Fine art film photography

17th August 2017 by maryann in Analogue Photography 0 comments
The Menagerie Lifestyle Photography
Fine art film photography

Does film photography still have a place in the modern world? Of course! Photography is about creating and preserving links with the past and what better way of doing so than with a traditional method, hand processed and hand printed by your photographer. 

With each click of the camera, light interacts with the chemicals in the film, creating something fragile and sensitive that needs nurturing and bringing into the world. Romanticised? Perhaps, but worth the effort if only for the dreamlike feel that only film can bring. 

By its very nature, film photography is a physical product which makes it instantly more tangible, more sharable than digital, do you miss the days when the family would get the photo album out to share memories of both recent and distant past? This is simply not done in the modern world, not because its socially unacceptable, but because our memories lie unseen on hard drives and mobile phones, only to be glanced at then quickly forgotten. My work aims to bring some of that back to our lives, I create memories to  be seen and cherished. 

I’m not going to get into a debate about which is better, both forms of photography have their benefits, I will always use film on my personal projects because film is just different, I can spend hours trying to emulate the effect of film on my computer, or I can just use it to start with. 


One place I see film taking the lead over digital is in natural light. Film is meant to be shot in natural light, and that’s where it thrives. Why is film photography different? Unlike digital images, film represents the world more accurately, it mimics our eye, its softer more graduated than digital therefore gives a more dreamlike, natural effect, digital images are made up of millions of tiny squares that give us a photo, film is not made up in such a linear way, and because of that, it naturally blends light and colours more beautifully than pixels. In short, digital images feel angular and stark, whereas film is warmer, deep and more inviting.  And then of course, there is the grain – I’m sure if you’ve made it this far I don’t have to explain the beauty of grain to you! 

What do you get from a film shoot? Well…. ME! Doing exactly what I do and love best. Aside from that, you get some beautifully timeless black and white prints, handprinted by me while listening to my favourite vinyl in the darkroom, the music is important of course!

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