The magic of Wedding Film Photography.

In 2017, Kylie Jenner was interviewed by Jimmy Fallon and during the show she took a photo of Jimmy with her point and shoot Contax T2 film camera and since then there's been an explosion on the demand for film photography and film cameras. And that begs the question: is it a phase, another recycled fashion or is film here to stay? And more importantly: why shoot a wedding on film?

Meghan’s Wedding Portrait Negative Film. Olympus OM-2 - Zuiko 50mm f./1.4 - Ilford HP5 Plus 400 Film.

Well, first of all, I don’t think it’s a new thing and anybody who shoots on film will agree. But what does it take to shoot on film? There are many factors involved, including practice, patience and developing a new set of photographic skills: searching for light, playing, experiment with it and focusing your subjects. One of the main differences with digital photography for example, is that a digital camera will allow you to see the results immediately, but a film camera won't. And that’s how a deep sense of humbleness and awe flows your mind and soul. The perfection (or imperfection) of fleeting moments in time, tried to be captured and preserved in a silver emulsion medium, not just electronic sensors.

You also have to unlearn and discard all your preconceived notions of digital photography and start learning the secrets of alchemy and the processes of light hitting film. The Merriam-Webster dictionary describes film as: a thin sheet of cellulose acetate or nitrocellulose coated with a radiation-sensitive emulsion for taking photographs. Sounds complicated? Well, it is, but is truly fantastic at the same time.

Shooting digital is totally different and in a way, very clinical. Camera sensors are typically made of silicon and are split into millions of squares in a grid, these light-sensitive squares are called pixels. When light hits a pixel, the material absorbs energy from the photons and releases an electron. These electrons are to be stored, amplified and then converted into grey levels by the computer software, producing an image. Geeky stuff, huh?

On the opposite and more romantic side, what happens with light hitting film marks the beginning of a delicate and sublime process. The mere impression of photons on a silver emulsion, a process that virtually started two hundred years ago, comes to life.

When one shoots film one has to shoot with INTENTION, as there are only 24 or 36 opportunities on a 35mm film roll and 12 or 24 exposures with a medium format camera roll. That makes you infinitely more aware and mindful of what you want and have to document. You develop a contemplative and introspective attitude, something very challenging these days.

And don’t forget patience, specially when one sends the film rolls to the lab and wait them to be developed (which by the way, I only send mine to the best labs in Mexico), I then scan those negatives and convert them into digital files and send them to the best printers in Europe and North America.

Magic.

Do you remember when you were a kid and your parents took pictures and you had to wait a week for your printed photos to arrive? Wasn’t it exciting? Did you examine the negatives and tried to make sense of the images imprinted on them and wondered how did they translate into photos? That’s film… and its magic!

This is what I want to create for you: images and memories that are nothing but magical. Something that not even the best digital cameras can reproduce and achieve: romanticism, subtle imperfection & timeless magnificence of your beautiful day. In other words, light and magic.

With that in mind, I only use professional film cameras that incorporate some of the best and highly regarded lenses in the world: Contax and Olympus systems with Carl Zeiss & OM-Zuiko lenses.

The films I most use are Kodak Portra 160, 400 & 800, Kodak ProImage 100 for color and Ilford HP5 400 for B&W photography.

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