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18 articles
In the debut of our Five Frames With series, we talk to the photographers behind the one camera that's been through everything with them. First up: an FM2 that's survived Route 66, a marriage, a divorce, and two graduations — all on the same body.
A new kind of photographer is everywhere: phone in one pocket, a loaded 35mm body in the other. The hybrid workflow is changing what ends up on a roll of Portra — and purists should probably be flattered instead of annoyed.
We drove coast to coast to find the camera shops that refused to die — and the people keeping the lights on. From a Pasadena counter that's seen three film revivals to a Nebraska main street storefront, here's what physical analog retail looks like in 2026.
Dust spots, scratches, and busted lens coatings used to be things you fixed before posting. Now they're the whole point. Meet the analog photographers who've turned damage into a deliberate signature — and the cultural moment that made it make sense.
When you only get 36 shots per roll, every frame starts to mean something. We talked to photographers who walked away from digital's endless buffer and found out what happens to your eye — and your brain — when deleting isn't an option.
Across the country, a scrappy network of shared darkrooms and community film labs is doing something commercial photo chains never could — making analog photography feel like it belongs to everyone. These aren't just businesses. They're movements.
The internet will tell you to start with a versatile zoom, cover your bases, and figure out your preferences later. That advice is well-intentioned and almost entirely wrong. The fastest path to developing a genuine photographic voice isn't flexibility — it's commitment. Here's why locking yourself to a single prime focal length might be the most important decision you make as a film photographer.
In a world obsessed with volume, speed, and the relentless churn of content, a growing corner of the photography world is doing something genuinely radical — slowing way down. Analog photographers are discovering that the deliberate pace forced by a roll of 35mm film isn't a limitation. It might be the most powerful creative tool they own.
Social media handed film photography a megaphone and a pair of handcuffs at the same time. The same platform that turned grain and light leaks into aesthetic commodities also introduced an entire generation to the magic of shooting on 35mm — and that tension is still very much alive.
There's something happening when you fire a Leica that goes way beyond just taking a picture. The sounds a mechanical film camera makes aren't just noise — they're feedback, ritual, and emotion rolled into one satisfying moment. Digital shooters will never quite understand what they're missing.
Both your cinema camera and a 35mm film projector can run at 24 frames per second, yet one looks like a movie and the other looks like Tuesday. The answer isn't magic — it's physics, shutter geometry, and a fundamental difference in how each medium actually sees the world moving through it.
Contax cameras occupy a strange, almost mythological corner of the analog world — beloved by working photographers, hoarded by collectors, and priced like fine jewelry on the secondhand market. So what exactly made this German-Japanese hybrid brand so untouchable, and does any of that reputation hold up for shooters actually loading film today?
Somewhere in a shoebox, a closet, or a dusty estate sale bin, there's a roll of film that nobody finished developing — and it might contain images nobody living has ever seen. Turning those forgotten canisters into actual photographs is part detective work, part darkroom gamble, and entirely worth it. Here's what you need to know before you crack one open.
What happens when your camera's biggest flaw becomes its greatest creative feature? Light leaks — those streaky, unpredictable washes of color and chaos — have gone from darkroom disasters to deeply sought-after aesthetic tools. Here's why analog shooters are learning to love the leak.
Something unexpected is happening on the biggest sets in Hollywood — directors and visual effects supervisors are deliberately threading 35mm film through cameras that digital technology was supposed to replace for good. It turns out film isn't just a nostalgic detour; it's solving real technical problems that even the most expensive digital sensors can't crack. And for analog shooters, the validation is pretty sweet.
Expired film is the analog world's best-kept secret — a roll of old Kodachrome or forgotten Fuji stock can produce colors and textures no modern emulsion can replicate. Photographers across the country are deliberately hunting down decade-old film and treating the unpredictability not as a problem, but as the whole point. Here's why shooting past-date stock might be the most creative decision you make all year.
Across the US, film processing labs are quietly shutting their doors, leaving analog photographers scrambling for alternatives. From mail-in services to basement darkrooms, the community is finding new ways to keep the chemistry alive.
A generation raised on Instagram filters and instant uploads is ditching the delete button for something far more permanent. We talked to young photographers across the US about why shooting film feels more alive than anything a smartphone can offer.