Bo Belvedere Christensen - Analog Photography: A Beginners Guide

Baruntse - above 7000 meters in the Himalayas, BoD 2011

Poor Kathmandu, BoD 2015

Everest Basecamp Trek - via Gokyo and Cho La, BoD 2020

Annapurna Basecamp Trek - via Ghorepani and Poon Hill, BoD 2020

Panoramic Images - directly on camera, BoD 2021

Baltoro and K2 Basecamp Trek - via Ghondogora La, BoD 2022

The lock to our back yard. Shot with a Ricoh KR-10X SLR and a 50mm lens, with the ability to focus close up. The film is a Kodak Tmax 100 film, giving a fine grained image. Nevertheles, the beautiful grain structure of the film adds to the attraction of the image.

Most people photographing using any kind of digital photography, that be a real camera or a mobile phone, will be reviewing their images on some kind of screen.

Already here the fundamental difference between analog and digital photography appears. Using a film based camera, you will have no screen to review you images, and you must wait until you film has been developed, you receive printed images, or receive a scan in order to see images on a computer screen.

Off course, you can go all-in and begin to develop yourself. It is actually not that difficult, but it requires some utensils. It will make it possible, as I often do, to photograph early in the day, develop in the middle of the day, and scan or enlarge images later the same day. There is something magical about opening the development tank and having a first look on the results - most often as negatives.

As opposed to the SD or other storage cards used in digital photography, your analog results require film as storage media. That is where some of the charm in analog photography resides, and where the attraction of analog has attracted so many photographers in recent years, maybe not going 100% analog, but at least for a major part of their photography. I would be lying if I said, I dont use digital cameras, and I do appreciate that part of my photographical work.

The fact is, where I am most inspired, and where the best results emerge,is with film. Especially, I like the look of film, the structure, and the more natural look as opposed to the more clinical, correct, but also a bit plasticky look of digital. Furthermore, depending on the film you choose, this look is different.

Many has tried to mimic the texture of film in post proces with digital images, but to my eyes the results are not satisfying. Where I found a close hit is using the build in film simulations in the mirrorless cameras from Fujifilm. It is also obvious, that Fujifilm with their cameras try to simulate the feel of old style cameras and their operation. Anyhow, although I like the cameras from Fujifilm, I prefer the complete analog proces at least until I have developed the film. After that I usually scan the images and thus turns to digital treatment of the images. Even here one could choose to go all-in, and set up a darkroom, or use one thats is already there e.g. at a school, a photo club, or somewhere else.

During one of my many treks in the Mount Everest region I shot this portrait of a Sherpani (a female belonging to the ethnic group of sherpas).

I love the grainy structure of the image, that for me gives more life to the image. The camera was a Canon AE-1 SLR with a 50mm f1.4 lens, and the image was shot on Fomapan 100 film.

Even if you scan the images to you computer, there is often a big difference.

Using a digital camera, we often shoot a lot of images, far more than we would with the limited length of a 36 frame film would pose (depending on the format of film it can be a lot less frames), and also due to the cost of photographing on film.

In itself it makes a huge difference choosing from hundreds if not thousands of images, compared to the images from a single film or maybe a couple.

I use several different scanners in order to get my images from analog film into the computer. The above Epson V850 works for image formats from 24x36 and up to 8x10 large format.

Darkroom equipment hasnt been used for years, but more and more are resuming darkroom work together with the new wave of analog photography. Naturally, not everyone has room and opportunity to have a darkroom, and thereby work completely analog all the way from exposure to print.

Many are more interested in posting on social media, and that in the end requires digital images

It makes post processing much simpler. At the same time, I know from my own workflow and from other photographers I know, that we typically dont spend as much time in post proces on the analog images. Images often have exactly the expression, you seek, directly from development and scanning. There is not so much more to do, except maybe cleaning some dust and other impurities, but not so much with regard to contrast, light levels, color balance, and other settings that we manipulate a lot, when we work with the digital camera.

To me both the strength and attraction of analog photography is buried here. What do I want as a photographer? To be out creating with my camera, or sitting by my computer and pulling sliders in Lightroom? I LOVE walking around with my camera, and I wish to minimize the time behind the computer screen. I prefer to work harder to produce the results directly in camera, and that is more often the result when I use an analog camera. Those that swear by their digital cameras say exactly this, that they know the results are perfect, they have seen it on the lcd screen of the camera. I know from myself that I tend to spend huge amounts of time tweaking different parameters for my digital images, as digital imagery encourages perfection, while analog photography encourages you to think more artistically. This is exactly what makes me love analog photography.

One last thing, that always fascinates me, is the partly uncontrollable part of photography, that partly spawns from the fact, that you cant see the result immediately on the backside of the camera. That part can be driven even further with experimental photography, which of course can also be pursued with digital photography. But is hard to create the look of expired film in post, and that can give some wild results bordering to abstract art. Sometimes I even utilize development processes for film in others ways than they are meant. For instance I sometimes use chemicals for different films than they are meant for, like when I cross-develop my color film and develop color positive film in chemicals for color negative film, or the opposite. It can also be development of black and white film, where the film is pushed, which makes the film more sensitive but also influences the contrast and grain structure of the film. That can give some incredible results. Actually, there is a whole book on alternative processes, that has enough experiments to do for a whole life time.