Five Reasons Why You Should Shoot Street Photography with Film

Recently when I went to Dubai, I had a ton of fun shooting in the streets with Dubai Creek —both who shoot film. I never really understood the rationale why people shot with film. To me at the time, it seemed like a burden. First of all, you had to buy the film. Secondly, after you took the photos you couldn’t see them instantly. And lastly, it was expensive to develop it (and even more money to scan). For these three reasons, I was mostly put off by film. Although I did shoot a bit with my Contax III a film rangefinder and did enjoy it—at the end of the day I preferred my digital camera.

1.     You cannot chimp

 I started to enjoy the fact that I couldn’t see my photos instantly. As you guys well know, chimping is a bad habit when it comes to street photography. With film, you physically cannot chimp—therefore you focus on actually taking photos when on the streets.

2.     You look at your images more objectively

When shooting with film, I typically wait around a month (when I have around 10 rolls or so) and get them developed. Therefore I don’t see my images about a month after I take the photos, which means that when I look at my images—I actually forget a lot of the photos I take. Therefore because I get detached emotionally from the photos, I can more objectively edit and choose my best images.

3.     Film has more dynamic range

I love film because it is nearly impossible to blow your highlights. Even if they are over-exposed, they will still retain some shade of grey and not have that artificial bleach-white look.

4.    Your photos look good straight out of the camera

With film, the photos often need little to no processing. I find that my film shots look great out-of-camera. Of course if you want to dodge/burn your images, that means more work in the darkroom (which is difficult). 

5.    You can’t delete photos

With film it is a different story. When people ask me to delete the photo, I tell people I can’t and show them the back of my camera. Most people when they see a film back—they are perplexed (after all, what kind of camera doesn’t have an LCD back?). Then most of them are a bit confused, and say “oh – okay” and keep on going on. My conjecture is that the average person sees a film camera and thinks that you are just of a hobbyist (rather than some weird photographer that is going to instantly upload your photos online with your digital camera).