For as long as I’ve been interested in photography, I have loved the process of large format film photography. It’s big, it’s slow, there a thousand little steps that, if you forget one, can completely ruin an image. It can be tedious and very unforgiving. But, done correctly, it produces strikingly beautiful images.
In recent years, I have given in to the ease and convenience of the digital format. There’s no easier way to produce hundreds of images and have them finished within the span of a few days. But there’s just something so much more satisfying about film photography. There’s a “magic” to it that combines art and science. I’ve always had a hard time explaining it, but I feel drawn to it more than any other kind of photography.
Which is a shame, really, since it’s ridiculously expensive now!
This project is an exercise in old-school photography. It’s an opportunity to flex those art-photography muscles that I’ve been neglecting for so long. Commercial photography has been a great experience for me, but it always leaves me feeling uninspired. So often today, the imaging world is consumed with quick turnarounds, redundant styles and assembly-line “mini-sessions”.