Reconnect or cut off from film photography?

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I studied film photography at A level and LOVED it. So in my teens I got hooked on manual photography controls and developing film by hand.

One of my first prints was of Harrow Town Centre (BHS on the right)

It was empowering to have such immense control over an exposure.

Some of my earliest stuff is still my favourite – with many shots being of total strangers. I really loved learning on Ilford black and white films.

Taken at Regents Park, these chaps were out for a stroll

Having cut my teeth with manual photos, my dad treated me to a cheapo automatic film SLR which I later upgraded to a Minolta Dynax 60, which has now been on my hip for a solid 15 years.

My partner must have got fed up of me carrying my camera all the time.

 

Armed with a few basic lenses, including a 75-300mm Minolta Tele Zoom (used in the football shot, above), my trusty 35-70mm Macro zoom and a couple of others, I’ve recently invested in some wide angle lenses to keep my kit versatile. 

The Eden Project, Cornwall

I've never been good with landscapes and now I know I just needed a wider frame. As much as I love the above, it's quite close in.

Landscapes were fine if I'm far away but now when I'm much closer.

 

It's started to dawn on me though, that in order to be versatile, I really ought to be considering making the digital switch to a digital SLR.

  Above: pictures from a sunny stroll along the Thames when I lived in Hammersmith 

I’ve really struggled in the past without the ability to change ISOs at the flick of a switch, so that prospect does tempt me over to the shiny electronic side. But the throwaway disposable nature of digital images fills me with real disgust.

Bari, Italy

It’s just made everything too easy which has made the art, is in my opinion, dismissive and lazy.

However.

When I recently took some Kodak Portra 800 for developing at Snappy Snaps I was in for a whopper of a developing bill. It struck me that recently offering to photograph a close friend’s wedding was perhaps a higher bill than I was willing to pay.

My macro lens would occasionally come in handy

But at least they’d have had prints.

 Then again, a recent trip to meet my new baby nephew (the photos I took to Snappy Snaps), I ran into another whirlwind of problems.

My kit lens was fine for portraits

 

The first, not anticipating the fluorescent light at the hospital (silly error really – I should have packed my FL-D filter) so my nephew’s pics are twinged with green, sadly. Don't worry though, I've fixed them in post. Got them put on a disc so I could do some manipulations.

Upped the magenta and downed the green in photoshop to achieve this balance

And then my far of shoving a flashgun in his adorable, very very new face – meant that all the other photos that day have come out either blurred (too lazy to carry a tripod, I am – I won’t be making that mistake any more) or too dark. A high price to pay for dodgy prints. 

But for the most part, there are some beautiful ones in there.

I’m not totally pleased to hand over my prints to the happy couple to be honest, I’m embarrassed as a photographer to have been so thoughtless with such basic rules.

Maybe my new found laziness means I ought to switch to digital?

Or maybe I should be working harder to rekindle my love for film photography, and just, y’know, do it right? Like I used to...

Whatever happens, I am still a good old fashioned cheap photographer in Harrow, London. Happy to take on events and portraits, get in touch if you fancy a shoot and I'd be happy to consider it. I do it for the love of film.