Sometimes, I miss the hidden advantages of film in these days of digital perfection. Digital has brought many advantages to photography. Today’s cameras can work faster, are more accurate with metering and focus, and can show me the image being recorded as I’m photographing. I can eliminate mistakes and avoid errors before I’ve pressed the shutter button once, such a great advantage. I had to engage more with film and be present with what I was doing. When I did make an error, there was the chance for serendipity to favor me with inspiration.
The image above was taken with my 8×10 Deardorff using a paper negative to capture the image. At the end of the shoot with Ryan I did two shots with him and Pebbles. After the second shot I realized that I had lost track and one side of the last holder had the slide turned white which usually indicates an unexposed side. I couldn’t be sure if I shot the sheet and didn’t remove the dark slide or if I shot it and didn’t flip it. With Pebble getting restless, I had to move fast and reshoot, figuring that a double expose was better than a blank sheet. It’s kinda like, “Did I close the garage door?” but I couldn’t go around the block to check.
The process of using film introduces the opportunity for error. You can’t check your exposure; you have to nail it. And focusing with the film cameras I used wasn’t that simple (scheimpflug… nuf said). Much of my job in the film times was eliminating that opportunity for error to creep in. But, no matter how good one was at this elimination errors still crept in and in those errors was the possibility for something interesting. Serendipity. The happy accident. You might notice something that sparks an idea or expands your knowledge. Digital, with all of its technology packed into the camera, has smoothed out and sped up the process. Sure, it’s great for a client to get images quicker and avoid errors when photographing; errors are the last thing clients want to hear about (and rightly so.) But we’re losing something important from the creative side of the equation. The art of awareness, open to the possibility for something more.
Using film taught me the importance of engagement in the photographic process and being constantly aware of my subject and the surroundings on set. Part of this is to eliminate errors, but more significantly, to be as engaged and aware with our clients, particularly our little ones. It’s the difference between making a photograph and just taking one.
