The neglect. My poor 5D. Since buying the Bronica and going all medium format ‘retro’ film again, the digital gathered dust. In fact  I only really used it again on a recent trip to Cork. Even then I didn’t manage to leave the Bronica in the bag all weekend as I had planned.

It started out in black & white with the curious “I wonder if I shoot a roll of film and develop it myself, will I actually get anything out of it?” and once I grasped the concept of doing that, the whole thing has grown legs and put on running shoes. A few weeks ago, I even regarded my digital body with disdain, the variety of which I normally reserve for Microsoft Windows PC’s.  It’s taken on a life of it’s own…

But we moved on from the simplicities of black & white. Not happy with the basics. We started with the Velvia’s and after yet more expense, we’ve all but perfected the black art of E-6 processing. It has been commented that I’ve ‘gone backwards’. Most toil and scrape enough together for their next digital purchase. The new body that gives X or Y more megapixels. The bigger frame, the faster lenses. I think the last five or six things I bought were all film related. That includes the 25 or so rolls of film I bought that currently lives in my fridge, just to have stock in case I need a roll in a photography related emergency.

It feels like an upcoming photography slump, but I know it’s something different. Like those times when we look at our cameras, look at the brilliantly sunny summers day outside the window, look back at the camera bag begging to be thrown in the car and think “meh“. When it’s not so much that motivation is lacking, it’s that we can’t imagine ever having any motivation for anything photographic ever again.

I have an absolute mountain of film to scan for sofobomo. I have about 10 days to finish the entire project. In some ways, I’m glad I decided to do the whole thing on film because given my recent moods, I’m more inclined to actually finish the thing out if I have to go balls to the wall and work at it rather than just load files from a memory card. Yes, I know I’m still converting the thing to digital when I’m scanning it, but shut up.

It’s also been commented that I shoot differently when I’m shooting film. I suppose that’s because I’m more precious about it. If I have 15 shots per roll, I want to make sure at least 15 of them are keepers. I want to be able to look at the negs, still wet from the wash and think “yes, happy with that roll”. Happy despite the as yet unexplained underexposed line down the right side of the frame (in some shots) and despite the water marks and streaks (which thankfully photoflo took care of). Mostly, just happy because I get the distinct feeling sometimes that if I had my digital camera with me at the time I took the shot on film, I wouldn’t have been able to replicate it digitally. Shooting RAW and with lightroom I know that’s most likely complete balls, but I still have the inescapable feeling that film is… better?

I got a weird feeling when I came back from that weekend in Cork and began to import RAW’s from a memory card into lightroom. I shrugged it off as something silly, like possibly being unfamiliar with my 5D because I hadn’t used it in quite a while. Then I got the same feeling last night as I imported a day’s worth of shooting from Donadea. There’s something not quite right here.

Maybe I need to lock everything film related away for a while and put the emphasis back on digital? Re-train myself that newer is better, digital is the way forward and film is just too much bloody hassle. But it’s not really is it? It’s not so much the shooting, getting the exposures spot on and scrutinising your composition to an insane degree before pressing that lovely chrome shutter button with an all too satisfying “ker-clunk”. The best part of it for me is taking the developed roll out of the drum and looking at it for the first time. That life affirming feeling of “I did this” that only a strip of negatives you worked on yourself can give you. That’s one thing you’ll never get from your RAW files. Digital just doesn’t love you as much as film does. Sometimes, when things go wrong, it can be a cruel bitch-dog of a mistress. But it loves you and if you treat it right, it won’t sneak up on you and beat you about the head with a cast iron frying pan while you’re reading a newspaper on the toilet. It just won’t.