Failing to learn from our mistakes since 2022
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Film Photography: It Helps to Like Your Tools
Posted: 1 January 2024

I'm fixing to give up on digital photography; almost entirely, anyway. As much as I have tried to lug one around and use the fool thing, the habit always fails to launch. It turns out that I just don't like digital photography. Dealing with the battery packs is a bother, taking so many photos to then tediously sort through saps the soul, post-processing is a slow burning living hell, managing the sundry files is a never ending chore, and plenty more things just keep me cold on the whole thing. The lack of a physical print and soulless steps involved in printing one out put the final nail in the coffin. No matter how much I intend to commit to using some digital or other, indifference sets in and is promptly followed by utter apathy. And so I stop keeping a camera handy.

But film cameras have always been a fish of a different stripe. Limited frames precluding spray and pray photography, the film's native tone eliminating post-processing, the wait as a roll goes out for development and prints before it return, an physical print being the default, the feel and sound of a film advance, loading a roll like preparing a pistol for carry, and more have always caught my attention; expense be damned. Even the type of film camera is often irrelevant to my enthusiasm; SLR, disposable, rangefinder, point and shoot all have their own delights. So I have dug out some 35mm film cameras and set them in my grab and go drawer for stuff to get ready for the day.

Before today's constitutional, I grabbed an old SLR with nifty fifty lens and fired off two frames along my miles walked. Why two? Coincidentally, they were the only two that caught my eye and were also the very end of the loaded roll of Portra 800. Now to pull the film, replace with more of the same or another film, send it off, and wait to see what came of things. Meanwhile, a cheap point and shoot about as quality as a disposable camera has been dropped in my pack to stay handy all the time. And I need not say that time will tell how long this habit lasts as the only thing that ever stopped me having a film camera around was deciding to try dickering with digital. Again and again.

Now to learn to ignore the Good Idea Fairy the next time the cunt tries to corrupt me into dabbling in digital photography.