Discovering The Magic Of Film Photography In Halifax
HALIFAX — Remember when digital cameras first came into vogue? We all thought we were taking pictures that would last forever. A digital image, after all, wouldn’t fade or get lost in an attic somewhere.
But anyone who has taken digital pictures in the days before Facebook or Instagram knows how fragile a digital photo can be. A website that once hosted your pictures could come crashing down and all your memories with it ( does anyone remember piczo?). Or maybe you store your photos on an old computer that one day stops working.
But that old family photo album is still there, full of pictures taken on film.
It’s not surprising that film photography is starting to make a comeback. A Halifax photographer, Tim Brennan, is helping these artists in their new passion. Two years ago, he opened a dark room at 2482 Maynard Street, which he rents out to the public.
Brennan is an art photographer who also taught photography at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design for 20 years. For him, photography isn’t just a business, it’s a passion.
“I started developing film when I was 14, I’m now 57. I’ve been doing it relentlessly this whole time. For me, that is my practice, it is film. It does something very different than digital.”
“The way light hits a negative is very different from the way light hits a film sensor. And you can manipulate things with film that you cannot with digital. You can really play with a negative, almost towards its destruction, and then try to bring back to some sort of life.”
In a day and age where everything seems instantaneous, the labour involved in developing film may be off-putting for some. But the darkroom is one of Brennan’s favourite places. It’s also a place he enjoyed sharing with his students.
“You can tell they were struck by this chemistry,” he recalls. “It’s magical to put a piece of paper in a tray under a red light and see this image slowly appear.”
“There’s something about being in the dark that is very intriguing. I’ve taught for a long time and my students were thrilled to be able to go into a darkroom; even in the latter part of my career when everything went digital.”
When Brennan rents out his dark room, it’s clear that film photography is alive thanks to a youth movement. Most of his clientele are young photographers in their 20s who learned how to develop film through YouTube.
And while you will likely have to buy a film camera secondhand, it’s easier than you think to find new film. Brennan can buy his stock locally at places like Atlantic Photo Supply. And when he buys his film, he is hearing stories of young photographers discovering film.
“They say there’s all kinds of teenagers coming in here with their parents’ cameras and buying film.”
One of the best aspects of film photography is how it forces you to take care when you snap the shutter. We are so used to whipping out a cell phone and taking hundreds of pictures, knowing that at least one of them will be good. But you don’t want to waste film, which makes you think harder about what you are doing with the camera.
“You have to work. In a sense, it’s harder when you’re working with film,” explains Brennan. “You have a limited number of images on your roll you have to deal with. It slows you down, it makes you look harder, because you have to be picky.”
“Of course, there’s times you go through rolls of film and never come up with anything vaguely interesting.”
Trevor Nichols is the associate editor of Huddle, based in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].