Film or digital?
A wood table, a notebook and a Leica with black and white film.
Text and Photo: Marc-André Pauzé
Film or digital? If I had a dollar each time I have been asked this question during my exhibitions, I would be able to buy the new Leica M9 (7000$).
The Leica M cameras are marketed since 1954 and had changed very little before the launching of the digital M8 in 2006. But the latter having received several criticisms from photojournalists, a profession which gave its noble letters to the mark, much awaited the launch of a M camera worthy of the M4 or M6 (still used by some long terms reporters as Anthony Suau, winner of World Press 2008). With the Leica M9, forums on the net are having passionnate and intense discussions (like this example on Lightstalkers).
I would like to try this digital camera, but I still find pleasure in using my M6 (all mechanical and hand-built). Moreover, for a fraction of the M9 price (1/10e), I will buy an excellent film scaner and continue my photographic work with a digital management and archives of my film negatives. But why continuing to use this way to capture images that many find archaic.
Some will say it is the quality of film over digital (which is not true anymore), or the nostaligia to touch and manipulate film. These attempts to explain the reasons didn’t correspond to what I was feeling. There is something on a human scale in this practice of photography. I will soon start a project on that topic with my film rangefinder instead of my digital and robot-built Nikon.
And I found this article from Asim Rafiqui.
Here is an excerpt:
«I shoot film because it gives me more of a chance to be a who I am, complete with all my flaws and doubts. I shoot film because I today embrace my weaknesses and propensities rather than attempt to overcome them with toys. I shoot film because I must reach further into myself, my soul, psyche and sensibility and aspire to that place where someday I too may find something to say and show – something unique, something beautifully flawed and hence in its unique way, something beautifully human.»
- Asim Rafiqui
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I think it’s mentally better to shoot on film, since on digital you can shoot a lot of frames in a second, but still you can miss the moment somewhere between those 10 frames a sec. When I look back, the best of my shots are on film. Because that thing in your head, the feeling you’ve got .. You have “only” 36 frames before you change the film ..
Take a look at Bresson with his 50mm lens & Leica ..
For me, nothing can be compared with an M6 and the feeling of shooting on film .. you take yourself more time, and you pay attention more then when you know that you have a digital card where you can shoot a loooot of photographs before you change your “film”
25 September 2009 at 6:24 pm