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Shooting on film is a protest against the ubiquity and inhumanness of digital photography, and ultimately the commodification of memory. I use a polaroid camer

by 23B1 2y ago

Shooting on film is a protest against the ubiquity and inhumanness of digital photography, and ultimately the commodification of memory. I use a polaroid camera these days. It is messy and wrong and dark and unreliable and bulky and expensive; the exact opposite of the (awesome! but also generic and boring) iphone in my pocket. Leave some room for frivolity in your life.

imp0cat 2y ago
I use an Instax camera (the Fuji version of Polaroid), too. However, I do not see it as any kind of protest. I just really like the way it works (instant photos? magic!). However, the refills are expensive and the camera itself is very rudimentary (manual focus, limited control). OTOH, thanks to the simplicity, it is very easy to take apart and fix.
billfruit 2y ago
You can achieve some of the same effect by using one of the early 2000s, less refined digital cameras. I think, there is an early-digital point and shoot revival going on. Atleast it will be much cheaper than film.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  I’ve seen one of those digital cameras pulled out at a bar but they have not aged as well as the film cameras. For one, the lcd screen you rely upon for everything was totally yellowed to the point of almost not seeing anything on the screen. No clue about battery life or if all the buttons worked but if it was like my old digital cams probably not good. These things could be 25 years old now. Only a few like the canon powrshot were truly prosumer.
- cjk2 2y ago
  You can also do it on my Nikon Z6-ii ! And you can take not shit photos with it as well!
AequitasOmnibus 2y ago
> a protest against the ubiquity and inhumanness of digital photography A protest to the tune of approximately $1 per photo. I love my 35mm SLR but shooting on it is extremely cost prohibitive. Digital photography doesn’t have to be inhumane, it’s more about the user than the technology.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  It's strange, my mom and all her friends took thouands of photos on film. I threw away boxes and boxes of them when I cleaned out her house when she passed. Slides/print film and processing did not used to be cost-prohibitive. But I shot a few rolls of 35mm on my old SLR a few years ago and was stunned at the costs to just have them processed and scanned to digital files. I used to do my own (B&W) processing as a kid and paid for it with paper route and lawn-mowing money; I don't know what that costs these days but it sure seems that film photography is no longer a reasonably cheap hobby.
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    The masses kept it cheap. Now these film labs have to make 2020s rent and not 1990s rent with the few people dropping stuff off each day, forcing prices to increase substantially.
- ianburrell 2y ago
  I know there are apps that simulate film photos. I wonder if there are any that don’t show the images for a week.
  - igouy 2y ago
    I transfer RAWs from camera to hard-drive and rename the files with that transfer date asap (as a matter of preservation). Unless there was some time sensitive event, I might not look at them for weeks. Then I'll discard nine in ten.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  Its a nice exercise in photography to shoot in film. When I shoot digital I might take four shots of the same subject because why not. I take photos of every little thing potentially. I give myself a headache of 4000 photos with dozens of near identical shots to sift through in lightroom. You’d think I’d burn hundreds on film but no. A roll might last days or weeks or even longer. Every shot is different. I spend more time framing and making sure the exposure is correct. It forces you to slow down and think. The cost becomes hardly a thing because if I start worrying about $25 a month if that on film and dev, I have bigger problems.
whartung 2y ago
I'm not positive, but I think if you take film to be developed at my local drugstore, they will not return the negatives. Consume it whole, make some prints, and then give a CD or some other electronic copy. Very annoyed when we asked about that to find out they became a black hole for negatives.
tomjen3 2y ago
I am utterly flabbergasted by that attitude. I totally dig having useless old tech around (hey I brought a mechanical typewriter), but there is nothing inhumane about getting good quality photos of the people in your lives and be able to share them widely. If you have somehow made your phone inhuman, that's not on your phone. If you feel like you can take pictures you couldn't take otherwise, start playing with the settings on your camera app.
- luqtas 2y ago
  also pretty weird to have other people checking your photos because you need to process/print the film somewhere... or are you one of these inhumane people who have resources to develop your own rolls @ home? :P
cjk2 2y ago
The medium is really not important even if you think it is. What you do and where you are is the important bit. Half the photo is what's left inside your head that is activated when you look at it again.

by 23B1 2y ago

imp0cat 2y ago

I use an Instax camera (the Fuji version of Polaroid), too. However, I do not see it as any kind of protest. I just really like the way it works (instant photos? magic!). However, the refills are expensive and the camera itself is very rudimentary (manual focus, limited control). OTOH, thanks to the simplicity, it is very easy to take apart and fix.

billfruit 2y ago

You can achieve some of the same effect by using one of the early 2000s, less refined digital cameras. I think, there is an early-digital point and shoot revival going on. Atleast it will be much cheaper than film.

kjkjadksj 2y ago
I’ve seen one of those digital cameras pulled out at a bar but they have not aged as well as the film cameras. For one, the lcd screen you rely upon for everything was totally yellowed to the point of almost not seeing anything on the screen. No clue about battery life or if all the buttons worked but if it was like my old digital cams probably not good. These things could be 25 years old now. Only a few like the canon powrshot were truly prosumer.
cjk2 2y ago
You can also do it on my Nikon Z6-ii ! And you can take not shit photos with it as well!

AequitasOmnibus 2y ago

> a protest against the ubiquity and inhumanness of digital photography A protest to the tune of approximately $1 per photo. I love my 35mm SLR but shooting on it is extremely cost prohibitive. Digital photography doesn’t have to be inhumane, it’s more about the user than the technology.

SoftTalker 2y ago
It's strange, my mom and all her friends took thouands of photos on film. I threw away boxes and boxes of them when I cleaned out her house when she passed. Slides/print film and processing did not used to be cost-prohibitive. But I shot a few rolls of 35mm on my old SLR a few years ago and was stunned at the costs to just have them processed and scanned to digital files. I used to do my own (B&W) processing as a kid and paid for it with paper route and lawn-mowing money; I don't know what that costs these days but it sure seems that film photography is no longer a reasonably cheap hobby.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  The masses kept it cheap. Now these film labs have to make 2020s rent and not 1990s rent with the few people dropping stuff off each day, forcing prices to increase substantially.
ianburrell 2y ago
I know there are apps that simulate film photos. I wonder if there are any that don’t show the images for a week.
- igouy 2y ago
  I transfer RAWs from camera to hard-drive and rename the files with that transfer date asap (as a matter of preservation). Unless there was some time sensitive event, I might not look at them for weeks. Then I'll discard nine in ten.
kjkjadksj 2y ago
Its a nice exercise in photography to shoot in film. When I shoot digital I might take four shots of the same subject because why not. I take photos of every little thing potentially. I give myself a headache of 4000 photos with dozens of near identical shots to sift through in lightroom. You’d think I’d burn hundreds on film but no. A roll might last days or weeks or even longer. Every shot is different. I spend more time framing and making sure the exposure is correct. It forces you to slow down and think. The cost becomes hardly a thing because if I start worrying about $25 a month if that on film and dev, I have bigger problems.

whartung 2y ago

I'm not positive, but I think if you take film to be developed at my local drugstore, they will not return the negatives. Consume it whole, make some prints, and then give a CD or some other electronic copy. Very annoyed when we asked about that to find out they became a black hole for negatives.

tomjen3 2y ago

I am utterly flabbergasted by that attitude. I totally dig having useless old tech around (hey I brought a mechanical typewriter), but there is nothing inhumane about getting good quality photos of the people in your lives and be able to share them widely. If you have somehow made your phone inhuman, that's not on your phone. If you feel like you can take pictures you couldn't take otherwise, start playing with the settings on your camera app.

luqtas 2y ago
also pretty weird to have other people checking your photos because you need to process/print the film somewhere... or are you one of these inhumane people who have resources to develop your own rolls @ home? :P

cjk2 2y ago

The medium is really not important even if you think it is. What you do and where you are is the important bit. Half the photo is what's left inside your head that is activated when you look at it again.