The PROBLEM With Film Photographers

Film photography is awesome. But it has PROBLEMS. In this video I'm going to talk about what I see as some of the biggest problems with photographers and what we can do to fix them. I think if you spend one minute browsing an analog photography hashtag on instagram, you will encounter one of these problems - cliches. I don't know what it is about us film photographers, but put a 50 year old camera in our hands and we will find old trucks, neon signs, and vintage gas pumps in spades. Why is it that we only use our old film cameras to take pictures of old things? Another major problem is that film photography is highly technical, and as we spend time learning and using our old film cameras, there's a temptation to value the process over the result. Hopefully this video makes you aware of some potential blind spots. Maybe we won't have to have "The PROBLEM With Film Photographers" Part II. Thanks for watching guys!

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[abritandhisbikeinpoland]

Wow, that was 6 and a half minutes of truth and sense!!

[paullacotta]

I’m so enthralled with film photo process that I usually go out and shoot with no film in camera. Save a lot of money, too.

[zackpowell]

Regardless of the medium, the gear, or the subject… If it gets you out of the house to take photos - that’s what’s important 😎👍🏻

[rsxd]

I personally find that taking pictures with film cameras is way more fun and I dont really care how the pictures turn out when its so much fun taking them. Its an escape of the modern digital world

[rogerickanas]

Film photography is not more difficult than digital. I feel that many people now start in digital photography and did not learn the basics of the camera and photography itself. I started off with analog cameras with a spot meter and all manual controls. No auto anything. You learned where to meter and how to set the f-stop and shutter speed appropriately. The newer auto film cameras took a lot of the mental calculating away. This is in a way good as it allowed many of use to capture fast evolving scenes. These cameras and digital cameras gave us all a point and shoot method of working. Knowing the basics allows anyone to pickup any manual camera, read the light, set aperture and shutter, compose, and shoot. What makes a good photograph has always been debated.

[MarksPhoto]

Just how does one expect to be a youtube influencer without taking $20, 000 of film gear on a aimless trip across route 66, to take random snapshots of abandoned motels and other detrius?

[Ikgeloofhetniet]

I wonder if people who are into old cameras are just into old things in general. I am a historian and archivist and got into photography because I read about old cameras and was fascinated by how they worked. I shoot almost exclusively old things haha.

[rogerparsons]

I've said the same thing for years. Many people think it automatically makes it good just because they took the photo with a film camera. Many of the real popular film photography YouTubers don't take great images but still have big followings. It may be more of a challenge, but my goal when shooting film is the same as when I shoot digital, to shoot great images that tell a story and are composed and exposed properly.

[ConanTroutman]

I get the point being made but it's also important to not get caught up in needing to judge every photograph as art or your conception of it.

One of the biggest hurdles for me in photography was getting over being 'shutter shy' or anxious about every time I took a photo if it was going to be 'good' or artistic. A camera *is* just a tool and photography as a hobby can accomplish many things for you aside from just creativity. I just can't agree to calling something *just* a snapshot, snapshots are great! Take photos of what makes you want to take photos and don't worry about whether or not you're reaching whatever standard some person on the internet has of whether a photo has artistic value.

[brandyfuller]

Im the kind of photographers that likes my gear to be good enough to “get out of my way” so i can focus purely on composition. Its why i use “unpopular AF automatic SLRs” that handle all the hard stuff for me.
As for my subjects, I just shoot what I like, no matter what it is. Im all about composition being 90% of my effort, not messing with settings and worrying about stuff like that.

[lensman]

Film photography is not for everyone. I love it because I love to do difficult things, and I love the process. Don't care much for most of the new film photographers on social media either. 95% of what is shown is pure junk. Film or digital, it is the content that counts. Anse l Adams once said " there is nothing worse than a sharp photo of a fuzzy concept. " I rest my case.

[jamessprenger]

Your comments bring to mind something that Ansel Adams said; there's nothing worse than a clear photo of a fuzzy concept! That is a trap that I've certainly fallen into. Regarding gear one of my cameras is a Yashica-12 TLR that I bought new in 1967 I think the year was. And I still use it. As a septuagenarian I'm not all that into social media for posting my photos. I develop, print and matt my own photos so if anyone wants to see them they really have to come to my house. And I like old dilapidated things. After all, I'm one myself!

[Jerry]

I started photography in the film age before digital. And people were talking great pictures way before digital. Photographers come a dime a dozen. Everyone is a photographer. Especially now with cameras on their phones. But like before in the film age. The majority took crappy pictures. Mostly snapshots. I work in a Drugstore photo lab and it was like seeing the same pictures over and over.
People now are just leaning film photography after doing digital. There’s a learning curve. One thing I see is people seem to apply digital photography to film. Like iso. Film speed matters. Everyone seems to like using fast film for some reason. Yes you can be creative with it. To get some interesting effects. But as a general rule, use the slowest speed for the photo shoot that yo can. Film isn’t digital. You can’t just say I’ll shoot this at 800 iso the go to 200 then 1600 like you can with digital. When I worked as a photographer I carried primarily 100, 125, and 400, iso. And sometimes 3200 TMax. Occasionally I even shot slower down to 25 iso. Slower film has more and finer grain. Which gives you more sharpness and better tonal range. I could still use slow film in darker areas or even at night. I didn’t push it either. Fast film like TriX, and HP 5, I would push sometimes. But only rarely. I just got faster film for the job.
Unless you want a grainy image. Don’t use fast film. You can only enlarge so much until you get too much grain. Slow film I can blow up poster size. 25 iso you can make a mural out of it.
Digital a lot is done in photoshop,
With film it’s the same. Half of photography is done in the darkroom. A darkroom technician can make or break your photos. Good ones know how to take bulletproof or thin negatives and get prints out of them. Some of is with chemicals, like farmers reducer, used to reduce density and fog in negatives and prints. Or how they make the prints. Bringing out details that weren’t as clear on the original print or contact sheet Then cropping it to compensate for composition of an otherwise poor image into something better.
I have a great Sony digital camera and it takes great pictures, but I prefer my film cameras.
When you’re learning something new of course they’re going to take boring photos. People take boring digital photos too.
When I worked as a photographer I took thousands of photographs. But after developing them. You still only get a handful of great pictures. Of those handful. They were published in or displayed.

[gideonliddiardphotography]

I started with film, back in the '80s and find my approach and subject matter selection to be pretty much identical, likely helped by the fact I always try and carry both a film and digital camera with me when I go out. Most of what I learned with analog has transferred over to digital, even down to the point that I still find myself being economical with the number of shots I take with my digital kit.

[dps]

Photography is subjective. What one man says is a crappy photo could be art to another. The last time I went to the museum of fine art in my city a good portion of the visitors have zero clue about art or art history. The exhibit was works of Pablo Picasso. Even with the guide attempting to explain many of them just didn't get it. Picasso introduced a new method of expression, cubism.

It is important to know how he brought it to light, so to speak.

He took photos with a camera that had a damaged lens. That cracked lens cause the images he took to also be broken. When those images were developed he then painted what he saw and cubism was born and evolved over time. It was such a departure from previous forms, not in any particular order; Impressionism, Realism, Renaissance, etc.

I am sure that when art patrons back then first saw their first Picasso cubism paining in 1907 Les Demoiselles d'Avignon they likely thought he has a cracked eye as well as a cracked paining.

Ted Forbes, very well known to most photographers, once stated that no one cares about your photographs. Its a very bold statement. But he is correct. No one cares about any of the photos you or the billions of other photographers or people with cameras that splatter snaps all over social media of the multi billion photos. No one cares.

Why? Photography is subjective. Then again they matter to those to shot those images. They mean something to them.

I have an old black and white photo, show it to anyone they'll tell you it is a poor photo, the picture itself is in good shape. Its not torn or been folded. Nothing has been spilled on it and the image hasn't faded. Its a bad photo due to exposure issues. It meant something to a family member who shot the photo and it means something to me. Its a photo of my grandfather, dad and uncle at the end of a hunting trip taken in New Mexico in the 1940s and its the only known photo of all three together.

So you see, boring photos, bad photos, whatever the problem to you and others might think it's garbage. The the photographer it could be part of a learning experience of their introduction to photography.

I have a box of bad photos that I've taken over the years. You'd be a fool to think that every exposure of every roll of film will be perfect and award winning.

I read an NatGeo article of film photographers of the 1970s and 80s who would shoot 30 to 40 rolls of Kodachrome or Ektachrome, that's 1440 total exposures. That's for each assignment. During a lifetime of working for NatGeo and shooting hundreds of thousands of photos barely 500 made it into a NatGeo publication for one photographer. Yes these are seasoned, professional photographers.

I will assure you they argued their collective asses off to get more of their photos published. Its the editor who determines which photos are boring and which will make into the next issue of NatGeo magazine.

There are many self proclaimed people with cameras who call themselves photographers or professional photographers.

if you are a professional photographer the money you earn as a pro pays ALL of your living expenses.

If you are a You Tuber with a camera and you earn all of your income from your channel which you use to pay ALL of your living expenses you are NOT a professional photographer. You are a social media influencer with a video camera. Both of them are as far apart as a boy who flies a kite and a man who pilots a stealth bomber.

I take my photos for my pleasure as does my wife. We don't post to social media for likes, views or thumbs up because most people haven't a clue of the message we're attempting to convey with our photos. We take photos for our pleasure. If we feel that a hand full of them are exceptional then we'll enlarge them, have them professionally mounted and framed to be displayed in our home for our friends and family to view. They may comment but many don't comment at all. We don't care if they don't. What matters is what we think of our own photos.

[lonniepaulson]

I am an old photographer. I started photography in 1969, we only had film. I don't share your concerns because I only used manual cameras. Yes I owned some view cameras. I even worked for a catalog studio where we shot with 8x10 Calumets and Deardorffs. At the studio we had to bracket in 1/3 stop increments. I learned on manual cameras. We did special effects, separated products from backgrounds all the things photographers do now with automated digital cameras. Once you get used to shooting film and working with manual cameras it won't feel that much different than working with digital. As a professional we had to know what the photo was going to be like before we tripped the shutter, we were being paid. Anyone of you can get great results with film just practice. Some things we used to do to check exposure was clip tests, Polaroids, bracketing, and we always used a light meter.

[burneshollyman]

This video is spot on and why so many film photographers post poor images on Instagram and Reddit.

[samwestenskow]

I’m glad you bring this up. I definitely fell victim to this when I first started out on film (about a year and a half ago) The good news is, I’m now satisfied with my cameras (Nikon F and FM2n) and I know how to properly use my gear.

You’re right, a beautiful image is a beautiful image, regardless of what medium. Once we get that part down, the fact that our image was shot on film adds to it. I think Ben Horne is a fantastic example of this. He is a master of his craft but because his images are shot on 8x10 with slide film, there is no apparent grain and none of the typical colors that you get from color negative film at golden hour. At first glance, you would probably think his images are digital but when you learn that they were shot on large format slide film, they become all that much more impressive.

[mmatiasautio]

Hmm… I’m hybrid shooter myself but shoot most of my street photography on film.

I agree on some of the points you made, but I would argue you can find similar cliches in the digital realm as well, and maybe even more bad, mundane photos.

But I think nostalgia factor is a huuuge thing in the popularity of film photography. Nostalgia is trendy, not just in the photography world.

So I think when people choose to shoot old things with a film camera, it just matches with the vibe they’re going for.

I mean, is there any point in shooting film in 2023 if you don’t want your photos to have a certain timeless / nostalgic look? 😄

And often I find at least for my photography, photos I take on film tend to actually be better, because the fact that you need to be very mindful of light, settings and that it costs a fortune. It actually forces me to focus more on the image.

I also just enjoy the tactile feel of old cameras a lot more than modern mirrorless cameras, which sometimes feel like using a smartphone.

But I do agree that just by shooting some trash can on film doesn’t make it a great photo and some people really think it does 😅

[JerryHazard]

"Hey man..."

Not seeing how there's any more "suffering" when moving to film. (And the majority of film shooters aren't likely to encounter reciprocity failure - at least not the ones you choose to highlight in your IG example).

Buy the camera, buy the lens, but the film...
Take the image, send to the lab, pay more money, get the image back...

There's nothing mentioned there thats primarily different than shooting digital, and nothing that implies an image should be "good".

All of these steps are what's required to make an image, film or digital (using a camera) - even the manual focus part, seeing that many boutique lenses will be manual, and the cool thing to do is to attach vintage lenses to digital.

Film vs Sony A7c? That's an $1800 via Amazon today, is this really an apples to apples comparison? A much more apt comparison would be to compare Leica digital vs Leica film.

As well, you're creating a nostalgic tool to a modern one. Subject matter is going through a bias filter, simply because it's film.

Again, a better comparison would be film STREET photography vs digital street photography.

Film photography is more difficult? No. Film photography isn't "new". Digital isn't more difficult either. Poor practice yields poor results in either. If anything, digital may be easier to save a poorly executed photo.

Again, no, no, no. Film cameras are not more difficult to use. They are the same. The exposure triangle applies both. Lens choice, depth of field, ISO, lighting... All the same.


"The gear, the film, the settings" and "not creating a compelling images".... Have you seen other YouTube photography videos, lol? Youtube photo channels are - in my opinion - disproportionately "geared" towards gear - rather than how to visualize and achieve compelling images.

And don't get started on the what is compelling thing... It's ultimately subjective. You find oversaturated sunset photos of esoteric scenes, that would not exist without the depth of control one gets in Lightroom and Photoshop to be more compelling than say a rusted lock on an old gate, let alone unique?

Sorry, I see the problems you single out to be problems with photography in general. To me, your comparisons suffer from confirmation bias, and don't really apply to the premise.

I agree, overall, there's too little emphasis and instruction on how to create compelling images - film or digital. Most channels are gear oriented. Your channel (whose content I enjoy) contributes heavily to this, actually. Out the channels that do touch on creating, most of them end up being a vlog of someone's landscape shoot, with a Ken Burns photo gallery making up the rest of the video.

So, TLDR: I disagree, a lot. But enjoy your channel - keep up the good work!