CAPTURING LOVE IN 35 MM FILM

FOR THE LOVE OF FILM

WHY FILM

Film requires a steady hand and intentional eye - every single frame captured on 35mm film is meticulously calculated, adjusted, and waited for. You can’t get trigger happy with film…each wind back of the camera is a manual operation moving the roll of thin plastic through the back of the camera until the next frame is set in place, ready for the next shot. Each release of the shutter exposes the chemical-laden strip in the back of the camera to light and literally freezes the image in place on the film strip.

Once the roll is shot, I carefully wind the roll back into its canister before unlatching the back so no additional light leaks in and ruins the film. Once secured, the canister is sent off to a development team who will process the film by hand in a dark room, expose it to chemicals which will cause the images to show up as negatives. They then hand-scan each image carefully with a special light which illuminates the negative image and transposes it to a digital image.

This process can take up to two weeks and we won’t see what was captured until we get the scans back. At Seeking Sun, we don’t like wastefulness, and digital photography feels just like that - wasteful. When you can take 100 shots of the same subject and choose your best image, perfectly cropped and edited, that feels cheap to me because the “good shot” wasn’t carefully chosen and spotted with a trained eye. Film forces me to weigh what will look best, what angles and lighting will produce the most beautiful images, and wait patiently for the “perfect shot”.

This may sound scary to some - how do you know it will turn out? What if it doesn’t? This too is part of the fun…I love how the suspense keeps me on my toes and forces me to come prepared and alert to every wedding day and photography project. I become part of my work when I shoot on film because I’m very physically and emotionally invested in the end product. I can’t rely on AI technology or automatic camera sensors with film - I have to literally bring a personal touch to my work when I shoot on 35mm analogue format.

My favorite part about film is the way it captures people and places. What do I mean by this? Well, film carries a unique, inherent depth that digital photos can't match. This depth comes from the physical & chemical processes that create film. Since we, as humans, are composed of chemical reactions and physical energy, we inherently resonate with the tangible nature of film.The magic and mystery of film is she tends to capture the heart and soul of her subjects - both the people and places she reflects. Every roll is a pleasant surprise and will immediately usher you back to the moments those pictures were taken.

At Seeking Sun, I believe the past matters. If we forget where and who we come from, we lose parts of ourselves. This is yet another reason why I love shooting film - it connects us to our roots. I shoot with the same cameras our parents and grandparents once used! I recall flipping through my grandmother’s photo albums of her as a young girl, then her own wedding photos, and I recall thinking about how beautiful and real those pictures felt. It was almost as if I could taste those moments, feel the energy, and experience them for myself. When we shoot with 35mm film we honor our heritage, and we get to offer our own children images just as timeless and precious for them to treasure.