Back in the long ago time, there was film. Sheets of chemicals and magic that transformed when they were struck by rays of light. And it was good.
But it was also kind of a pain in the ass because you could only shoot 24 or 36 frames at a time before you had to change the film. And you had to carry around lots of film in bulky little cans. And you couldn’t preview or delete your shots. And sometimes you’d find that you shot an entire roll with the wrong exposure but you didn’t find out until you got the film back from the developer a week later. Good times.
But some say there is also a certain quality to film photography that hasn’t been replicated by digital. A special and ineffable charm, difficult to express but instantly recognizable. And, contrary to what you might expect, there are quite a few new-to-film photographers out there, drawn to film by the novelty or the look or the antiques or the desire to practice arcane arts on the verge of becoming extinct. Film is Not Dead,
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably got a shoebox (or maybe even a slightly more elaborate storage system) full of old negatives from your film days. I’ve been casually thinking about scanning some of my old negatives and especially the negatives from my wedding to preserve them. Negatives can be stored for decades but I don’t store mine in anything near ideal conditions. In theory, digital images can be stored forever (assuming you’ve got a good backup process in place… you do backup your files, don’t you?)
