Film Wedding Photographer - Why I shoot Film

Why I love Film - I LOVE film. I grew up shooting film with my parents and developing, winding, and scanning my own prints. I grew up with a darkroom in my parent’s house and took film classes in high school and absolutely love the unpredictability, nostalgia, and beauty of 120 or 35-mm film. Film is what my parent’s wedding was shot on, what my childhood was captured on, and what I look to, to find inspiration for all my work. I’ve spent the last two years capturing my own family on film and slowly incorporating it into my wedding work. I’ve had so much fun bringing my Nikon f6 along to France, Big Sur, and San Francisco this year. I’ve also been offering my vintage Polaroid prints as an add-on option and absolutely love being able to hand my clients instant photo magic.

In an era where we are so hyper-aware of focus and sharpness, there is something so dreamy about throwing that all out the window and embracing the grain. As a photographer; film helps to keep me creative and in the moment. Instead of unlimited shots on digital, I have such a limited set of images on film I have to be incredibly intentional.

What if a shot doesn’t come out?- When shooting add-on film packages I’m shooting hybrid- film and digital. How amazing to have your ceremony from several different formats, film, digital, and polaroid. They all have a different feel and aesthetic and I LOVE that they aren’t all the same. Even if the Polaroid comes out blurry, or the 35mm misses focus the digital will be there and you now will have three different experiences of the moment, and I personally think they are all beautiful.

Why do you charge extra for film? - it’s expensive! the cost of the film has risen exponentially and I would love to include it in all my packages but I cannot justify the cost to every package. My film charge is really just to cover the expenses of buying film and shipping it to be developed and scanned. I still need to send my film cameras in for maintenance and to be repaired regularly.

What cameras will you use if we add film to our package? I will forever and always be shooting on my Nikon f6; as the last film camera Nikon made its tech is the most reliable and all my digital flashes work on it seamlessly! I often will bring along my Nikon AF point-and-shoot for fun reception imagery and my Holga for the dance floor with direct flash. I have a Hasselblad and Nikon f I sometimes bring along as well but manual focus is still something I struggle to use on hectic wedding days. I love my vintage polaroid land camera and several other Sun 600 cameras passed down from my family.

One of my favorite movie quotes of all time is from Kodachrome: “People are taking more pictures now than ever before, billions of them, but there are no slides, no prints. Just data. Electronic dust. Years from now when they dig us up there won't be any pictures to find, no record of who we were or how we lived.” Film is meant to be printed. So future generations can open a book, album, or even a shoebox and immediately be transported to a time and a place.

Let me know if you have any questions.