Natalie

Film had/has this thing called grain, and while back in the day some photographers hated it— most accepted it, if not embraced it. I tend to use either a film that had little visible grain or went with the opposite— employing & loving something with a serious grain (I would actually amplify it in the darkroom). Film has always had imperfections that are easy to embrace. Since the beginning of digital, noise has sort of been the equivalent of film's grain, but almost no one has embraced it— mostly because it lacks the inherent charm of film grain. The holy grail has been pristine quality, despite the fact that quality like that has never been necessary for artistic ambitions— commercial ambition, yes, but not necessarily creative ones. Ironically, we’re starting to get to a place in digital photography where we’re becoming less obsessed with megapixels and more fascinated with “look.” Camera sensors from different companies each reproduce subjects in a unique way, and to many photographers, that’s starting to matter more than how many pixels are crammed into their cameras.