Film is Not Dead

Growing up, I never had a decent camera. At an early age, I coveted them. In fifth grade, our church was giving a Brownie camera to the church member who brought the most visitors. I tried as hard as I could to get friends to come so I could win that camera. It never happened.

Finally, in high school, I got a 110 camera which was all the rage, but the quality of prints was subpar. Looking at the size of the negatives, there is no surprise. Try as I might, the photos produced just never came out anything like I had envisioned.

In my early 20's, autofocus, auto-everything 35mm cameras were reasonably priced and gave reasonable results. Drop a canister of film into the camera and snap away. Unless you were a complete idiot, you could be guaranteed at least 18 decent exposures out of a roll of 24. Still there was something missing every time I developed a roll of film.

It wasn't until I got my DSLR that I realized what it was. Learning about apertures, shutter speeds, ISOs, exposures and lights has just made me love photography even more. I forgot all about film until recently. I feel nostalgic for the graininess and the imperfections. I want to see what I can get from film now that I can apply composition and light to the click of the button.

I started with the Instamatic Fujifilm camera the kids got me for my birthday.

Then I made another commitment by investing in SX-70 Land camera.

And in a wave of nostalgia, I bought some 620 film for my dad's old Argus.

Film is not dead, but it's not cheap either.

Can't wait to see the results.