Into the grain: My entry into analog photography

There’s a strange calm in knowing that you won’t see what you’ve made until much later. Here's my reflection on slowing down to see again — through the grain, the wait, and the wonder of film.

When certainty felt too easy

For more than a decade, I lived comfortably in the digital world. The precision, the immediacy, the control — they all felt empowering. Yet somewhere along the way, it became too predictable. Every photograph appeared perfect, but it lacked the quiet imperfection that once made me fall in love with light. The world of instant feedback dulled my senses. I stopped waiting, stopped wondering.

I began to feel that the medium I once cherished was no longer leading me anywhere new. Everything became about speed — words that felt at odds with what I truly sought. I wanted the opposite: to slow down, to listen, to breathe before I pressed the shutter. And so, I turned back to analog — not as a rejection of digital, but as an act of returning.

Seeing in black-and-white, not converting it

For me, photography was always about tone, not color. Black-and-white was never an afterthought — it was how I saw. I wanted my photographs to begin that way, not end there through conversion. Film gave me that possibility. It forced me to decide before I began: how I wanted to see the world.

When I loaded my first roll of black-and-white film in 2024, it felt like stepping into a different language. The light meter became my companion. Each frame, a question. There was no preview screen to assure me, no histogram to justify exposure. I had to trust what I felt.

And that trust, I realized, was the essence of my craft — not knowing what would come, but believing that it would hold meaning. Black and white, in its stripped-down honesty, became a mirror to that feeling.

Unlearning to see again

Joyful smiles in a timeless black-and-white photograph taken with a 35mm film camera.

I started with a 35mm — light, simple, unforgiving. It made me slow down. Every photograph felt like a commitment. I had to observe longer, measure more carefully, and think deeper. The act of metering by hand made me re-learn light itself — where it fell, how it bounced, how it whispered through leaves or grazed skin.

I began to see differently. Exposure was no longer a technical decision but an emotional one. The film stock I used became like a brush — each grain carrying a texture, a tone, a whisper from memory.

In those first few months, I realized I was not learning analog photography. I was unlearning everything that had come before.

The beauty of the twin lens

One of my recent projects at Hampi with my Rolleiflex

When I first looked through the Rolleiflex, I understood what intimacy meant. The waist-level finder drew me into the frame in a way no other camera had. It felt less like looking at the world and more like looking into it.

The square frame felt balanced, meditative in its own right. It allowed me to place elements with care, to compose with quiet intent. And yet, nothing about it felt static. The twin-lens reflex gave me a strange sense of freedom — my eye no longer glued to the viewfinder, I could look up, interact, feel present.

The Rolleiflex also taught me humility. Each shot, each roll, was finite. I learned to make peace with that limitation — to shoot less, but to feel more.

Where stillness meets scale

My first large-format image shot on a Chamonix 45F-2 camera at Ramanagara.

Then came the large format. I remember the first time I unfolded the bellows; it felt ceremonial, like setting up an altar. Everything slowed — my breath, my thoughts, the world around me. The ground glass revealed an inverted world, reversed and ethereal.

Composing upside down changed something in me. It forced me to detach from what I thought I knew. The dark cloth over my head became a small sanctuary — a space where everything else disappeared except the interplay of light and shadow.

Every photograph became a dialogue with time. I waited for the wind to still, for light to settle, for a presence to appear. In those moments, photography became less about taking and more about being.

Between grain and thought

Portrait of a man shot with Rolleiflex. The grain of the film adds depth and texture, enhancing the emotional resonance of the photograph.

Analog photography reintroduced unpredictability into my life — the kind that keeps art alive. Each negative held surprises. Sometimes the exposure was off; sometimes the light shifted at the last second. But within those imperfections lay character.

The grain felt alive — not as noise, but as breath. Each silver halide crystal seemed to carry emotion, as if the film remembered something I had missed. And perhaps that’s what drew me to it: the idea that an image could feel human, flawed, and sincere.

Shooting film became a form of reflection. Every time I loaded a roll or inserted a dark slide, I felt time stretching. I wasn’t chasing photographs anymore. I was listening to them.

Toward the print

A negative of a photograph that I developed recently, now ready for print.

As I began to gather my negatives, I realized that the journey wasn’t ending with the exposure. The process of developing, of bringing the image to life on paper, became the next step in this evolving relationship with light.

I started exploring different printing methods — alternative processes. Each print felt personal, tactile, imperfectly mine. I knew that this was where I was headed next: to complete the circle of visualization, from seeing to creating, to holding the final image in my hands.

Analog had reconnected me with the essence of photography — to see, feel, think, and then make. Every format — 35mm, medium, large — offered a different way to experience that connection. Together, they became extensions of my thought process, each helping me translate what I saw into what I felt.

Somewhere between the grains and the waiting, I found a language that spoke quietly yet deeply — one that wasn’t trying to capture life, but to live within it.

The print, I knew, would be the next conversation.