If you follow my feed on Twitter at all (and you should!), you’ve probably noticed that over the last few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about film photography.  Other than a couple rolls that I’ve shot with my Holga, I haven’t spent nearly as much time doing film photography as I would like.  As you’re likely to hear from anyone that’s hesitant to pick up a film camera, there are two reasons why I just haven’t done it much over the last few years.  The first reason is cost.  To put it quite simply, I really haven’t been able to afford financially to shoot film.  With film, you’ve got to consider both the cost of the film itself as well as the developing costs, and we’re not even talking about getting prints made yet.  The second reason, if you haven’t already guessed, is time.  One of the great things about digital photography is that you’ve got the results instantaneously, whereas with film it could be anywhere from hours to months to find out what photos you’ve got.

You’re probably wondering why I’m considering shooting film at all if I can’t afford it and don’t want to wait for my photos.  Well, there’s a certain realness to film photography that you simply cannot get with digital photography.  I’m a big fan of trying to achieve quality photos straight out of the camera, and with film, you pretty much have to get it right the first time–framing, composition, lighting, etc.  There are no second chances with film photography–you can’t shoot 100 different angles of the same thing and decide later what works and what doesn’t–and for me, that’s a lot of what photography should be about.  Beyond this, I love some of the unexpected aspects of film, such as light leaks and double exposures, that you simply cannot get naturally with digital cameras.  With that in mind, I’m planning to adjust my personal finance budget so that I can do more film photography (everything from 35mm and Polaroids to 120, 127 and 620), because it is such a unique art form that I hate to see dying out.

In additional to the photo to the right, after the jump are a few more photos from the first roll of 35mm film that I’ve shot with my Minolta X-570 since probably 2001 or earlier.  Also, just today, I’ve sent off my first ever roll of 127 film to Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas, so hopefully I’ll be able to share those photos in a couple of weeks, but I’ll be trying to share more and more film photos in general going forward.