This story originally appeared on the Gents Cafe Newsletter. You can subscribe here.
There is something about film photography that feels like resistance. Not a loud resistance, a quiet, subtle one, one that is intentional. In a world where we can take a thousand photos in a day and never look at them again, film asks you to slow things down, to care. You have to consider each shot. You have to wait for the right moment. You can’t delete, you can’t preview. You will only really know once you bring your film to a shop to be developed, only to realize the subject had their eyes closed during that shot, that’s what makes this shot beautiful. Or how about when you accidentally blurred the subject but the background is crystal clear? Mistake? I wouldn’t say that. This is the art. This is the good stuff.
I can’t help but wonder sometimes, are we living in a digital dark age? Where are your cellphone pictures from 10 years ago? Maybe you printed them, maybe you saved them in a Facebook album, most people don’t. With film, it’s a physical copy in a digital world. It is timeless. Something that you can hold, something that won’t disappear.
Everything is silent and easy now, but we crave anything analog, the winding of film, the mechanical click, waiting days or weeks to see how your shots turned out. It feels like a time capsule and finally moments you may have forgotten about come back to you.
Whenever I travel, I pack a few rolls of film with me. It helps me stay in the present moment, work on a craft, try and get better at something. I remember how hard it was and how nervous I was to load and unload film. Now I can do it on the side of a busy street in Rome with one hand. And when you’re traveling with a 70’s film camera, you’re not just chasing content, you’re discovering, discovering alleyways, people, vantage points. It’s a way to explore. I like to go out by myself with my camera and see what I can find. It changes the way you travel. You look for moments, finding beauty in the mundane, a quiet street early in the morning, a stranger laughing in golden light, something you may have missed if you were rushing.
It’s a way to slow things down in a fast paced world, a reminder that not everything needs to be immediate, perfect, or shared.
Maybe that’s why I love it so much, because in a fast paced world, film helps me stay just a little longer in the moment.
