I shot film for 12 straight years.  I know the difference between 160 portra and Fuji 160.  I shot most of my black and white with 3200 ilford and if I didn’t have it, I’d push my Tri-X 400.  I carried around a humble 35mm Nikon FE and used the oldest and prettiest 1.2 50mm glass.  When I started shooting weddings full time in 2002, I was still shooting this way.  I was TERRIFIED of digital and how to process it on the screen.  I took workshops and experimented with my style and “voice”, learning that over saturation and “actions” just weren’t sustainable and simply weren’t “me.”  I would call my style honest.  Photojournalistic.  Sustainable.  And after making the switch from film to digital back in 2007, I think I’m finding my way back to film, or at least the look and feel of it.  I’m not going to shoot weddings with film.  It’s simply too expensive and at this point in my career, straight up inconvenient.  But I have been shooting a ton of portraits with film using my trusty old Nikon and I’m falling in love again.  There is just something about the user experience of  film.  I want to take a frame here and there more often.  I don’t feel like I need to shoot as much and I am certainly more intentional when I shoot.  And the little Nikon is just so fun to click and hold.  And of course there is the wait to see the end results that is so much more fun than chimping and instant gratification.  I’m smitten.

Naturally, all this film shooting is taking  it’s effect on my digital processing, as I’m realizing that I prefer the honest, sustainable colors of film.  The softer skin tones.  The muted mid-tones.  The sometimes indigo blacks.  And the oh-so-dark and grainy black and whites.  And while at first I felt like a traitor for processing some of my digital images this way, as it is somewhat “cheating”, I realized that if anybody should have the right to do this, it’s me.  As a film veteran and lover of fine art photography, I have the right to manipulate my digital images to look like what I think they should have all along.  So here it is– my coming out of the closet as a film/digital-film photographer. I’d love to know your thoughts.

Missy and Ben’s wedding seemed the perfect first wedding to try a little “film” editing.  Missy’s beautiful ivory skin was perfect for the softer skin tones and the ponies in the pasture at Devil’s Thumb Ranch look even better with a little grit to their coats.  Missy and Ben and their hipster Brooklyn friends also have a fantastic fashion sense which was also fun for the color aspects of this process.  And I can’t fail to mention Leon Littlebird–whose face is as honest as film itself.

Thank you Missy and Ben for choosing me to photograph your beautiful wedding.  I wish we had more time together as I’d love to get to know the two of you better, but I may just have to stalk you around the holidays if  you’re out here vising family.  I’ll do it, too.  xo