I've been shooting film again.

It makes it quieter here on the blog, but also a little more peaceful inside my head. I'm using my old Nikon FM-10--an all-manual marvel of goodness that I haven't picked up in about 3 years. Working in all-manual again, with no immediate feedback, puts me in a different headspace.

What makes it different is that I think twice about taking a shot, because my resources are limited. Without the immediate feedback of a digital camera, I hedge my bets by taking multiple frames of the same shot at different exposures (known as "bracketing", for those who are curious).

That once-familiar lag time between moment taken and moment seen lends itself to a feeling of delight and disappointment. "Oh, that shot came out beautifully!" or, "Oh my, that didn't work so well." Feelings at the time of capture often don't match feelings at the time of evaluation.

In a way, I think the analog process of photography has the potential to nurture creativity more effectively. True, you can spend a great deal of time criticizing and second-guessing your subject matter, or worry about "wasting" frames on something frivolous. But by eliminating instant feedback, it also eliminates instant criticism of your own work. It creates space between creating and evaluating, which is what many artists need in order to grow.

Conversely, there's a great deal of benefit to having instantaneous feedback. When I first procured a digital SLR, I felt freed to see the photo I had just taken appear miraculously on the screen on the back of the camera. It allowed me to say, "Oh, that didn't work, let me try something else," instead of, "I sure hope that worked, let me bracket that again!" Failed experiments are more obviously failed experiments.

But because it's so easy to try on a style or technique and create frame upon frame upon frame with very little monetary consequence, it's also easy to become sloppy and unfocused in one's work. A just-plain-uninteresting photo or truly bad exposure cannot be fixed in Photoshop. I speak from experience.

Revisiting this medium has been refreshing for me. I hope to glean more lessons from it and bring them into my digital work. I also know that the many things I've learned with my digital camera will feed into what I decide to do with my film. Each medium feeds another, and this is true for film, digital, drawing, painting, sewing, cooking... any creative venture, really.