Film is not dead, it just smells funny...

Just recently I seem to be more inspired by the images produced by photographers using film, than the output from digital cameras.

Is it because I know how difficult it is to produce a good image on film, that I know the amount of time and dedication it takes to learn and develop this skill and therefore I have an inherent admiration of photographers that can take such good photo's with what the clueless may call an obsolete format... I don't know....

Anyway, I had been a follower of a website called 'Film is not Dead it just smell funny' for some time now... which unfortunately has shutdown recently... not due to lack of interest as you might think... quite the opposite in fact.... read the following statement from one of the founders Frans Verter Verheyen :

" After a year of “Film is not dead it just smells funny” web site we made the following decision. If you look at the web site it's nice, cool and with a great number of visitors. But it is just a blog. And besides the fact that we show high quality of pictures to the world, it is just that. We would like to do more and more structured. With the summer holidays on the way we have decided to shut down the web site. And to come back in September with a new concept. A bigger and more international staff and a more organized structure. (also in technical way, the structure of this web site is too focused on a blog) More in-depth article's and interviews, an online magazine and a print magazine. We are planning of starting “The International Analogue Photographic Society” And no it will not be another APUG. The web site "Film is not dead it just smells funny" will come back and so will the Featured Artists. This will take some time, although we are already working on it. This group will stay unchanged So we wish you a good summer and hope to surprise you all with a new concept in September"

In the meantime, you can visit their flickr site here, if you would like to get a small taste of what its all about... I recommend going to the discussion section first.

And while you at it, go out and buy a secondhand film camera (they are really rather cheap at the moment), then use it like mad and after you have gone through a number of films you will begin to slow down, think about what your doing, learn to understand the quality of light and how different films react to it... You not going to get instant satisfaction from a screen on the back of the camera... but your not going to take 50 photo's (because you can and just in case) when more often than not, one or two is more than sufficient... and the wait for you photo's to be developed is really quite exciting and actually quite gratifying....

Go on..... I dare you.... ;-)