Shoot film, stay broke.

Each time I press my shutter, I spend between $1 - $5 on my film cameras. Each roll is between $8-20, some film like Polaroid FP-100c costs $60/pack giving you only 10 shots. Then you have developing and scanning costs which range between $15-30 per roll. On average, shooting one roll ends up costing me around $40.

How do I justify it? Film is like vinyl, it never goes out of style, it’s an analog process and an experiment, to me it is the lifeblood of photography and by shooting film, i’m staying broke but I feel like i’m a part of a community of photographers who are keeping the process alive, one roll at a time.

Shooting film has taught me to slow down, compose better images and overall improve my technical abilities as a photographer. I’ve invested a lot of time and money to keep this dream alive… for good reason.

Click through some examples of some film shots i’ve done below :

Finding second-hand gems

Ever since I shot my first roll of film in 2009, I have been obsessed with finding old film cameras. Sometimes I get lucky and a relative or friend will drop off a box of old cameras for me to rummage through, but often enough, there aren't any treasures. 

As the technology advances, and digital imagery becomes more popular, it's becoming harder and harder to find what I'm looking for. There's really an art to keeping film alive, and one of the best ways is the second-hand market via Kijiji.

Kijiji is nice and easy to use, I was able to search for various cameras and quickly find what I was looking for... this was a surprise as the cameras I am after are becoming more rare. I was able to set up a deal for the camera and a lens at a fraction of the price of finding one at a used camera store, and the best part was picking it up off a seasoned photographer who was retiring and had bought the camera brand new.  

The treasure I found is a high-end film camera from the 90's called a Mamiya RZ67Proii. This camera was often used by celebrity photographers like Annie Leibovitz and remains a sought-after film camera for artists and professionals looking for a high-quality image with the beauty of film. 

Here are a couple of shots from the first roll of film I shot down at the beach.