When I was six or seven years old I remember trying to get my hands on my Dad’s Pentax K1000 whenever I could. My grandmother gave me my first camera, a Minolta Autopak 430EX, a camera that took 110 film, when I was about 10 years old.

My early years in photography meant using film – because that was all there was. There was no digital then. I bought my first Digital SLR camera in 2003, more than 20 years after taking my first photographs.  

During the early years of my love of photography, with there being only 24 or 36 exposures on a roll of film, there were very real limitations to the numbers of pictures I could take. So, I would save my pocket money to buy film and get it developed. In order to get the most number of ‘keepers’ out of each roll, I learned as much as I could about photography by studying  books and magazines so that I could understand things like lighting, exposure and composition. 

When digital came along, it gave me much more freedom to practice my skills because I could take more photographs and try things that I had not tried before, free of the worry of wasting film. 

Then in 2019, I realised that film photography was still a thing and since then, I have been taking more and more film photographs. There’s definitely a place for film and digital in the 2020s and each has their own benefits and drawbacks. The great things is, we’re free to choose and it isn’t a question of it needing to be one or the other. We can enjoy both.

Film photography has renewed my love of photography and I very much enjoy the look that different films give you; I love trying new films. I also find the process captivating – the having to finish a roll before you can develop your film (or send it to the lab). I love the anticipation of what my photos will be like when they have been developed, it gives me a real buzz.

I hope you enjoy the site and don’t forget to drop in again soon. 

Simon.