A Year of Analogue Photography

It's now been almost precisely a year since I took up, or rather expanded, my photography hobby. That is, augmented it by adding an analogue camera to my digital arsenal. One possible rationale being "in the modern digital world, there's just too much digital, and every click of your mirrorless, DSLR, or even worse, smartphone, contributes to the accumulation of thoughtless snapshots of random stuff, some of certain (personal) value, others completely unnecessary, filling up space on memory cards, local hard drives, and in data centers—thereby contributing to the global warming, water shortages, pollution, and what not", I honestly had other motives to start my analogue journey. I don't personally see any problem with digital photography; it definitely CAN be meaningful, thoughtful, and beautiful, and it is very capable of things that are not so easy to achieve on film. And it is just simpler and can be more affordable. I mean, nowadays almost everyone has a smartphone with a decent camera in their pocket, which they can use for no extra cost and with no mandatory understanding of exposure, aperture values, or anything to shoot their pictures.

But what really appealed to me about film photography was the technology itself and my curiosity about how it works, specifically, how one develops film, and all these negative->positive manipulations. So, more or less, the chemistry behind the process. And the perspective of being able to do it myself. You shoot your pictures, you develop them, and thus have the possibility not only to experiment behind the viewfinder, but also with some smelly and colorful liquids. And the product you get is a semitransparent ribbon riddled with sprockets and, on a closer look, portraying the many scenes from your life, frozen in time, imprinted in your memory, every frame sewn into your consciousness by the time you spent composing the shot, and that auditory shutter click. And all that stuff.

So, it's been nearly one year and precisely 10 film rolls. Black and white and color. Color negative and color reversal. And quite a lot of fun. I admit, probably it's not the cheapest hobby. But actually it does become significantly cheaper once you start doing everything yourself instead of relying on the labs to develop & scan/print your films (after an initial investment in the tools to do it yourself).

Okay, and now a small gallery.

If you'd like, you can also check out my Unsplash webpage where I occasionally drop some photos, shot both on film and digitally.

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