Film Stars

Has film ever really gone away? Oliver Atwell talks to three photographers using 35mm, medium-format and large-format film, and finds that the art form is anything but dead.

- Oliver Atwell

There are a great number of debates in photography: JPEG versus raw, black & white versus colour, Canon versus Nikon. But one that’s sure to get almost any photographer a little hot under the collar is digital versus film. However, as with all of the aforementioned arguments, the truth is not only entirely subjective, it’s also wholly unnecessary. The fact is, rumours of film’s demise have been – if this issue is anything to go by – thoroughly exaggerated.

There seems to be something of a resurgence in the use of analogue techniques in recent years. A good example is the music industry, where sales of vinyl are increasing day after day. Most significantly, we see the same happening in photography. More and more seasoned photographers are once again blowing the dust off of their vintage film cameras and rediscovering the alchemy of hands-on image-making and print developing. And perhaps most importantly, a great number of wet-behind-the-ears photographers are eschewing clusters of data and megapixels in favour of the tactile, ritualistic process of silver-gelatin.

Photography has much in common with painting. A painter’s studio is chock full of a variety of tools – oils, watercolours, charcoal, etc. Perhaps it’s time we saw film and digital in the same way. One of the most beautiful things we’ve seen in recent times is how film and digital can be a marriage made in heaven. Surely that’s something to be celebrated.