A Year on Film

Can it be done? Well of course it can. Can I manage it? Well that’s a totally different story!

I have a keen interest in becoming an accomplished film photographer, and that thought has been with me for quite some time now. I don’t know why that is. I look at the world and there’s a feeling I get with seeing film photography that I don’t see as much with digital – not that I’m not knocking digital, it’s a medium I love for it’s instant ability to see and share photographs.

Flies in the Ointment Having been pretty lucky this year and buying the cameras I have wanted for more years than I care to admit, I have a strong infinity to go on a 12 month trip to really work with film and make it work for me.

I do temper these thoughts with the fact I also have a very expensive Leica Digital camera I was lucky enough to pick up, that makes me ‘feel the need’ to make photographs with it to justify its purchase.

But shooting a year on film rather than a mix of digital and film is not a need, it’s a feeling I have for what I want from my photography from this next 12 months.

New Years Resolution? Some may see this as a resolution for the New Year but that’s not the thinking – the thinking is more rudimentary than that, of being comfortable with shooting film for a whole year. A project rather than a resolution if you will!

It’s also nice to be able to document through here, the wins and losses from a year with film and to look back in the future and see if my goal has been achieved and indeed if I have managed to become a more proficient film photographer.

Film has been a bit of a passion for quite a time, I’m old enough to remember a world without digital, old enough not to be a hipster! I’m also a pretty impatient kind of guy and the gratification of seeing what I shot with digital is something very strong for me, however some of this is tempered by my ability to now develop and scan my own black and white film which gives me the speed I want from shooting film.

So, in conclusion… a year on film. Can it be done, of course it can. Can I do it? Well that really depends on my own willpower to resist the justification I have for my expensive digital camera and instant gratification that digital allows. Time will tell!

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