All images used with permission from the respective artists.
In a photography world dominated by digital cameras, some of us still have a genuinely appreciation for the analog process. It’s an organic, beautiful and deliberate methodology that results in a photographer teaching themselves to pay attention to more details, slow down and achieve a greater understanding of the medium.
Over the past year, the Phoblographer has collaborated with the sub-Reddit R/Analog; showcasing many of the community’s most talented shooters who dedicate some of their artistic endeavors to shooting film.
And here are eight photographers you’d be sure to gain inspiration from.
Richard P Lambert
From his interview:
“I donât think you need an awful lot of technical knowledge to make a great picture, so my âtake everywhereâ camera is my point & shoot Yashica T4. It is compact and light enough to carry all day and its simplicity means you can have it out of your pocket and shooting in no time. The quick autofocus and Carl Zeiss lens means Iâve captured crisp, well exposed shots in seconds that would have left me deliberating with a manual camera. Iâm not a perfectionist and would much prefer to take a shot which might turn out a little wonky than for it never to exist.
It isnât very pretty and it does feel âplastickyâ but the T4 is well made. My second-hand models have been through deserts and ice fields, as well as being dropped plenty of times but they still work great.”
Arthur Bueno
From his interview:
“My motivation usually stems from the quality of light thatâs emitting onto the subject. It also depends on the type of subject Iâm seeing and what relevance it has to how I feel the moment Iâm there. There are also other factors that play into my motivation such as musical melodies intertwining in my head, past memories, or feeling the atmosphere of what Iâm witnessing. Above it really depends on the quality of light.”
James Attree
From his interview:
“There are so many pleasures (and pains) to using film. Weâve spent 100 years perfecting the user interface for LF cameras and the modern incarnations make fantastic photographic tools.
LF chromes are beautiful objects in their right and even LF negs have a beauty thatâs hard to define.
Scan one well and the resulting image is unsurpassed in any technical measure.”
Tyler Bainbridge
From his interview:
“I think the Instagram community is far less critical of my work, but at the same time less appreciative of some of the things Reddit seems to praise.”
Kip Praslowicz
From his interview:
“This is a key period in the process where I had to keep one eye on the subject while keeping the other on getting all the camera settings correct. Eventually they all seem to find their own pose that I immediately know is the right one to photograph. Spotting it and being able to bring them back to it when it is time to make the exposure is key to making what I think is an honest portrait. There were even a few times where Iâd pretend that I was still fiddling with the camera, but was really just watching them on the ground glass waiting for them to fall into their spot. It is almost a weird sense of voyeurism as Iâm staring them right in the eyes watching every motion from ten feet away and they canât tell that Iâm actually doing so.”
Jordan Castelan
From his interview:
“I really find myself being drawn to taking photos of normal life events we all donât think twice about, even if that means the photo will fall flat in front of most viewers. Iâm not thinking about how such and such photographer would approach something or even how I would normally approach a subject. Iâll take a peak through the viewfinder and if I even think I might like what I see then Iâm taking the photo. Itâs an explorative journey, on the art and of myself.”
Marcio Faustino Santos
From his interview:
“The more I photographed with my pinhole camera, the more I appreciated its simplicity. I felt the rustic look of pinhole soft images and long exposures suited better for how I feel about visual creation. Itâs more poetic and dreamy, as well as less predictable. With pinhole I feel like Iâm doing photography at its purest form.”
Andrew Tomchyshyn
From his interview:
“I think there needs to be a certain serenity to catch my attention. Whether thatâs due to the subject, the forms, the potential composition, or a combination of those. I love scenes that make me feel small and conveying that feeling to the viewer is often a goal of mine. I donât know how well I achieve it, but I like leaving a bit of mystery to my photos. I donât like to use photography to show things as they are. I like distorting and omitting just enough information to create an air of mystery around an otherwise realistic and straightforward scene.”
