Four Lessons Digital Photographers Can Learn By Shooting Film

Spending many years shooting film has really influenced my approach to digital photography. I began my photography career at 12 years old when I co-opted the family Model 220 Automatic Polaroid camera. I remember blasting through the 10 shots that were part of the Series 100 film packs. Paying for film with my allowance, I learned quickly to make every shot count. When I first got my hands on a 35mm camera in high school, I thought I was in heaven. I was so excited to get an amazing 24 shots per roll. But again I found that shooting a lot of film was expensive, especially on a high schooler’s budget. Now that digital photography has made the cost of shooting virtually free, I still rely of the lessons from these earlier shooting experiences.

1. Get it right in camera

With limited post processing ability when I was shooting film, I had to make every shot count. Whether using the high school’s darkroom or the 55 minute film labs, there was little available to me to correct my mistakes. Even with the ability to adjust cropping, color balance, and exposure, I was never as happy with the results as when I got it right in camera.

Although digital gives you an endless set of possibilities for correcting your errors, there is still a cost. Hours in front of a computer fixing a mistake that would have taken a few moments to avoid during the shoot, is time taken away from what I think most of us enjoy, time looking through the viewfinder.

2. Slow down

With the limited number of exposures available with film and the cost of developing bad photos, I learned to take things at a little slower pace. Because of the costless nature of shooting digital, I sometimes find myself just firing away without much regard for the changing conditions. The result: a lot of wasted time culling photos that should have never been taken. Shooting film taught me to slow down, be more thoughtful before pressing the shutter release. I made every exposure count. I find even now, I enjoy the act of capturing an image infinitely more when I become more mindful of my photographic process.

3. Edit critically

The process of slowing down and getting right in camera helps me avoid wasting a lot of post processing time, but I still find that I shoot a lot more images than what I would have with film. In the end, digital has allowed me to produce a lot more average photos, not a lot more great ones. Editing with a very critical eye is how I avoid wasting any more time than is necessary in post processing.

There are a lot of tools within photo editing software that allow you to rate your photos, most on a 1 to 5 star rating system. I have simplified my workflow to have just three ratings.

1. Delete it.

2. Keep it.

3. Develop it.

The first thing I do after downloading the images from the camera, I delete every image that has limited potential to become a good photo. Whether it is a miscalculated exposure or a bad expression, I send it to the trash without wasting much time trying to fix it.

I then rate the photos that have the greatest potential. Using the editing software, these become my 5 star images. I take a first pass through all the images noting them as 5 star is they match my quality and aesthetic standards. Normally, I need to take a second pass through the most highly rated images to get down to the images that truly have the potential to be great. When making this second pass, I limit myself to allowing only 10% of the total images captured to have a 5 star rating. Everything else becomes just a keeper. There for reference purpose or some future project. I only spend my precious computer time on the best 10%.

4. Nothing’s perfect

With all the getting right in camera and critically editing, I still believe in the lesson from my film days: Nothing’s Perfect. Despite all the efforts, you are not going to always produce a perfect image. Being able to let go of perfectionism, has allowed me to focus more on the story or concept of the image and keeps me from becoming obsessive about the technical imperfection that might be in the image. I have learned that story and concept are more important than technical perfection. I want my images to say something; expression, gesture or mood is more important to me than a perfect exposure. If you have captured the perfect expression, or as Cartier-Bresson said the “Decisive Moment”, technical flaws will become moot. Technology has allowed us to capture with greater frequency a technically good enough photo that has the emotional impact we were originally striving for.