Why Film Matters (Part 2)

You may first want to read Part 1 of this series of essays.

At the beginning of 2009, I shelved my well-loved Nikon D80 and bought a used Nikon FM2n that as best as I can determine dates to the mid-late 1980s. (Note to Nikon: serial serial numbers would be great!)

I gave up a killer 11-point autofocus, accurate aperture- and shutter-priority exposure, near-infallible matrix metering, through-the-lens flash, Nikon’s famed creative lighting system, auto-ISO, and a charming, if cliched, portrait mode. I gave up all of these things in favour of a purely mechanical camera that merely opens and closes the shutter when I tell it to, nothing more. I burdened myself with the need to set aperture and shutter speed manually by physically turning dedicated dials and to wind the film between each exposure.

I surrendered the speed, cost-effectiveness and convenience of a capture-to-print pure digital workflow. I assumed the expenses of purchasing film, developing and printing.

I withdrew from Flickr.

I gave up the confidence I had built in the camera — the confidence that it simply wasn't possible to fumble my daughter's 2nd birthday — and transferred the responsibility for technically competent shots from the near infallible machine to the very fallible me.

Why did I do these things?

Forget all the technical arguments. I did it because "the medium is the message."

This aphorism of McLuhan's is by now so well known that it is taken for granted. But like most things that are taken for granted, it is largely unexamined.

The photographer who picks up a digital camera and blithely starts shooting is deluding himself when he thinks that he is doing essentially the same thing as he did with film, only more efficiently.

The digital photographer ignores McLuhan at his peril.

The essential nature of the digital image is that it is easy to make, ephemeral and disposable. Rational people generally regard things that have these qualities as having no value.

The medium is the message. And the message of the digital image is that it is not worth anything. This is not a good starting point for anyone venturing seriously into photography.

Think that this doesn't apply to you? Then ask yourself these questions: How many images have you deleted directly from your camera before even transferring them to your computer? Are all of your digital images backed-up? How much are you willing to pay for this back-up on a per images basis, or to transfer your digital images to print? Does the capacity of everyone everywhere to make limitless perfect copies of any one of your images raise or lower their value? Does your own capacity to make thousands of images essentially without cost make you a more or less careful photographer?

When I consider my own responses to these questions, and any like them you may care to pose, I am not filled with optimism about the medium.