(and why it’s not just a trend)

Gen Zs picking up point-and-shoots. Hashtag trends. Shelves once cleared of Kodak and Fujifilm now slowly restocking, orange and green boxes making a comeback.

Trendy people sharing digital recipes to mimic film. Artificial grain, light leaks and accidental imperfections added to otherwise clean sensor files.

We know it already: film is back

Whether real film or digitally manipulated film look. For many, it’s a trendy discovery.

Because when they got into photography, film was long gone. Digital was everywhere and the technology was mature.

But I come from a different place

When I started photography in the early 90’s, there was no digital. There was no film look style. Film was our everyday medium. Not some trendy phenomenom.

Then digital arrived.

Digital was new. I embraced the digital look. I enjoyed the cool colours from the adjustable white balance, the crispiness of the files. And this was early days.

I got on board digital in early 2000’s. I abandoned film.

I experienced all the technological breakthroughs over the past two decades. Shutter lag, slow writing speeds, low resolution, unbearable full-frame costs, lenses with wrong coatings, noisy sensors.

It was no easy sailing.

And now digital plateaued. Any modern digital camera delivers professional grade outputs.

Then came the smartphones

They turned every pocket into a high-powered studio backed by algorithms, instant HDR and a sea of one-tap filters.

And now AI is capable of conjuring whatever you want from thin air.

Anyone can be a “photographer”. And technology push people to fake it openly. Blame social media as well.

I’m coming back to film

Not because it’s trendy or retro. Because to me digital lost its soul along the way.

I want to go back to the real thing. I’m returning to film because of genuine authenticity.

And then, of course, there’s the magic of the actual medium. That distinctive film look, but not a fake replicate from digital.

No Lightroom, no Photoshop. No time wasting digital workflows based on 1s and 0s. What I get from the lab is what I get.

No digital manipulation.

And the simplicity of the cameras. Small, thin and light because there’s no battery, no space rocket power electronics, no CMOS backlit sensor that needs space to cool down, no IBIS mechanism.

Just a pure mechanical camera where you load film and control how light goes in for your exposure.

I’m not going back with film. I’m moving forward. I need a pause from digital photography. It feels mundane and boring.

Film to me is the only way to keep photography real.

* All photos above taken in the late 90’s with Canon EOS 500N film camera mated to EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens.