My Process of Working with Film in a Digital World

The photo world has been taken over by digital imagery in recent years. A photo world that is hungry for instant and available. Sure digital photography has some positive aspects to bring with it. There’s no need for film, so no trips to the camera store, or to the lab for processing. There’s no darkroom work so the whole process moves much more quickly. There is no need to constantly change film while shooting so photo sessions progress quickly. And the photographer can shoot many more images because he/she is not bound by film on hand or the costs. It simply comes down to an inexpensive disk to store image files on. And the cameras will do all the work for the photographer. Virtually no skill is needed to take clear, properly exposed, sharp pictures.

But creating art isn’t about ease or speed. Or the simple way. It’s about art, and what creates the best work and achieving an artist’s vision. And in my view digital imagery falls far short in all aspects of that. And digital cameras provide an unrealistic substitute for talent and aesthetics. What the artist gains in speed and ease, is lost in the quality of the image. Digital imagery has a synthetic, plastic look to it. It is striking and harsh in its color and presence. It’s too sharp, and too deep, and too rich...and very surreal.

Film, on the other hand, has the downsides of loading and reloading, processing and so on, but it has a quality in the ultimate appearance it possesses. Film has a quality that digital images don’t. Not a quality of sharpness or minute detail, just the opposite. Film has a quality of subtleties and of romance. Film isn’t perfect with precise gamut range. Parts of the image are lost in shadow and highlight and are left to the imagination of the viewer to fill in. There’s romance, in the feel and attitude of the imagery that it captures. It’s honest, and organic. The film grain is very different than grain that is algorithmically added to a purely clean digital file.

The whole process of working with film is tactile as well. The artist touches and handles it. He processes it in chemicals and handles the printing papers the same way. By hand. The artist touches it and that physical contact imparts another quality to the artist’s work. It is indeed part of the finished piece because it has been handled and manipulated by the artist’s hands. It has that tactile imprint on it forever.

I have always been a believer that there is no comparison between film and digital images. And I have always been a fan of film and not an advocate of the digital format. I have resisted for years, the acceptance of converting over to the digital world. But in recent years, the reality has set in more and more strongly that I needed to adjust my process. But how could I do that and not loose the film quality that I love?

It has become increasingly difficult to buy film. Especially film for shooting. The range of films and film styles is dwindling at a rapid pace. Kodak has discontinued many of its most popular films. Ilford has followed suit as well. As sales of film have declined, the manufacturers are faced with the reality of business and have stopped making many films. And this will continue until very few film options exist for photographers. This has affected me since I can’t get the films that I have worked with for over 25 years.

So it became necessary for me to look at my options as a photographer and as an artist. An artist that wanted to stay loyal to his own vision and how I would produce that vision. Working in film is such an integral part of my art. It became necessary for me to look to how I would keep the integrity of my art intact. After a lot of research, I developed a photo system that works for me. One that allows me to retain the quality that only film can bring to my work, while being able to produce my art in a digital-dominated world. By using digital cameras and not being restricted by a lack of film availability –yet ending up with a film-based product.

As a result I developed a system of shooting my images using digital equipment, and then outputting the digital files directly on to standard 4x5 sheet film. This gives me the same film negative or transparency that I have always used and allows me to spent time in my darkroom printing my work the conventional way –as I have done for years.

–D. Keith Furon