attempting film
Recently, I was exposed to a compilation of short form content revolving between the discourse of a digital street photographer, and an older NYC film based street photographer.
While likely scripted, the content revolved around the film photographer labeling the digital photographer as a phony because of the digital format. This led to a 10 part series of shorts where the film photographer was interviewed by the digital photographer about why he felt this way.
Frankly, I don’t care for gatekeeping art forms and instead choose to judge art simply by its appeal to me as well as its authenticity. I trust my taste and intuition while recognizing the my own bias. So in this case, most of what the series had to share I found uninteresting. It was about drawing lines and creating a sense of hierarchy in a way I simply don’t care about.
However, something that was said early on in the series was that “film slows you down” which was the initial hook for me to keep listening. My own background in photography is that for me, its a meditative exercise. I choose to photograph my surroundings as a method to force myself to pay attention to the present. Right now, the world is designed as an attention market. The highest bidders are vying for your constant attention to sell you products and ideas. Photography is my own form of resisting these pulls and returning to literally paying attention to the reality in front of me. The concept of slowing even more down during the exercise appealed to me so I thought I’d give it a go.
In a follow up post, I’d like to expand on the idea behind abstraction from the creative process. If my hook on film was the idea of slowing down, my lasting intrigue has been how the process of film photography abstracts you less from the process than digital. It’s an addiciting endevour that’s immensely rewarding, while challenging. The following few photos are from my first attempts with film this past week. These are Black and White photos, developed at home. I choose Black and White as my understanding was that BW development was slightly easier. While I enjoy black and white photos and understand the attraction, its been a challenge as well to take interesting shots. I find myself missing color and I’m gathering resources to attempt color development soon.
