In a way, it is easier, financially and practically, to prefer digital photography to film. You don’t have to wait more than a matter of seconds to see the photograph you’ve just taken and if it didn’t turn out how you wanted you can take one or twenty more photos until you get it right. It is hard to run out of space on a digital camera (or at least I haven’t yet) and you can change the settings whilst seeing how they affect the outcome of the photo.
However, there is something about film that cannot be replicated with a digital camera. There is something frustrating (don’t get me wrong) but also exciting about waiting to see how those meagre thirty-six photos turned out, some of them that you took months ago. You have one chance to capture a moment in time and if it doesn’t turn out right, it is lost forever.
There is also something about being restricted to thirty-six photos that makes you selectively choose the best moments. Unlike digital, film makes you picky and not lazy when it comes to taking photos. Yes, you lose some moments at the beginning by overthinking whether you should use up one of only thirty-six pictures on it, but then you make the most of the next moment that arises. And after all of this, you don’t know if the settings on the camera were wrong and the picture may come out blurry or dimly lit.
I took about twenty photos on this camera before the UK went back into a national lockdown, meaning that film development companies were closed. It therefore took me approximately two and a half months to both fill this roll and get them developed and it was worth the wait. I have chosen some of my favourites to show you and hope you enjoy them as much as I loved taking them.
All photos were taken on a Canon EOS 50 with Ilford HP5 Plus film.
