Benefits to Film Wedding Photography

Consider Film for your Wedding Photography

After years of shooting digital weddings I am returning to my roots: film. Someone asked me the other day what film had to offer that digital doesn’t. It really made me think about it. What are the benefits to film wedding photography?

I think there are two categories of benefits to shooting weddings on film. There are benefits to you, and there are benefits to me. Let’s take a few minutes and parse them.

Film Wedding Photography Benefits to You

1. Film is gorgeous! I’m talking about art here. Instagram has filters named after the film that I load into my cameras. They do a second rate job of recreating the real thing too.
2. The resolution is out of control. This translates to gorgeous large printed pieces of art! According to some 35mm is upwards of 175 megapixels. That’s just 35mm. If I shoot medium format (120mm) it reaches the staggering number of 1,140 megapixels!
3. Film photography is unique. I’m willing to guess that not many of your friends had their photos shot on film.
4. Film can be unpredictable (in a good way). You will get different results depending on the chemicals, weather, processing, scanning. Every film is organic has it’s own personality.
5. It’s slower. Instead of having a cameras firing off 3000+ shots we will take our time and make every shot worth it. You may appreciate some more time to breath. Plus you get to play the model.
6. Film photos are precious. Because of chemicals and light your memories are captured on a piece of film. That exposed film inherently has value. The are cared for because they are your memories. They aren’t cheap and effervescent like digital photos.
7. It’s entertaining. People seem to really enjoy seeing the assorted cameras that I pull out of my bag.

Film Wedding Photography Benefits to Me

1. First of all, film stretches me as an artist. I reached a certain level of mastery with digital. I’m not bragging, but I kick ass. I can walk into a room and guess the settings. If I’m off, I can look at the image on the back of the camera and adjust my settings. Nothing to lose. With film each shot costs between $.50 and $1.50. That means I need to make sure that each shot is right. I’m stuck on one ISO and need to work around those constraints. I love the high stakes.
2. This one sounds cheesy, but I feel connected to the past. Film was around for a hundred and fifty years and we seem so quick to just toss it out the window. Not me. I love using my cameras from the days gone by.
3. Did I say that it stretches me as an artist. I can take so much that I learned by shooting digitally and apply it to film. Within film there is a whole new world to explore.

These are just a few benefits. There are many more. I’m sure. Can you think of any benefits to film wedding photography?