Film Theory

The Role of Film Photography in an AI World – By Joseph

By / February 3, 2023 / Philosophy & Reflections / 30 Comments

The position of film photography has never been stronger. Against the intangibility of our virtual reality, the medium of photography and its process gives viewers the craved tangibility of physical reality and tactility. There is now a desire for presence. 

People crave realness, authenticity and tactility in artworks, not one that only possesses a brain but with heart and soul. We want to feel the presence of the artist through the artwork. We desire artworks that serve a purpose, not just to illustrate an idea but to create a sense of awe that increases knowledge. 

Scan and Destroy – My blasphemous quest to be free of my negatives – By Max Cooper

By / December 12, 2022 / Philosophy & Reflections / 29 Comments

The issue of SHOTS magazine current at the time of this writing contains images central to my thesis: Recovered slides from my grandfather’s collection. On the off-chance you missed it, I’ll reproduce them below. These were shot in the late 1940s using my grandfather’s Argus C3, the original 35mm compact, so it was a stretch …

Scan and Destroy – My blasphemous quest to be free of my negatives – By Max Cooper Read More

36 frames

Why I Prefer to use Film for my Street Photography – By Armando Caballero

By / July 22, 2022 / Gear Theory, Philosophy & Reflections / 7 Comments

Street photography is what I love to do the most. If I could, I would go out there every single day of my life and take pictures of the world around me. But there is still one thing that I love even more than Street Photography, to do it using my analogue camera and some film stock. There are several reasons for this, let me share them with you.

Train leaving the stop

The Game Called ISO – Taking Advantage of the EV System for Better Results – By Vlad Serebryany

By / June 12, 2022 / Gear Theory / 8 Comments

For as long as I was shooting film, I have had the same nagging problem: I wanted to shoot in the dark. My Dad – who gave me my first and his only camera Zorkiy with 3.5/50 mm Industar-22 – taught me not to even bother shooting at 1/30 sec or slower as the pictures would come out blurry. Given that the only film available to me was Svema’s Foto 65 (ISO 50), that meant that whenever we went anywhere, at about 5-6 pm, the camera would be stashed away and we continued our wandering without having a picture taken.

A few years later, I would struggle with the same film to take pictures at the parties, concerts and dark alleys. I was trying to push film 3-4-5 stops, but that rendered even beautiful faces to look like those of white-faced mimes. The pictures were horrible,  and more than once they would be torn into shreds after being shown to the subject.

Shooting Gigs – Pushing The Boundaries of B&W Film – By Tom Schulte

By / April 29, 2022 / Gear Theory, Photos & Projects / 9 Comments

I might say, pushing the boundaries of film in this case is more like returning to its roots.

When rock ‘n roll and hard bop burst through the famed and now widely regarded as the golden age of music, that is, 50s-70s, the highest ISO film available was around 400-1000 (B&W of course). It’s difficult to think this level of light sensitivity would be enough to capture musicians in their element, when one could assume live music = low-light. And yet some of the greatest concert photography I’ve ever seen were shot on these (now broadly perceived as general purpose) B&W film stocks, particularly Tri-X.

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