Film photography is an adventure

Cheap, disposable Kodak cameras were a staple of my childhood. I remember toting one around summer camp every year. I snapped photos with zero regard for composition, lighting, or anything beyond the word “cheese.” I loved the flash bulb’s whine and the clicking scroll wheel. Just as addictive was the anticipation of the developed photo: Thumbing through a freshly printed envelope of pictures was like reliving the entire week.

This was back in the 2000s. Film was already halfway obsolete thanks to digital cameras, so I forgot the joys of disposable cameras until this August when I was prepping for vacation. Someone probably still manufactured them, right? My quick online search led to an internet rabbit hole into the very much alive world of film photography.

Freezing time with a photo is automatic. I rarely consider how mind-boggling it is — I can hold a microsecond of experience which, under the right circumstances, can outlive my memory. Almost every time I look back through my phone’s gallery I think, “Oh, I forgot about this!”

Film is no longer the most convenient way to crystallize time, but it seems the most reverent. I avoided buying a disposable camera (which is definitely a bit pricier than it used to be) and found an old Ricoh point-and-shoot gathering dust in the newsroom. I shot two rolls of film in Georgia, and instead of grabbing six or seven shots of anything, I sought what I wanted to save. Since there’s no way to see the results, I had to move on — no scrutiny of identical pics, no analyzing how my neck looks when I smile. Snap, keep living.

I sent my finished canisters to a developing lab in Alabama and waited eagerly for the scans, which arrived in my email a few weeks later. The results were amazing.

Were all the shots perfect? No, but they were genuine in unexpected ways. The point-and-shoot didn’t adjust for lighting levels the way a digital camera can, so the images were purely reactions between light and borderline magical chemistry. Pixelation was replaced with the crystalline grain of the film itself. Even when looking at scans of my photos on my computer, they seem more physical than digital photos. I could take the off ones and tweak them in Photoshop to bring out better details or colors, but I don’t know if I want to.

In case it isn’t obvious, I plan to keep exploring film photography. I’ll keep you posted.

Samantha Tucker is the assistant editor of the Daily American Republic and Dexter Statesman. She can be reached at stucker@darnews.com.