I love film. Like, really love film.
On a typical wedding day, I’m carrying multiple film cameras alongside my digital cameras, and film usually makes up around 20–30% of the final gallery.
But I’ve never wanted to be an exclusively film wedding photographer.
I don’t think one format is inherently better than the other. They give me different things, and I want both.
Digital gives me speed, flexibility and the ability to react to everything happening around me. Film makes me slow down just enough to see something differently. Together, they let me photograph a wedding the way I actually want to photograph it.
What’s the difference between film and digital wedding photography?
The obvious difference is the medium.
With digital photography, the image is captured electronically and I can see what I’ve created immediately. With film, I’m photographing onto a physical roll of film that gets developed and scanned afterward.
But creatively, the difference feels much bigger than that.
Digital is incredibly responsive. I can shoot quickly when something is unfolding, adjust to changing light in seconds and make hundreds of photographs without worrying about how many frames I have left.
Film has limits.
A roll of 35mm film only gives me so many frames. I can’t immediately look at the back of the camera to see what I got. Once I press the shutter, that’s it.
And I actually love that.
Why I shoot film at weddings
I didn’t start shooting film because I wanted to put a trendy little “shot on film” label on my work.
I shoot it because I genuinely prefer the way certain moments look on film.
The color. The grain. The softness. The occasional imperfection.
There are photographs I take digitally that I absolutely love. And then there are photographs that hit differently because they were made on film.
Film also changes the way I photograph.
When every frame costs money and I only have a limited number of photographs on a roll, I’m more deliberate about pressing the shutter. I’m paying attention to the light, composition and what is actually happening in front of me.
I don’t need 15 versions of everything.
Sometimes I just need one.
So why not photograph the entire wedding on film?
Because weddings move way too fast for me to willingly give up everything digital allows me to do.
A wedding isn’t a controlled editorial where we can repeat something because I missed it.
Someone suddenly grabs their grandmother and starts dancing with her. Your best friend loses it during a speech. A champagne bottle explodes everywhere. Someone’s veil gets picked up by the wind. The dance floor gets completely unhinged.
I want to react.
Digital gives me the freedom to photograph those moments aggressively without thinking about whether I have six frames left on a roll.
It also performs incredibly well in difficult lighting situations, especially once receptions get dark.
I don’t want the format I’m using to dictate what I can photograph.
The photograph comes first.
Why I don’t try to make my digital photos look exactly like film
My digital and film photographs need to belong in the same gallery.
They don’t need to be identical.
I edit my digital work so that it sits naturally next to my film scans, but I’m not interested in forcing every digital photograph into a perfect imitation of film.
Part of the reason I shoot both is because they’re different.
I like seeing those differences throughout a gallery.
Film can be softer, grainier and occasionally a little unpredictable. Digital can be incredibly clean, detailed and precise. Black and white can completely change the feeling of a moment.
A wedding gallery doesn’t need every photograph to look exactly the same to feel cohesive.
How much film do I shoot at a wedding?
Usually, around 20–30% of my wedding galleries are film.
That isn’t a hard quota.
I’m not walking around your wedding calculating whether I’ve hit exactly 25%.
Some weddings make me want to shoot more film. Certain light, colors, locations and moments practically beg for it. Other situations make more sense digitally.
I make that decision throughout the day.
I currently shoot both 35mm and medium-format film, and you’ll probably see me carrying more cameras than any reasonable person needs.
They each give me something slightly different, which is exactly why I bring them.
What about blurry photos, grain and imperfections?
Give them to me.
Not every photograph needs to be clinically perfect.
Obviously, I know how to make a properly exposed, sharp photograph. You will have plenty of them.
But some of my favorite images from weddings have movement, grain, strange light, imperfect focus or something happening that I couldn’t have planned.
I’m much more interested in making a gallery that’s visually interesting than making 1,500 technically identical photographs.
That same mentality is part of why I love creating double exposures in-camera. Sometimes I know what I’m trying to create. Sometimes I’m experimenting.
Sometimes it doesn’t work.
And sometimes I get one frame that makes carrying an embarrassing number of cameras around all day completely worth it.
Is film wedding photography right for you?
You don’t need to know anything about film to hire a photographer who shoots it.
Seriously.
You don’t need to know the difference between 35mm and 120. You don’t need to know what film stock you like. You definitely don’t need to send me a Pinterest board explaining film photography.
If you look through my work and think, “I want my wedding to look like that,” that’s enough.
I handle the rest.
And because I photograph weddings on both film and digital, you don’t have to choose between having film photographs and having comprehensive coverage of your wedding day.
You get both.
Film-forward wedding photography in Palm Springs and throughout California
I’m a Palm Springs wedding photographer photographing weddings throughout California and beyond, with a mix of film, digital, documentary photography, intentional portraits and in-camera experimentation.
Film isn’t something I pull out for five photographs so I can say your wedding was photographed on film.
It’s part of how I work.
Your final gallery will have the polished portraits, the weird little moments happening in the corner, the details you spent way too long choosing, your people losing their minds on the dance floor, film frames I won’t see until they’re developed, and probably a double exposure or two that I got way too excited about.
That’s the point.
I don’t want to choose between film and digital.
I want everything they let me make.
