My Evolution from Digital to Film Photography: A Photo Essay by Clara Offerman

Today, we’re featuring a wonderful photo essay from film photographer Clara Offerman. Scroll below to view the images and read about Clara’s film photography journey…

Analog cameras and films used: Minolta X-700 (Find at KEH Camera or on eBay), Mamiya 645 1000S (Find at KEH Camera or on eBay) | Various film stocks

Connect with Clara: Website | Instagram

My Evolution from Digital to Film Photography

by Clara Offerman

I began photography about six years ago as a hobby. I was mostly shooting on vacancy, and I had a basic DSLR camera, a Nikon D5300, with the kit lenses. During my last year of high school, we experimented with camera obscura, photograms, black and white 35mm photography, and darkroom development. I was basically going to the park and shooting random things, but I enjoyed the process and the mechanics of a film camera.

My father has a few 35mm cameras, most of them given by family members – and the majority aren’t working. I have always love taking them out of their box and looking at them, even when I had no idea how to use them. I have something for vintage objects, and it’s the same for cameras. So even though I had my DSLR, I felt attracted to film photography.

I started shooting a bit of everything, while I was still trying to understand the relation between aperture, speed, and ISO. After high school, I also started studying photography, which lasted three years.

At school, we were allowed to use film for our projects, though it was mostly digital. Teachers always told us to have a digital back-up when we shot projects on film. We were really a cohort of film shooters, almost everyone in our little 25-people class had a film camera.

During my three years of photography study, I was constantly increasing the number of rolls I shot. At first, I was only shooting digital for school assignments. I shot film outside of school. I went on a few trips where I shot a lot of film, but still using digital a lot.

In my last semester of school, every project I did had film in it – 35mm and 120 because I wanted to improve on the medium format side. (I sort of fell in love with a Hasselblad at some point.)

I found out during that last semester, for every project I did, the pictures I handed over were those on film. The digitals felt boring and soul-less to me. Maybe I’m just bad at editing, too. We also had a video class, for which I insisted on shooting film, too, so I ended up learning how to use a Bolex H16 with it’s half-a-century old instructions manual, in the middle of my semester, and developed the three 100ft rolls by hand in total darkness, and hand dried it in the school hallway. It was a total mess, but an incredible experience. I truly realized during that semester that, since film is what I like to shoot, I had to start shooting film on serious situations, not just on the side, for fun… but for true projects, too.

Since I finished school in May, I did a lot of projects (fashion, portrait, travel, product…) and only two of them had digital back-up. The rest of the time, I did a few digital tests to check the lighting (for example, when shooting with flash), or no digital at all.

Full film projects, I came to a point where I just knew my cameras well, I knew how to meter, I knew what film stocks I liked. I’m not guessing anymore (at least, most of the time). I’m not scared anymore that the results might come out ugly, under/overexposed, or out of focus. I sure am nervous about getting my scans because, yes, errors can happen, and I had a lot of those, and still have. I learn from my mistakes with every new project I do.

The best example I have of my evolution is a shoot I did for my fashion class back in school. We had three outfits. I shot about 300 photos with my digital camera and four rolls of Kodak Gold. Now, I do a few test shots (or not) and shoot one or two rolls for as many outfits. And I enjoy it so much more. I plan almost every single pose I want to do, and it’s one pose-one shot. But it can take a whole minute before I press the shutter! (Financial advice: it’s also less expensive than shooting a big bunch of rolls.)

I really feel like I enjoy a shoot or trip more when I have a limited number of pictures I can take, and I really take my time before taking the shot, framing, focus, changing a small thing in the pose… And when I get to my last shot, we call it a wrap and it’s done, and I feel so excited to see the pictures. In digital, I feel like there’s no limit, no ending, and every shot feels less important, less definitive to take.

What I want to say is: less pictures don’t mean that the projects you do are incomplete or take less effort to do. It’s just a different way to work. It’s more slow and you really have to break away from the famous, “I’ll fix it in post.” Take the time to fix things while you shoot. It’s okay.

So that’s my progression so far as a film photographer. I’ll see where life takes me next. What I know for sure is that I discovered something I love. Find your thing.

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