Is shooting film pointless in a digital age?

I have been told by people who clearly know more than I do about these things that shooting film, then digitising it, is a pointless exercise because you end up with a digital photo; why not shoot digital in the first place? Well sometimes I do shoot digital for personal projects, but it’s my choice.

So here’s my response:

1. If I shoot digital, I can only ever have a digital print from that file. Conversely, if I shoot film I have the option of a traditional (wet) print if I want it, with all the nuance and quality that gives me – far above and beyond anything achievable from a digital file.

2. Done correctly (and I’ve spent a lot of time working on this), a digital reproduction of a film negative (or positive, for that matter), should preserve much of the tonality and look of the original. It still doesn’t look like a digital image.

3. So why not add a film look to a digital original and be done with it? Because it always looks fake. And I still can’t get a traditional print from that (see 1 above).

4. When I shoot film I’ve already made certain creative choices about how I want the end result to look; I’ve baked my commitment in from the moment I loaded the film. When I shoot digital, the choices can overwhelm the creative process and the question arises, what was my original intention? What constitutes ‘the original image’?

5. Detail isn’t everything. Digital cameras now record scenes in such fine detail, it can leave the result looking sterile and forensic. Emotion and nuance are difficult to preserve in a forensic medium.

6. Why get so bent out of shape about the fact I shoot film? Some people get quite heated about this and I just don’t understand this reaction. Do they rant at watercolour artists? Do they criticise sculptors who must surely be throwing their chisels away in favour of 3D printing?

Apart from all that

I shoot film for all of the above reasons and for more besides (archival stability, provenance, approach and so on). Let me do my thing. And if my results are rubbish, by all means have a go at me for that. Criticise my results, not my method of obtaining them.

Right, I’m glad that’s settled once and for all…

PS. To see more of my personal project work, head over to https://www.takeagander.co.uk

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What Happens Next?

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas. By the way, do you also suffer the anxiety of not quite knowing when to cease starting emails and texts with that line? It’s ok, you’re not alone! I’ll stop around Jan 20th, if that’s any help.

At the end of last year I promised a look back at 2021 and a look forward to 2022, so here goes. I won’t dwell too much on last year because my final post of 2021 summed up most of what I wanted to say. However, as I wrote that article, I didn’t know how soon I’d be back on the subject of covering vaccines.

More Vaccine Work!

On December 22nd, at a time of the morning I prefer not to know exists, I was up and on my way to Stonehenge. This time I was covering a pop-up vaccination clinic at Stonehenge, again for NHS Banes, Swindon and Wiltshire CCG (BSWCCG). The plan was to invite Solstice visitors to have vaccines once they’d celebrated the sunrise over the stones.

It was a cold morning, but the sky looked spectacular as I came across Salisbury Plain and the visitors were treated to a beautiful sunrise. Of course I missed it because I was busy setting up alongside the clinical team who had commandeered the visitor centre cafe for their work.

The session went incredibly well and by the time I left Stonehenge, my client had a rush set of images for immediate press release.

The shot shown above got really great take-up by local press and on social media. Even my humble tweet got over 4,300 impressions! Not bad considering we didn’t even know if anyone would take up the jab on the day.

Except for shooting a quick wedding for friends who got married on December 28th, that was pretty much it for me!

So how is 2022 looking?

More Of The Same, But Different

Well I’ve already got bookings in the diary; a mixture of stills and video work, and I’m looking to plan more trips to Salisbury Plain soon. I didn’t get much time over Christmas and New Year to do any end-of-year tidying-up, so that’s sort of happening now. I did get time to start on an exciting new project, but more on that when the time is right. Exciting eh?!

My main focus as we enter 2022 is to keep developing the corporate work, while building the Salisbury Plain project into something more cohesive and rounded. That might sound a little vague, but I hope it will become clearer as the year progresses.

In the meantime, this shot from November was a good way to end 2021’s Salisbury Plain sessions. I’m keen to get back, but with a long-term project, patience is everything. I need to update the project gallery with some of the latest work as I try to make the personal projects as self-sufficient as possible. So don’t forget, if you like what I do and would like to see more, please feel free to support me in whichever way you can! None of this happens without my amazing supporters 🙂

And finally, whatever your plans for the coming year, I hope they come good for you. Here’s to an exciting 2022!