why do you use film ????

[jamesaz]

Pretty much all of the above. Plus it's my favorite tool in the toolbox. Also, every step of the process involves light reflected, never transmitted, to the eye. I think that makes it physiologically different from digital image making/viewing. I use digital too, when I think it appropriate but film is more fun for me.

 

[Vw1302]

I can't sing, I can't draw, I don't play the guitar... BUT I can shoot a film.. I can develop a film.. I can make prints... Then I have a feeling that I am able to DO some "art"...

 

[BMbikerider]

I like film because I like old tried and trusted technology, pretty much the same as old industrial machinery..... Oh yes I forgot steam locomotives as well.

Apart from anything else I like the processes and the slight risk of getting things wrong. With 'the other medium' you can shoot, shoot and shoot again if you get it wrong, I don't find that a challenge,

 

[E. von Hoegh]

yeah i know its fun, you like to use old cameras, you like something tangible
you like using chemistry and feeling some sort of "kinship" with people from like 100 years ago
but
why do you use film ?

Because the cameras I like to use don't take pictures without it.
And most of the other reasons.

 

[sportster44]

Film is real. It can be held. It is a chemical record of an energy state influenced by a physical world. It's a massive representation of a massless quanta. It's simply complicated in it's processes. It's predictably unpredictable in it's results. It's the logical contradiction of capturing an event with extreme accuracy from only a single perspective. It incorporates elements of physics, chemistry, art, history and philosophy. It takes more than a lifetime to master, yet can still be supremely executed by a complete neophyte. The most skillful master knows how large of a role luck plays into it all. Yet even a novice knows that the importance of skill is undeniable. The contradictions are too beautiful not to fall in love with!

Digital's great. It's the reliable workhorse. It goes where you tell it. But film is the wild stallion. It takes you along for the ride. You can never truly control film. But if you work hard enough at it, and find luck to be on your side, you can believe for a brief moment that you've achieved the impossible feat of controlling the uncontrollable and catch a brief glimpse of what the gods must feel. And that's a feeling I don't believe digital will ever be suited to render.

EXACTLY! And film gives me an esthetic that I'm not getting with digital...... and I'm too lazy to try and emulate film with digital when its just easier to shoot film.

 

[LeftCoastKid]

A couple of reasons off the top of my head: 1. I like the whole creative process (exclusive of developing the film itself); 2. Shooting film, I work slower than I do when shooting digital (I "think more"); 3. Sitting at a desk for the greater part of the day, staring into a computer screen, I really don't care to continue doing so in my leisure hours.

 

[KennethLundgren]

I take pictures of my grandchildren for their grandchildren in the future. Thats the medium for archive for a long time, I don´t believe in digital medium archive for long time.
Which medium should it be? Where do I put it? Does it still work?
Film in a binder or box you don´t misplaced it that easily or throw that away before you checked it, a USB/Card/harddrive (if it works) is easier to misplace.

 

[Canuck]

For me, the feeling of film to me, feels more archival (permanent) than my digital files. I love making images in both the analogue and digital formats and will continue to do so, but at times, I still get the feeling I should have shot it on film. Maybe schizophrenic

 

[RattyMouse]

yeah i know its fun, you like to use old cameras, you like something tangible
you like using chemistry and feeling some sort of "kinship" with people from like 100 years ago
but
why do you use film ?

My cameras wont work without film.

 

[jmlynek]

Because film always gives me a gift. Something extra I wasn't expecting.

 

[David Lyga]

When I developed my first roll of film (620, box camera, no enlarger) at age 14 (1964) I felt an amazing sense of creation that has not left me since. To to point of relieving occasional depression, I read, and read again, formulae which, somehow, made everything right once more.

I cannot be more succinct than this, and I know that that explanation does not elevate into pragmatism. But the sense of thrill with seeing a negative image, that is anything but 'virtual', has allowed me to feel very alive. Now, is that 'nuts' or not!!!??? - David Lyga

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I like the controls over the image that I have when working with film. And my preferred image-making tools use film. Certain techniques for manipulating images I find more intuitive and less labor-intensive with film than with digital. I'm not anti- anything, more just pro- film.