More Than a Thousand Words
The alchemist-photographers keeping film alive in 2021
My iPhone currently contains 33,157 images. The primary subjects are myself and my friends, my cat and dog, and an embarrassing number of food photographs. These days, amassing such a quantity of photos is all too easy. To immortalize anything, after all, requires only that one pulls a hand-held rectangle from their pocket and clicks a button. But the human impulse to preserve our memories—or lives—is hardly a new phenomenon. Far from it.
The concept of photography—a term that comes from the Greek words “photo” meaning “light” and “graphy” meaning “to capture or record”—has existed in some form since around the fifth century B.C.E. Even then, it was not until sometime in the eleventh century that an Iraqi scientist invented the camera obscura, the modern photographic camera’s earliest ancestor, which allowed an image to be projected upside-down through a small hole into a darkened area. Photography as we know it today—well, something more akin to it, anyway—did not exist until daguerrotypes were developed in the 1800s, which had to be exposed to light for nearly fifteen minutes to create an image. Still, capturing a photograph was limited to the very wealthy, a far cry from the universality of today’s cell phone cameras; that is, until the 1880s, when George Eastman started a company known as Kodak.
By manufacturing a roll of flexible film rather than the solid plates previously required, Eastman was able to develop a self-contained box camera with a small single lens. By the late 1940s, 35-millimeter film was inexpensive enough for the average person to afford. The advancements thereafter were more rapid: with the 1950s came the Nikon F, an SLR-style camera that could accommodate interchangeable lenses; in the 1960s Polaroid was marketing relatively affordable instant cameras; the 1970s and ‘80s brought the first “smart cameras” that automatically calculated focus, aperture, and shutter speed. By the 1990s, multiple manufacturers had released digital cameras that stored images electronically rather than on film. This of course has escalated to today’s cell phone cameras, allowing us to upload any of our more than 33,000 impulsively-captured food photos to Instagram faster than one could have even configured shutter speed only a few decades prior.
My personal predisposition toward hoarding my memories, both substantial and minute, is something I get from my father, Kenwood. As a young adult in the 1960s and ‘70s, he was a devotee of film; seldom seen without his Minolta any time after 1964. Today, his old gutted and renovated schoolbus, which he once traveled the country in, sits in his yard. Inside live boxes, upon boxes, upon boxes of 35-millimeter slides—much less compact than my preferred hoarding method inside a pocket-sized electronic rectangle, and admittedly, way cooler.
Rather than braving Black Friday shopping crowds in a pandemic, the day after Thanksgiving I asked if he would go through some of these slides with me. “This is a monumental task we’re looking at,” he warned me that morning. “There’s roughly a bajillion of them.”
And while we didn’t make it through all bajillion slides—not yet, anyway—he did set up a light box and show me quite a few. Not unlike the memories most often captured by today’s digital and cell phone cameras, slide upon slide revealed his friends, his dog, his travels. The physical film struck me as so much more tangible and intentional than digital images, and got me thinking—respecting—the countless photographers who still, in this fresh year of 2021, choose to capture photographs on film, despite the countless more convenient options available. I spoke with a few of the photographers who elect for the tangible work of a darkroom over simply uploading images to a computer. Here is the wisdom they shared on an art that by all practicality could be obsolete, if not for reverent alchemists such as them, keeping it alive.
Paul Kieu
Lafayette, Louisiana
Years of Experience: I’ve been taking photos since I was about seven or eight years old, and I’m about to turn thirty-one. Yeah, it's just been something that I've done my entire life.
Preferred film camera: Nikon F for 35-millimeter; Hasselblad for medium format
Favorite subjects to photograph: I'm trying to shoot more people, but in general, it still falls in line with my general style of shooting, which is just exploring the world around me and showing it to people on the Internet.
[Paul Kieu has been shooting Acadiana stories for Country Roads for years now. Check out some of his cover stories here and here. ]
Why film?: My objective with shooting and developing my own film hasn't been about results just yet; there are plenty of much better film photographers in Louisiana and even in Lafayette alone. For me, it's more about the feel and the process: learning about how chemicals and timings affect results and how different equipment affects the efficiency of my workflow and the final product. I learn just as much from the rolls I process incorrectly as I do from the ones that come out right. It makes me pay more attention to what I'm doing while both shooting and developing. To me that's the beauty of working with a lesser margin of error than I would normally have shooting digital cameras professionally.
On the process: With an analog process, not everything is super precise. Essentially, until you develop, you’re not going to know whether you did something right or wrong. Anybody who has developed film, either professionally or at home or at school, knows that you’re gonna mess up some rolls sometimes. Eventually, you get better and better at it. But, even though I've developed a few hundred rolls at this point, if there are like little difficulties that pop up, like you didn't mix the chemicals in the right temperature, or the chemicals that you need to heat up didn’t heat up, it just prolongs the whole process. Every small little thing counts a lot more. With Photoshop for digital pictures, I can go back and readjust something that I edited ten years ago, without any loss of quality. But with film, if I make a small mistake, it could have bigger repercussions for the final product. So, it goes back to me saying that it counts a little bit more. Everything, every little thing that you do.
Instagram: @paulvkieu_film
Thomas Neff
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Years of Experience: I have been photographing since the late sixties, and I have not stopped yet. Film was the main process at the time, and you had to practice a lot—I got rather good at it.
Preferred film camera: Deardorff for five by seven-inch format
Favorite subjects to photograph: Architecture, landscapes, people
Why film?: I started in film many years ago, and it took me a lifetime to develop my printing style. The fact is that I love the darkroom, even though it’s a lot of work. Furthermore, I don’t find it satisfying to use a computer to make images. It would take me two lifetimes to hone the skills necessary to make digital prints–leave that to the young folks!
One piece of advice, anyone who wants to get into photography, needs to experience film–even if they shoot digital in the end. Digital photography gives you the immediacy on the screen, but film gives you a process that’s almost magical, you can’t see it unless you develop it!
On the developing process: When using film, you have proof sheets to examine. For me, this is easier to determine which images are the best, as they jump out at you. Most people that shoot film and 35-millimeter are lucky to have one picture per roll that is a “keeper.” When I’m in the darkroom and a good print comes up in the developer, I start dancing.
Advice for shooting on film: Get closer when photographing a subject than you think you should be. Don’t put anything in the middle. Many people center their subjects all the time, so I tell them: focus on the edges as much as you do the center. Instead of cropping a print in the darkroom, try to get the image you want by using the camera itself—nothing more than you must have, but nothing less than you need.
Lastly, although many early photographers shoot their subjects only one time, my advice is to shoot a lot of film. Explore your subject and shoot from many angles, even though you get lucky sometimes and nail it in one shot, those times are few and far between for most of us.
Amy James
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Years of Experience I was my yearbook photographer in high school. So, I would say, since about the age of fifteen.
Preferred film camera: Nikon F3 for 35-millimeter; Mamiya 6 for medium format
Favorite subjects to photograph: Probably children and dogs
Why film?: I majored in painting and drawing at LSU and minored in photography. Not until college did I realize that the darkroom could be just as fun as an empty canvas, you know, when you're going in there blind. To me, creating the image from start to finish in the darkroom is often the most rewarding part of the experience. With digital, sitting at a computer and tweaking your images was not a creative process that interested me, although I've realized it serves a great purpose. I feel like they are two different mediums, just like watercolor and oil painting.
I also like that when you're creating film photographs, never will you have two that are exactly the same. There's no way that could happen. The temperature of the water and every little thing you do is . . . everything you do is one-of-a-kind.
I also like the surprise element of not knowing whether I've got the shot. You have to wait, and then you find out if you did or you didn't. I love that aspect of it too, instead of [with digital] just looking at it immediately going “Oops,” or “Let's do that over.”
On finding the light: I like to look for the perfect light when I get to the shoot, and find it, and [the subject is] like “Why are we shooting over here?” And then they look at the photo and they’re like “Oh, that’s why.” People always ask, “How did you do that lighting?” and I’m like, “You just need to find it everywhere you go. You just have to look for it.”
Instagram: @amy.james.filmphotographer or @amyjames_photography
Camille Delaune
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Years of Experience: I've been photographing since I was in early high school—I would guess around 2012.
Preferred film camera: Hasselblad 500CM for medium format; Portra 400 for 35-millimeter and medium format; Canon AE-1 for 35-millimeter.
[Read Camille's photo essay from our November 2020 issue, here.]
Favorite subjects to photograph: My favorite subjects are those willing to be vulnerable. Being photographed requires a tremendous amount of vulnerability unless you’re an incredible actor, so the most interesting portraits are consistently those in which its subject let their guard down.
On the developing process: My process of developing film looks like me in my studio, preferably all alone, preferably in the evening, listening to soft music. The process feels kin to entering some sort of womb space, even down to the fact that for a large portion, you’re in total darkness. It’s such a profoundly personal and even spiritual ritual full of this dance between fear and peace. The atmosphere is so important for that reason: my studio is a really cozy space lit by lamps and full of things I love, and there’s always relaxing music playing— something instrumental or feminine.
Why film?: As I could write a novel on this, I’ll go ahead and pick one thing. The thing that keeps me coming back to film is its process. Film demands patience, slowness, gentleness, even tenderness—all things I’m on an endless quest of cultivating. Film is the opposite of gluttony. There is no step of the film process that can be done quickly. Not loading, not metering, not shooting, not unloading, not processing—certainly not processing. You must meet it with your fullest attention and intention, and in turn, it rewards you with its art. Film is a life teacher in so many ways.
Instagram: @camilledelaune
Raegan Labat
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Years of Experience: I have been taking and making photos for as long as I can remember. Though, I have a very vivid memory of a moment that felt like I really made my ‘first’ photograph. I was fifteen and a freshman in high school.
Preferred film camera: Canon AE-1 or Yashica T4 point and shoot for 35-millimeter; Polaroid SX70 for instant
Favorite subjects to photograph: I have always shot music and portraits. I think those things appear on film the most in my work.
Why film?: Film was just how I started and what I was attached to. The process is really, really easy to get attached to and fall in love with. The waiting, developing, discovering, editing ... Film just has a quality to it. I know—it’s indescribable!
In all of the more creative shoots I do for clients and friends, I always vouch for film. I always tell people to trust film. I enjoy the process, the waiting, the actual process of scanning in your negatives and looking them over, choosing your best frame, deciding whether to leave the dust that got into your scans or not. Ha! There is this magic and mystery even when you have the practice and skill. Sometimes good or unexpected things happen, and it is always always worth seeing what happens.
With this instant camera, I started shooting and offering Polaroid Portrait Sessions in hopes to bring people on board with this thing I enjoy doing. That really slow process is really interesting to share with another person. Collaborating with artists, musicians, and friends for these portraits has been a lot of fun. Working with other creatives is bliss.
Instagram: @raeganlabat