Shooting film has always been a medium of photography I have wanted to try. I have been a digital shooter now for 5+ years working professionally for 2 of those. For my professional work, I used the Sony mirrorless system - after I left the profession to pursue another career I switched back to Fujifilm. Using the XT-4 and X100V for the past 18 months (give or take). My endless pursuit with these 2 cameras was the emulation of different film stocks, it became like an obsession which I have to say I think I became pretty good at! All that changed when I recently came into possession of two 35mm film cameras. One was a hand-me-down from my grandparents and the second I came by for £1 in a car boot sale.

The two cameras I now have are the Canon EOS10 which has plenty of modern bells and whistles, autofocus (being able to use the current EF lens system) multiple shooting modes including burst and a range of automatic modes which you’d expect to find on any modern camera. The crazy thing is that this is a film camera that I believe was released in 1990. The camera being a hand-me-down I was dubious of its ability to function properly, however when I was told the camera had rarely been used I was filled with hope that it did in fact work. Spoiler alert… it did. The second of these two cameras, as I mentioned earlier, was a Ricoh FF3A bought for £1 from a car boot sale local to my home in Essex, a simple 35mm point-and-shoot camera which I try to carry with me pretty much everywhere.

I consider myself someone who has a firm grasp on the functions of a camera and the aspects which create perfect exposures/ your desired artistic effect, however, the task of shooting film for some reason felt daunting. I knew I could expose it properly, but not being able to see the photo straight away left me with a feeling of dread and thoughts such as “have I just missed this moment?” Or “will this photo look the way I wanted it to in my head?” However, with this came some benefits as well. I was forced to slow down and think about what I was taking a photo of. I am sure I am preaching to the choir but the obvious benefits of shooting digital as I always have, bar street photography, generally speaking, you would know instantly if you got the shot you imagined and with this, I got into a habit of constantly retaking the shot over and over again, I’m sure most photographers can relate. Having that option taken away was revitalising, both removing the paralysing worry of constantly retaking a shot just to make sure you get the perfect image but also forcing you to slow down, take your time and enjoy the process of making said shot.

The first 5 rolls, once shot were sent off to a company I found via Instagram called The Film Safe, they are based in Southampton and offer a mail-order film developing and digitising service. Once I had packaged up and sent off my used rolls of film I eagerly awaited the email to come through with the dropbox link to download my first, of hopefully many, memories created using these cameras. After a brief wait while my crippling English countryside wifi downloaded these images and then, just like that, they were there. All my anxieties about how they may or may not come out of development instantly fell away. Sure, there were imperfections and elements which were not quite as I would have wished them to be. It didn’t matter. I was infatuated with these images. Certainly, they will not be winning any awards or rocketing me to world renown but they were there, a slow and somewhat painstaking process had resulted in around 100 or so images which I fell in love with.

The imperfections in these images are, in a sense, what I fell in love with. They felt natural. They felt nostalgic. They felt like art with a completely different meaning than digital images ever have to me. I was sold. I am sold. I am in love. Shooting film was everything I had fantasised it to be and more. Those first 5 rolls have quite literally changed the art form for me.

P.S. I just bought a medium format camera… But more on that later.