Giving film photography another go…

Back in 2008/2009, I was in a high school photography class and had just bought a DSLR camera. Due to some unfortunate circumstances, that same camera was stolen soon after.

On the positive side of this situation, my teacher let me use a film camera during the class. So for the rest of the semester, I took my photos on a 35mm and got to develop them myself in the high school’s dark room.

It was such a fun and unique experience and I would love to do it again someday.

Fast forward to today, I’ve seen an increasing number of photographers on social media post their film photos and every time I see one, I love it. There are a lot of ways to manipulate a digital photo to imitate the feel of a film photograph, but there is something about the real thing that just cannot be replicated.

I was inspired to look into beginner 35mm cameras and kept my eye open in case I found a good deal, but really I was just passively looking.

Then Christmas time came around, and my boyfriend Adam and I went to his parent’s house for holiday festivities. While we were there, Adam’s dad pulled me aside and said he wanted to show me his old camera collection. I was elated! It was so exciting to see cameras that were older than I was in such great condition. I joked with him that if he wanted a new home for at least one of them, I’d gladly adopt it. To my great surprise, he GAVE me his old Olympus OM-10 along with a ton of accessories. I was so excited at this unexpected Christmas gift and cannot thank him enough!

The next day, of course, I went on my search for film. It wasn’t easy to find, but after a couple of stops, I finally found the last pack in the store at a CVS.

I spent the next several weeks taking random shots and not putting a lot of forethought into them since I wasn’t sure they were going to come out well, or at all. It was a really exciting and different experience taking photos and not knowing the results instantly. When I finished the roll, I watched a couple YouTube videos to be sure I could rewind it successfully and I took it to my local photography store.

When I got the images back, I was so happy! Even though the images were just random snippets of the last few weeks, they were so much more special because I hadn’t been able to see them until weeks later!

If you’re interested in a video version o fmy experience, checkout my YouTube Channel: Happy New Year, I got a film camera.

Here’s a few of my favorite shots:

Adam took this shot!

Adam took this shot too!

What I love most about these images is that I didn’t have to edit any of them, they are all straight out of camera! (minus the first one where I blurred out the street address lolol).

Anyway, those are a few of my favorite shots from my first roll of film on the Olympus OM-10. I am definitely going to continue playing with this camera and eventually I would love to offer an add-on to my portrait sessions, where the session will be like a normal and captured digitally, however you get to add a roll a film to further capture the experience. Would that something that interests you?

Film is such a cool way to experience photography. You can try to edit your digital images to look like film, but I am convinced that digital images will never have the same soul that a film image has.

Thanks for reading and until next time!