I have had these thoughts on the back of my brain for a few days, since reading Doug Menuez’s post about digital photography making him lose his edge. With film, you really have to think harder. Even better stated, with modern, fancy-pants, bell-and-whistled wonder cameras, you just fire thirty shots in five seconds, go home, and pick your keepers.
Now, I am by no means the first to bring this topic up, I would not delude myself to believe so. I have read it on the Strobist, in history flicks about the greats of photography (notably Henri Cartier-Bresson), and as I just mentioned, from Doug Menuez…among many others. We must force ourselves to get that film-shooting edge, but how do we do that?
Well, you could shoot some film. Just a thought.
You know your aperture ring, you shutter speed dial, and your focus so well, you are setting up for the shot about to happen without looking at the camera. You do not need the display in your viewfinder to tell you, you know where your settings are. You do not need some computer to tell you how to expose the shot.
And after all that technical garbage, you realize the photo is about much more than the settings. It is that decisive moment. You are reading the situation, waiting for that moment, and when it happens, you take your shot. That one shot will be much better than dozens of machine gunned images. Know what you want and press that shutter when you want.
Now, I have to stay digital. It really is not an option. Well, if I want to see my images in less than half a year (literally), this is what I need to do. What I am struggling to fight against, though, is the subtle slide into digital laziness.
So, I challenge myself every once in a while. Shoot manual exposure every once in a while; it’s good for you. Manual focus, even. Wow, wild stuff, I know. Last night, on my outing for the midnight shoot (which I talked more about on Twitter @CooperStrange), I thought, “hey, what if I had to choose film before hand?” So, I chose my ISO ahead of time and decided they were going to be black and white. Even though that is quite arbitrary in the digital world, it would be a basic decision if I had to choose which film to load into the camera.
I pre-visualized the shots in black and white, which I might add, was not all that hard since it was so dark and it was in a factory that produces a white powder. The scene was almost black and white in real life! I did not want to shoot a high ISO just to “give it that cool, old, film grain look”, because the folks in the old days did not shoot ISO just because of the cool grain. They wanted crisp photos, but needed the high ISO film for some shoots. So, I went with 400.
And to top if all off, I have not looked at one of those shots yet. It is kind of like waiting for the lab. Doug Menuez mentioned this wait. It is good for us. It helps break the chimping addiction (constantly viewing your LCD to check out your shots). It is also good for us at a much deeper level, developing patience. I think you could even argue it helps encourage our brains to be more visual and think ahead, to pre-visualize, but that is just a thought.
Don’t be digi-lazy. Be film sharp.
