Calgary Sun Photojournalist Challenged to Shoot Film for a Day

These days technology seems to be moving faster than the speed of light, especially when it comes to digital devices. Less than 15 years ago the photojournalism world still revolved around film. Now, a mere decade or so later, most photojournalists would be hard pressed to do their job on anything but a DSLR. With that in mind, the folks at TheCameraStoreTV offered Canadian photojournalist Mike Drew this challenge: shoot a normal day’s work with only a Canon A2E and Kodak Portra 400 film:

Obviously the world is no longer set up to support film cameras, and that was a major headache in this scenario. Drew had to drive over 35 kilometers just to find a place that would develop his photos in an hour. (Remember when you could find that just about anywhere, particularly at drug stores?) In the days where film was central to photojournalism, you could take all your shots for the day and develop them back at the office. You can still find a place to develop your film and get scans, but they’ll most likely be too low-res for much editing. (Via PetaPixel)

The Days of Film
film photojournalism
In the end, Drew’s film photos still worked fine for a front-page feature, but when asked whether film can still cut it in the industry, he was pretty adamant there was no going back. Not only can you load, correct, and send your digital photos all within a couple of minutes while still at the site, film just doesn’t have the versatility in editing or the speed in shooting that digital now offers.

newspaper photos on film

“I want to be able to get out there and do as much as I can in the best way I can, and digital lets me do that.”

What do you think? Would you be able to go back to film for a day?

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