks my first attempt at developing color film at home. Unlike black and white, most color negative films use the C-41 process, which is standardized. There are no different timings based on film type and ISO, which is nice, but it also means that the temperature has to be much more closely controlled than black and white (which is usually fine at 68F or room-ish temp). For C-41 the temperature has to be controlled at 102F, plus or minus a degree or so. To achieve this I used a water bath with its temperature controlled by an immersion cooker (photos in an upcoming post). Despite hearing online that color development was much more difficult because of this, I actually found it quite easy and am really happy with the results overall.

Embracing the Light

While the light in winter can often be a bit boring, it can also be calming and even dramatic at times, especially after a snow. This roll follows my attempts to capture a few different types of light throughout the season, from a dusk hike in the woods, to late-afternoon golden sunlight peeking through the clouds after a snow, and finally ending with some quiet scenes from around the neighborhood. It may take a little more work, and the amount of time dramatic light shows up each day may be smaller, but there are still beautiful scenes to be found in this the harshest of seasons.

Sunlight Looks Best After a Storm?

There’s something about the way late afternoon sun looks after it snows. Maybe its the way it breaks through the clouds. Or maybe it’s the way it reflects off of the snow. Most likely it’s just me being happy that it’s no longer snowing and at some point the sun will come out to warm things for spring. Whatever the reason, I absolutely love the way it looks after a snow with trees all white and golden rays casting long shadows in the afternoon.

Quiet Walks in Winter

I found myself getting out quite a bit this winter in spite of the weather. I enjoy how walks are much quieter this time of year. And while that might mean there aren’t as many readily available subjects for photography, I still appreciate the quiet when the weather is bearable. The city is peaceful in winter, and I find myself drawn to the solitude despite looking forward to spring.

Trying New Film with a New Camera

So, first things first, I picked up another camera. I’m realizing that film cameras are so cheap compared to their digital counterparts that it’s easy to try a lot of them to find what feels right. There’s also a lot of film stocks out there to try, and combine these two things with my already-existing propensity to want to try new things all the time and you end up with lots of testing. While it sometimes means that things don’t work out how I envision, it also means more chances to find a combo that really works.

The Nikon F4 is an absolute monster of a camera. It’s big. It’s heavy. I think my favorite saying about it I’ve read is that “you can hammer in fence posts with it then step back and take a photograph admiring your work.” Even though it’s large and heavy, it’s contoured in such a way that it’s really comfortable to hold and I had a lot of fun shooting with it.

It also bridges the gap between what I consider the sort of stiff and “soulless” digital SLRs like the N75 and the fun, but sometimes a bit difficult to manage, manual SLRs. It’s got knobs instead of dials, uses the aperture ring on the lens, and has the most fantastic sounding shutter that just screams 1980s:

While the F4 was one of the most premium cameras of the early-mid 1980s, the film I’m choosing to shoot, budget Fomapan 400, is anything but premium. It’s rated as a 400 ISO sensitivity film, but as I’ll talk about below not only is it not as sensitive as other 400 speed film, but it also has more grain than the previous roll of Kentmere pushed one stop to 800 (an action that traditionally creates much more grain).

What is ISO Anyway?

Whether it’s the current most popular designation, ISO, or older ones like ASA, DIN, or GOST (among others), these ratings are meant to do one thing: define the film’s sensitivity to light. While we still use ISO in digital sensors, it means a lot less now than it used to because digital sensors are able to increase their sensitivity on the fly as needed (with increased grain, decreased color sensitivity, and other negatives being drawbacks). For film, however, the sensitivity rating is extremely important as it lets the shooter know how much light to let in to expose the film properly. Problems arise when film is not quite as sensitive (or overly sensitive) as the manufacturer claims. What happens, and what happened with this roll, is that I did not add enough light to get the desired results and the images came out darker and muddier than my original intention.

Minimum Necessary Light

One thing this roll highlighted for me is the idea of “minimum necessary light” for film photography. Because film is a physical medium, there always has to be a necessary amount of light for any given film stock in order to cause a reaction with the film emulsion itself. Unlike digital where the smallest amount of light can be amplified, negative film requires light to create something on the stock. Film that doesn’t receive enough light is white/transparent in development and no amount of digital boosting will fix this because it merely comes out black (inverted from the negative) with no image at all.

“Technically Incorrect” Doesn’t Mean Bad

Despite pretty much all of the images on this roll being underexposed, I still find myself drawn to a lot of them. It might be the dark of New England winter being accurately reflected, or maybe the increased contrast to highlight the light that is available, but I really like a lot of the images on this roll. If I shoot it again, which I highly doubt because I’d rather push a roll of Kentmere one stop, I would definitely shoot it at ISO 200. It did highlight that just because something in photography is “technically incorrect,” that doesn’t mean it can’t contain some measure of the real or the way a moment feels. That is, after all, the point of photography, isn’t it?

Push Processing in Winter

It’s winter in New England, so that means it’s cold and dark. To try and combat this, I decided to try pushing a roll of Kentmere 400 one stop as metering at an ISO of 800 really gives a lot more shutter speed flexibility in dark winter conditions. For those unfamiliar with push processing (and honestly I include myself in that number), it’s actually really interesting from an analog perspective. Normally, when film is exposed correctly it’s processed for a standard amount of time recommended by the manufacturers. This typically gives a uniform result which aims to capture as much dynamic range (the ratio between the darkest and lightest areas of an exposure) and preserve the most details in both the shadows and highlights. In push processing, however, one purposefully underexposes the film. During development the film is then able to be “cooked,” for lack of a better term, in the developer for longer than the typical recommendation. This leads to the film actually becoming denser and overdeveloped in some spots and therefore less uniform overall. Pushing typically causes higher overall scene contrast as well as a more well-defined grain structure. If anyone has further insight or corrections, please do let me know as I’m by no means an expert!

This roll covers a week or two here in Rhode Island then finishes with a trip to Alabama to see family during the holidays.

Travel with a Manual Focus 35mm Film Camera

While I didn’t specifically plan to travel with this setup, in the end I’m really glad I did for two reasons. The first is that a pushed roll of black and white looks great when used for portraits. The grain, the ability to shoot in dim light, and just the overall feel of the images has a nostalgic quality that I find a hard time replicating with digital formats. The second thing is that the novelty of a manual focus film camera lends itself to both my desire to take portraits of people as well as peoples’ general willingness to have their photo taken. I think knowing that someone is not just taking their photo but taking it with a film camera from the 1980s makes it feel like something special, and the likelihood of someone asking to have their photo taken was much higher on this trip.

It also, in a somewhat weird way, feels like recording things that are happening when shooting them on film. The light reflecting from these images is physically altering a piece of media, and there’s just something so cool about that. I find myself wanting to take pictures of people more and more for that reason alone.

Embracing the Imperfect

Something that struck me about this roll is how imperfect it is. It isn’t that I shoot perfectly with digital, but taking multiple photos really increases the chances of a shot that isn’t out of focus or blurry from shooting a low shutter speed. For this roll I really tried to embrace the knowledge that these photos would have imperfections. Some of them would be out of focus. Some of them would be blurry from trying to get a good exposure in low light. Despite this knowledge, I found my self not only not caring about these imperfections but actually embracing them as part of the process. These photographs look real to me. I’m not sure whether it was the camera or the novelty of shooting a roll in a way I’d never done before, but I’m glad I brought this setup with me on our trip and I’m really happy with how these photos turned out overall.

New Camera, B&W Film, and Home Dev - Oh My!

After shooting and developing my first two rolls, I think my feelings could best be described as “hooked” on shooting film. Luckily film cameras, even ones in high demand, are relatively cheap (especially compared to their digital counterparts), so I decided to buy a real film camera, a Nikon FA. It’s a single shot, manual focus SLR, and I realized while shooting this roll that it’s extremely fun to use. I found myself wanting to shoot just for the feeling of shooting.

Along with the new camera, I felt like home-developing was the next evolution. While not having to pay $9 a roll for development was definitely a perk, home developing really turned making photos into a process. From the film choice, to the slow and deliberate shooting process, to the chemicals and small heart-in-throat feeling when seeing whether or not images appear on the film, developing the negatives myself really rounded out the experience. Developing black and white was also absurdly easy, in my opinion, especially since I come from a cooking and baking background.

Diving Into Black and White

I’ve shot black and white before, but only in a digital setting. When shooting a digital RAW, black and white is more of an option than a requirement (or even restriction). Shooting film in black and white, however, really restricts the process because there’s no way to swap out for color on the fly. Once you commit to the black and white roll you’re committed. While that felt weird for the first little bit of shooting, after a while I started to look for light and photo opportunities that suited the roll I was shooting and not the other way around (changing my style or the look of the photo to match the given situation). While this did mean less opportunities for photos, it also meant a more purpose-driven process overall.

Learning a New Style

Personally I think this is my weakest set of photos in a while (not that that’s a bad thing, mind you). There really wasn’t a lot of consistency, and I tried a bunch of different things while getting the hang of shooting both the camera and a new film stock. Not that I disliked all of them, but I didn’t think they had the same overall consistency as previous attempts.

So what is the end result? Getting used to something is always hard? Old dogs learning new tricks, maybe? This was probably the most difficult time I’ve had in a long time with photography, but at the same time it was probably also the most enjoyable. The new camera was a joy to learn and use. Shooting in black and white exclusively was a welcome challenge. Developing film on my own as a very satisfying part of the process. I think more than anything roll #3 illustrated that I’m reaching a point in my photography where I’m no longer really all that concerned with the end result of my fun/hobby photography as long as the experience of shooting is fun. And shooting this roll of black and white on a 40 year old camera? Very fun.

New England Fall

Fall in New England is a special time. The leaves change, the weather is picture perfect, and everyone flocks to the area to take advantage of them both. I think it’s a bit of weird time for people living here, because while we also like seeing the leaves, what we really don’t like is putting up with the “leaf peepers” who clog up the roads and just generally get in the way during the season. Having lived in western Massachusetts for the last seven years, this was the first year I really tried to get out and about to photograph the season here in Providence.

Overall, the experience of fall is very different in the city than it is in rural New England. While the leaves certainly still change, it’s a bit more of a challenge to find smaller pockets of color rather than the sweeping vistas more common in other areas of the region. In addition to being my first time attempting to photograph the city during the season, it was also my first time shooting fall on film ever. After the first roll I’d somewhat gotten used to the way the N75 paired with Gold 200 exposes, so I felt more confident in the results I’d be able to achieve this time.

Pockets of Beauty

The first thing that struck me was just how intimate the city felt during fall. There are small pockets of color that pop up all over the place, and it only takes a walk around the city to find them. It’s also the last waning days of summer, so it’s easy to find people outdoors trying to soak up as much of the great weather as they can. They make for ready subjects, and the warmth and glow of this time of year also work perfectly for Kodak Gold 200.

The difference in the east and west sides of Providence is also really cool to see during fall. The west side, with its abundance of trees, 17th century homes, and bespoke architecture is a stark contrast to the more industrial and “gritty” west side where I call home. Both are beautiful in their own ways, but both are very different representations of the season.

All in all shooting the city in fall was a wonderful experience, and I really enjoyed the result. The warmth and glow of New England shines on a stock like Kodak Gold, and I’m looking forward to shooting again next year with all the film knowledge I will have (hopefully) gained by then.

Shooting Film is Weird

The first thing I learned upon loading my first roll of film in 20-ish years is that it’s a lot different than digital. Maybe it’s the price per shot (especially when getting it developed at a lab), the fact that there’s a certain number of shots available in that roll, or maybe that the white balance and ISO are technically “set” before you even start. Whatever it is, opening the box and loading it into the camera had a certain finality to it that I wasn’t used to after almost a decade of shooting digital.

The camera I chose, a decidedly mundane Nikon 75, would never turn any heads, but after reading a bit about it I learned it was probably one of the best metering and shooting late-era Nikons made (and also cost me a whopping $20 on Ebay). I paired it with a Nikon 50mm 1.4G (the only compatible F-mount prime I had at the time), and off I went.

As this is my first roll, I think it might be easiest to group photos by observations I had while shooting instead of chronologically or thematically. I shot all of these in September 2025, so fall is just beginning here in Rhode Island. They were developed at a local lab and scanned by me at home.

Colors Really Pop

Not that I’ve never noticed color in photography, it’s obviously a huge part of it, but I don’t think I really looked closely at the colors of images until shooting this roll of Gold 200. The contrast, vibrance, and saturation really lends itself to bold colors, and it was the first thing I noticed when scanning, especially reds, oranges, and blues.

Asking for Photos is Easier

Maybe it’s the relative novelty of shooting film in 2025, or maybe it’s because the per-shot expense is so much higher. Or maybe it’s just the relative slower speed that film photography has. Whatever it is, I found that I was much more likely to ask someone for a portrait while shooting this roll. I think specifically this time it was because it was new and I wanted to try it out, but I found with later rolls (spoiler alert) that the urge to want to ask for photos never really goes away. This is great for me because after doing digital for so many years there’s this feeling that asking for a photo is “bothering” someone or getting in the way. With film it felt the complete opposite

The “Keepers” Went Up

I think this was probably the biggest revelation: whether it was from slowing down, paying more attention to good lighting conditions, or because I had a better understanding of what I was trying to accomplish given the “set” nature of the film stock, for whatever reason I found myself liking more of the shots on the roll than an equivalent number of digital. If I take 36 digital photos, I might keep 3-4 of that entire set. For this roll I found myself liking probably at least half (so 18 or so photos). It really made it much easier to keep going, as well as making me look forward to the next roll.

Why This? Why Now?

Social media has always been hard to navigate, but sharing photography on social media feels like its gotten particularly difficult in recent years. I remember even five to ten years ago the engagement and interactions for photographers was higher and more meaningful on photography-based platforms like Instagram, but now it seems the only things on peoples’ feeds are 1. politics 2. celebrity news and 3. memes (for better or worse), no matter how much someone tries to “reset” their algorithm.

Although I’ve been a digital photographer for the better part of a decade, working first freelance, then as a wedding photographer, and most recently as the marketing manager at a small clothing company, I’ve never really shot much film. Having recently picked it up, I really wanted to find a place to share shots from my rolls and find like-minded individuals to talk about it with. Unfortunately, the communities that once existed for this kind of thing have been swallowed up by the Capitalist Machine™ (not that they were ever really free of it, but I digress), so I’m trying out Substack as a way to find and be a part of the type of community I’m looking for.

Film in 2026

So shooting film in 2026… why this? And why now? With the resurgence of film photography, I think there’s also been a ton of nostalgia around the process and results you can achieve when shooting film. When I was first getting into it, I fell victim to those sort of overly sappy arguments comparing film to digital. People say things like “it’s warmer,” or “it provides a product unlike what you get with digital,” or even something about the “look and feel of film grain versus digital.” I even found myself trying to emulate film in my digital photography, although I was never really satisfied with the process. After shooting it for a while, I came to the conclusion that most of these things are at best overblown, and at worse utter crap. The product of digital is better in my mind, and there isn’t much of an argument. The results are cleaner, there’s more flexibility, and the overall outcome is WAY more consistent (not to mention cheaper).

There are, however, a few things that are better about film: one is that the process is way more fun. It’s slower. It takes time to stop and think. It’s expensive. It makes you actually wait for results. At first I thought this would be a frustration, but the more and more I do it the more I realize that I’m enjoying the process of photography in a way I never have because I don’t actually care all that much about the results. The photos are secondary to the process, and I’m finding time to enjoy the process in a way I never have. The second is the community and narrative potential of film. While some people can be a bit insufferable about the process (what hobby doesn’t have that), I find that people are generally more likely to want to discuss their process. Whether it’s film, the shooting itself, the developing, or even the scanning and digitizing, there’s more opportunity to talk about the story of what went into the photos instead of just sharing them and looking for instant feedback or scratching the engagement itch.

So What’s the Goal Here?

My goal is the post a curated selection of photos from each roll I shoot and talk about the thought behind and actual process of shooting and developing that went into each one. Thus far I’ve shot each roll intentionally: Kodak Gold 200 for warm fall colors, black and white in winter, 400 speed film pushed to 800 for a grainier, more “nostalgic” look, etc. One of the cool things about film is the intentionality that it requires. Because the ISO and development plans are set before you start taking photos, it limits what you’re actually able to do with the results. My hope is that this will be a cool place to create, and become involved with the already existing, community around film photography.

So here’s to the first post, and here’s to taking things “one roll at a time.”