A fine video on Nick's obsession. It's difficult to explain but think I understand why film is a "thing" and digital is not. For me it's partly associated with an obsession to see what I've photographed in print and not on a screen, to physically hold a piece of paper with an image on it, to smell the fresh ink and to walk from room to room looking at the image in different light and seeing how the texture of the paper shows up, and to tear the print it to shreds if it fails.
But using film goes deeper.
I recall returning from Antarctica a few years ago. The "originals" of the digital images on the cf cards had long gone. I was carrying copies on the laptop in my backpack, copies on a Hyperdrive in my suitcase and copies on a hard drive in my coat pocket.
But I'd taken a couple of 100 year old cameras with me (it was the centenary of Amundsen reaching the pole) and getting that film through 8 security checks un-xrayed, and home and developed was interesting. Not to mention using the cameras in unfamiliar surroundings with no light meter and the knowledge that there were 10 rolls of 120 film and that was it. Get the exposure wrong, forget to roll the film on correctly, forget to correctly load and unload it, forget where the gaff tape went to stop light leaks and that would be it. No going back.
I love using digital cameras but that film exists in the physical universe in a way that the digital files do not.
My current toys are a couple of No. 4 Screen Focus Kodak (1904 - 1910) modified to take 120 film. You need the patience of a saint to use them but what fun it is.
David
