Last January I loaded a roll of 400-speed colour negative into a medium format rangefinder and walked into the grey light of a Portland morning. I had not shot film in twelve years. The sound of the film advance lever — that deliberate, mechanical whisper — reminded me of something I had forgotten about patience and the cost of a single frame.
The Discipline of Twelve Frames
A roll of 120 film gives ten exposures. When each frame costs two dollars in stock and processing, you stop spraying and start waiting. One afternoon in the Pearl District I made four photographs, each composed with a deliberateness I had lost somewhere around 2012, when my first digital camera made everything free.
The camera does not forgive the way a screen does. Every choice is permanent — and that permanence changes how you look before you press the shutter.
I have not touched a digital camera since.