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film vs digital

Freda Banks – film vs digital…

A couple of months ago I received an email from photographer Freda Banks saying she needed causal, natural portraits for her website that show she is artistic in a friendly and approachable manner.

I had never met Freda, I had only seen her beautiful work online, so when she answered the door looking like this…020paigegreenFreda5214-002239-R1-012I was immediately very excited and extremely intimidated.

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Very excited… because she wanted me to photograph with film, which is my most favorite way to photograph.

Extremely intimidated… because I always assume every photographer is more talented and knowledgeable than I am. So photographing other photographers means having to wrestle my brain into silent submission, at least enough so I can do the job I was hired to do.

001paigegreenFreda5214-002240-R1-002Also extremely intimidated… because Freda is stunningly beautiful with an incredible sense of style, which meant I felt this overwhelming pressure to take the most amazing photos of my life, in order to live up to this fun opportunity to play with film and with beauty.

031paigegreenFreda5214-002238-R1-008But because Freda really is artistic in a friendly and approachable manner, it didn’t take us long to feel comfortable with each other, allowing me to silence my overactive brain and focus instead on finding good light. We talked and played and talked and played, and before I knew it, three hours had passed, which is a long time to make one person model, so I reluctantly put away my cameras and we said good-bye.023paigegreenFreda5214-002239-R1-015

(All of the above photos were taken with medium format film.)

While I do love film, it was a long painful wait for the film scans to return… luckily I had a few digital files to tide me over until the film scans finally returned.

Digital photography is a wonderful tool and I am so grateful to have it, but when given the opportunity to shoot with film… it is really hard for me to put down the film cameras and pick up the digital ones again.

I just love the sensory experience of photographing with film cameras. I love the sound of the shutter and the crisp, yet ethereal way the world looks through film lenses.

But film is slow, it is expensive and it can be unpredictable. You don’t always know what the results will be like and you have to wait a long time to find out… which for me translates to: exciting and risky (like the hard-to-get, tall cute guy, with big glasses and mismatched socks, who I married.)

Digital is fast, it is inexpensive (if you don’t factor in your editing time and you don’t upgrade your equipment every 9 months) and you know immediately if you got the photo or not… which for me translates to: boring and predictable.

But the advantage of shooting both digital and film is that I get to show a direct comparison between the two and you can decide for yourself which you prefer.

Below are examples of similar photos taken in both digital and film, with no retouching and very minimal color alterations on the digital files…

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digital                                                                              filmfreda1

digital                                                                              film freda2

digital                                                                              film

I admit, it’s a really close call… but film still wins my heart. What do you think?

You tell me… (contest below)

I often get asked, “What is the difference between film and digital.”

So I have a series of descriptive words that I use to try and convey why I love film so much.

But it is hard… so I need help.

I’d love for you tell me what you think the difference is.

So… this is film.

And… this (click here) is digital.

Now you tell me what you think, by Friday the 18th, and I will pick one person to win a surprise film print.

This is film (and my summer)…

I love film and I love summer.

And I couldn’t live without either one.

Well, maybe I could.

But life would be a lot less interesting and a lot less fun.

The only problem is that they are both so very time-consuming.

This summer was so busy that it seemed not to exist at all.

But I know it did because I have the film to prove it.

Even with the endlessly long summer days,

It seemed there still was never enough time…

To stop.

Or even pause and devote the time that film selfishly demanded.

So it sat neglected.

Piling up on my desk.

Waiting in the sidelines, as digital got all the glory.

Waiting for the grand finale.

And finally, here, the first day of October, it is.

A few of the summer film highlights, all at once.

Like cliffs notes.

Or the final minutes of a firework show.

But I still have high hopes of devoting a full post to each of these amazing occasions, faces, relationships.

I have even started the spinning the narratives in my head.

But time is running out.

As it is known to do.

And so this will have to do for now.

This showcase of why I love film and why I hope you will too.

Besides the obvious yet unpredictable beauty of film,

I also love its more discreet yet unfaltering faithfulness.

I feel comforted knowing that if disaster struck, and all my hard drives suddenly crashed tomorrow,

My film would still be there, sitting in a pile on my desk.

Waiting patiently in line to be filed away.

And talking excitedly about the summer that really did exist.

Organic Colored Cotton right here in Northern California…

This is the amazing Sally Fox. The woman who will not be stopped on her mission to grow organic colored cotton.

This is Sally Fox’s organic cotton growing in a field that she is letting go fallow in order to let the soil rest.

This is Sally Fox’s adorable daughter, who is the only nine-year-old in the valley.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

This is what an organic cotton field sounds like.

This is Rebecca Burgess wearing an outfit that was made solely from Sally Fox’s brown organic cotton.

Rebecca made her shirt and Rebecca’s mom made her pants. This means that Rebecca’s entire outfit was grown, spun, and sewn within 150 miles of her home in Fairfax, California.

And this is what Fibershed means. It means wearing locally grown, spun, designed and produced clothes that look and feel beautiful. It means wearing clothes that reflect the region you live in. And it means wearing clothes that do not harm the environment or the people who make them.

To help support Rebecca’s challenge to only wear clothes grown within her Fibershed for one year, please take a moment to vote for us on the Grant for Change website: http://www.nau.com/collective/grant-for-change/rebecca-burgess-1355.html

The winner gets $10,000! We need funding for this project so we can help pay farmers like Sally Fox and so we can document Rebecca’s journey in sustainable fashion. Thanks for your vote. Any little bit helps.

To learn more please visit the Fibershed website.

Trying to be Patient…

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Someone asked me how I managed all the roles of film that I take with my Rolleiflex, and the answer for this summer was… I didn’t.

I was so busy running around taking more photos that I didn’t have time to deal with the negatives. So I had towers of envelopes, with negatives inside, building a little city in our spare bedroom. It was so intimidating that my solution was to keep the spare bedroom door shut, so I wouldn’t have to see all the work waiting for me.

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Finally, this week was the week. Sunday night I got everything set up on our kitchen table, still no office, and Monday morning I got to work. And I worked and worked and worked… filing, scanning, filing, scanning. And now that everything is filed and scanned, the dust retouching begins.

Film is a lot of work.

But it is so worth it. I found so many treasures that I didn’t even know I had.

arann-5-09-

Digital photography is incredibly useful and I am grateful to have it. It is a great learning tool and essential for photo shoots with quick turn around times. But film inspires and excites me in a way that digital just can’t.

I wish I could post all of my new loves tonight, to prove my point that film is amazing once and for all, and because I am still not good at saving, anything. Not presents, not money, definitely not chocolate, I eat all the chocolate in my Advent calenders during the first week, and not photos that I love.

But I am going to try and be patient and create my own Rollei Advent Calender… one Rollei photo post a day… until?

Well, at least until all of this batch has been introduced to the world, and then we’ll see.

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(Models: Arann Harris, my skateboarding muse of a husband, and Mia the wonder dog.)

More Kiea and Colin (I had to!)…


I just loved the digital photos from my ‘after-the-wedding-photo-shoot’ with Kiea and Colin so much, so it isn’t a big surprise that when I finally scanned my Rolleiflex film… I love these photos too. These first three are my absolute favorites. I accidentally scanned them with the scanner set on color film… which gives black and white negatives this sepia look… maybe that is how sepia is made, I don’t know… but I like the way it looks on these, so I didn’t fix them.

This one above is a little too Gone with the Wind for my liking, but I wanted to include it anyway.

Yay, Rollei… I love you still.

The same kid on the same bike… one year later…

Above, is Hudson at his third birthday party, on his brand new bike. This photo was taken on medium format film.

Below, is Hudson after his fourth birthday, standing a little bit more confidently and a little bit taller. This photo was taken with my 35mm digital.

I wish I could say I planned this series… but both photos just happened, because if you want to photograph Hudson then this is what Hudson does at age 3 and 4. We’ll see what he is doing next year.

I want it all…

These days for my family photo shoots I like to offer it all… because why not?

For fast moving colorful moments I use my digital 35mm (click here to see digital samples of the same photo shoot.) While I generally prefer the results of film better, there are lots of benefits to digital. One huge benefit for me is that at the end of the shoot, I know I have some good shots, should anything happen to the film.

But regular viewers of my blog should know by now that my favorite favorite favorite camera is my Rolleiflex… the slowness of the camera can be a burden when trying to catch fast moments, but the results you get, especially when using black and white film, can never be matched by digital. (I have some really beautiful photos from this shoot of her nude silhouette, but unfortunately those are too intimate for the internet.)

And my second favorite (but rarely used) camera is my 35mm film camera… because I can get the deep blacks, the beautiful soft glow and the texture from the black and white film, but I can also keep up with the fast moving attention spans of two-year old children, because the 35mm is so easy and fast compared to my Rollei. So I am happy to have an excuse to pull out my old 35mm and put it to use again.


Before and After….

I am in the middle of a massive photo-edit. Maybe my biggest yet, and I find that I am having trouble focusing, because I want to see it all right away, but life is interrupting and my attention span is scattered, so I keep jumping around. But so far, here are my two most favorite photos from Claudia and Leigh’s wedding in Surrey, England on June 21st.

And once again, the Rolleiflex wins again. I have hundreds of digital photos, but none inspire or evoke emotion like the soft glow of the Rollei photos. So stay tuned… there will be lots more to come, this is only the beginning and the end… I still have the whole middle to go.

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