People often say analog photography is slow. But when you follow the entire process from shutter to final image, the difference between analog and digital turns out to be surprisingly small. In the end, the real speed of photography has less to do with cameras than with how carefully we look.
Lately I often hear people say that analog photography is slow. On social media, where photographers gather, the statement has almost become common sense. Hardly anyone questions it, so let me be the one who does.
Analog photography is not necessarily slower than digital photography. I am not saying this to be provocative. I understand perfectly well why many people experience film photography as slow. The feeling is understandable, but the reality is a little more nuanced.
Let us begin with what makes digital photography undeniably fast. You take a picture and almost automatically you glance at the screen on the back of your camera, whether it is mirrorless or not. In that simple gesture the speed of digital photography reveals itself. There is immediate confirmation. The photograph either worked or it did not, and you know it within seconds.
That certainty has an effect. If the result on the screen excites you, you may press the shutter again and again that same afternoon. Your camera holds a fast SD or CF card with space for a thousand images or more. You probably will not fill it, but you will certainly take far more photographs than when each exposure carries a small financial consequence.
Elsewhere an analog photographer moves through the same environment with a certain degree of uncertainty. There is no reassuring screen on the back of the camera. The only reference point is what was seen through the viewfinder. The photographer must rely on visual memory. If experience is present, that memory is often surprisingly precise. Through the viewfinder the photographer already sensed what worked and what did not.
As a result, the analog photographer will probably make fewer exposures. Instead, far more energy is invested in looking. The better one looks, the stronger the analog results tend to be.
Placed side by side, the analog camera appears slower in this moment of photographing. At the same time it asks much more visual concentration from the photographer than a digital camera usually demands. In that narrow sense the digital camera wins a small victory.
Then both photographers return home.
The digital photographer arrives with a considerable number of images. These photographs must be transferred to a laptop or desktop computer, carefully archived, and backed up as well. Security first. Perhaps this process takes five or ten minutes. In reality it often takes longer, because curiosity takes over. One looks through the photographs again, perhaps several times, already thinking about post-processing. Before long twenty minutes or half an hour have passed.
During that same half hour an experienced analog photographer may have developed three rolls of film in a tank. The negatives are already hanging to dry. With a small loupe the photographer carefully studies the still-wet film. Fifteen minutes later the negatives are dry and can be passed through a scanner at low resolution to obtain a first impression.
Again the digital camera wins, but only by a small margin.
Then comes the moment of selection. The low-resolution scans quickly reveal which images are promising. Because the analog photographer already looked with great intensity during the act of photographing, the selection is often relatively simple. Three or four images rise naturally to the surface. Those photographs may then be printed in the darkroom, and the project begins to feel complete. A modern variation of this workflow is to scan the best negatives at the highest possible resolution.
Selecting digital photographs usually takes longer. There are simply more images. Much of the time is spent on photographs that are not entirely convincing at first glance but might still reveal their potential during post-processing. That possibility can consume far more time than expected.
So the idea that analog photography is slower is not entirely accurate. Once the routine of the process becomes familiar, the difference in time is surprisingly small. The methods are simply different.
Both workflows lead to the same destination. They produce photography. Your choice between them does not have to become a matter of belief. Some projects benefit from digital tools. Others feel more at home in the rhythm of film.
Know your own weaknesses as a photographer and most of what you create will improve. In the end every successful photograph begins in the same place. It begins with concentrated looking. To practice that skill you do not even need a camera.
Hans van der Kamp