I brought my film camera with me to shoot black and white photos of her workout. I had the film processed and scanned at Indie Film Lab. They have a well deserved reputation for the quality of their scans. These photos were pretty much exactly as scanned and processed from Indie. For the film aficinados this is on Freestyle’s Arista Premimum 35mm film.  Their Arista Premium is actually re-labeled Kodax Tri-x film. Tri-x is a classic black and white film that was pretty much all the newspaper guys shot back in the day.

There is a purity in shooting film for me. When shooting, I have to just “know” that I have it right, as there is no “chimping” the photos on the back of the camera. What I shot is what I got. I find I’m more focused on “seeing” while doing the shoot. I also feel like I’m continuing a long tradition of using traditional techniques to capture the photos. I like the mystery and challenge of not being 100% sure I “got the shot”. I say when I do my thing that I don’t mind the wait for the film to be processed, but, the truth is, when it’s out for developing, I’m like a kid at Christmas. Are they done yet? Are they done yet?

Some say I could get the same effect from shooting digital and just processing the files in photoshop to get the look and feel of film. I suppose it’s technically correct, but, it just doesn’t feel the same. I find I’m not really committed to the digital files. They’re disposable. Perhaps its a mindset thing, but, there you go.

Can you see a difference between the photos in the two posts? I’d love to hear your thoughts on film vs. digital, especially the process part.