By Daniel Wood

Let me first start by saying I don’t want this to be a film is better or digital is better discussion. It’s useless as they both have their reasons for using. And luckily for both camps, advances in technology have made it easier to use both and incorporate them into each other’s realm.

A while back, even a mere 5 years ago, nobody dreamed of artistically viewing photos on a computer screen or especially a cell phone screen, but, because they have become so ubiquitous and with such high-resolution displays, people do view digitally more than they look at printed photos. Still, there is nothing I love seeing more than a well-printed photograph or an incredibly curated photo book.

Despite what Instagram might suggest, filters are not meant to make photos look like film. They’re meant to make photos look like OLD faded photographs. Like what you find in your grandparents box of photos tucked inside their closet. Film itself is actually incredibly well detailed and with lifelike colors and sharpness. Each brand (mostly Fuji, Kodak and Ilford these days) have their own look to the film and offer different types (film stocks) for different occasions. Film even has a much higher dynamic range, and before anybody talks about HDR techniques, they are available to film shooters too and it requires a static subject. I shoot film because of this realism that it creates.

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One of the most important aspects of photographing to me is the experience I have while shooting. I want to be inspired when I photograph. Each and every camera, whether film or digital, offers its own unique style. The way the camera handles, the controls, the way you see through the viewfinder, the feeling you get when you click the shutter. It all adds up to inspire you.

When I feel like walking around shooting whatever pops in front of me and I need compact camera that is discreet, I strap my Leica over my shoulder and shoot nearly invisibly due to its whisper quite shutter. However, when I need something a bit larger and have an idea of what I will be photographing I will bust out the Hasselblad and peer down through the most amazing viewfinder in the world. I feel like I’m in another dimension with that camera. Plus, the big square image I get afterwards and the huge CLUNK when you press the shutter is immensely satisfying. And when I have a project that is set in stone and I want to get the best image I can, I mount my 4x5 monorail camera on its tripod and take all the time in the world. That is a camera of patience and imagination since you must set up your photo, look through the ground glass screen and then insert the film which blocks your view and finally you can activate the shutter. But the detail of that image is unparalleled!

For someone who wants to get into film photography, whether already well-versed in digital or getting into photography for the first time, there is a camera for you. I tend to shoot cameras that are purely mechanical without automatic functions but that is only because they work for what I shoot and fit my workflow. There are film cameras still being made with just as much automation of exposure and focus as any digital camera will give.

For someone who wants to learn all the basics I’d stick with a manual camera like my trusty Pentax K1000 that can be picked up with a great lens for $50-$100 on a regular basis. For someone who wants a bit more dedicated functions the Canon AE-1 is a great camera around the same price. And if you want something like the experience and handling of shooting a modern digital camera, the Nikon F6 is still being made for around $2000 new. If you already have a digital and want to use your current lineup of lenses, there are plenty of great used film cameras that will most likely accept those same lenses, especially from Nikon, Canon and Pentax.

Once you find that perfect camera for you, choosing what you do with the images is up to you. First you must get them developed either at your local photo lab or there are plenty available online in which you mail your film to the lab and they return within a week or two. You can also choose to have them scan the film for you to edit on your computer and upload to your portfolio site, send to friends, or post on Instagram. If you are adventurous, it’s rather easy to develop black and white negatives at home using a few simple chemicals and a bathroom.

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If you choose to print your photos, labs will typically do very good inkjet prints for you at a size you choose, or if you are lucky enough, there will be a darkroom lab in your community you can go to and print your photos yourself. That’s where the real magic happens! Many colleges also have at least a black and white darkroom that can be used if you enroll in a class. Color printing is a bit more difficult and requires specialized chemicals and equipment, but well worth it if you have access.

Lastly, for those who aren’t ready to dive into film but want to explore some of the looks of different films, companies like VSCO sell different “film stocks” that can be used as plug-ins in Photoshop and Lightroom or whatever other photo editor you use. Some of them are intended to replicate actual films both current and vintage but also offer effects like expired film or light leaks and faded photographs.

All that really matters, though, is that you find something that works for you. Maybe it’s one camera that does it all or several different cameras that offer their own experience. Go out and explore, experiment and be inspired.

Daniel Wood is a writer, photographer and musician who currently resides in Seattle, WA. He is a lover of music and art and is consistently working on blending different mediums together to create unique pieces that tend to focus on introspection through the outward examination of others. His works include “Self-Portraits” a hand-bound letter-pressed photo/story book featuring 4x5 fabric contact prints and “Untitled Dreams I, II and III” which are massive 35’ long prints. His ongoing project “The Streets” is merely a collection of photographs which document the surroundings in which he immerses himself in.

Sometimes you just need to look at the beauty in the world. I'm stuck in Houston at the moment with all the Republican presidential candidates swarming into town so for a little break, I decided to get out of my head a bit and enjoy this 4K thrill ride that is a hyper-lapse of Paris. Shot by Tyler Fairbank using a bevy of lenses on his Sony A7s, the hyper-lapse is lush and, at only two minutes, a quick escape from the office and politics that are palpable in the air today.

Enjoy.

The date January 25 probably doesn't hold too many memories for most people. It's close to February so It's still cold and bleak, unless you live in Houston like me, and you're probably recovering from the holiday spending and trying to make some sort of feasible budget for the year. In 1995 it was probably the exact same for most people, unless you realize that the world cam just minutes from an all out nuclear war. Business Insider proclaimed "The World Was Never Closer To Nuclear War Than On Jan. 25, 1995" in what has become known as the Norwegian rocket incident. It started when Norway launched a missile that carried scientific instruments to study the aurora borealis. Former Soviet Russia, led by President Boris Yeltsin, apparently didn't get the memo from Norway to the proper channels and mistook it as a nuclear launch that was headed straight for Moscow. Remember, this is post-Cold War Russia. The Berlin Wall had fallen, supposed democratic elections had taken place and the U.S.S.R had been broken up into its various nation-states. Sure that doesn't mean that tensions weren't still high, but we at least had more open communications with the Politburo at that point.

Nevertheless, a missile was launched and Yeltsin and his advisors came minutes away from launching a counter-attack towards the U.S. that would've started an all out nuclear war. Five minutes. We literally came within the length of a Youtube video of the nuclear apocalypse. That's a pretty sobering thought.

Why not take five minutes today and write down what you're thankful for because in 1995, we came that close to losing everything.

Here's a quick video that recaps the incident.

There’s a piece in 12 Rules Of Creativity by Michael Atavar that says;

At all times in the creative process, great care must be taken to protect your soft and vulnerable qualities.

I wrestled with that statement for a long time. I was always taught that creativity was being vulnerable on a page or canvas or so on. The whole thought of bleeding out onto your art was something I totally got. Leave nothing on the field, as my baseball coach used to tell me, was how you lived. Well it turns out that only leaves you empty and with nothing left to create with the next day.

I wrote poetry for a long time that was marginal with the occasional okay piece of work. It was how I coped with a lot of stuff in high school and college. You could find me scribbling in coffee shops, furiously taking notes and then rewriting until only the most essential words were left. Sometimes I came up with some good stuff, but most of the time, I just left tired. I see now that all I was doing was taking my vulnerabilities and pushing them onto other people instead of actually dealing with them myself. Atavar calls this “working with shadows,” and encourages the creative person to have a network of people around them to bounce ideas off safely. I struggle with being told my work isn’t good enough, even if it honestly isn’t. My vulnerability quickly turns into shame when there’s push back, shame of not being good enough, not having a proper education or simply not being creative enough. Some days I’m a walking bag of doubt that comes from my shame and it totally kills my creative spirit.

In her book Rising Strong, Brené Brown writes, “Curiosity is a shit-starter. But that’s okay. Sometimes we have to rumble with a story to find the truth.” As creatives we are constantly curious, looking for that beam of light that glints off a building in just the right way to pique our imagination. We have to be vulnerable, chase down the story and wrestle it until it comes out looking like something that we knew it could be.

In college I wrote poems about drug use and being a rock star, not because I did or wanted to do anything of those things, but because it insulated me from writing about my real self.

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Sometimes on Friday I dream up

how easily I could become a cokehead.

Cutting lines with my friend's razor blade,

I would never keep my own in case of

horrible binge nights. An ornate mirror

would sit majestically in the middle of an

imaginary French coffee table that my parents

got at some antique barn in Indiana.

People would beg to do lines next to my gold

records and ’72 Telecaster Custom.

“Just one more before I drive home,” my

girlfriend would say, but I wouldn’t let her.

Even cokeheads have limits.

Maybe I would be involved in some type of

Eastern European supply chain that decided it

was easier to move the dust in through airports

in Kansas. Who’d expect that?

“Stuff’s good this month,” I’d snipe at the

Mafioso who switched bags, only to settle

in close to my Parisian throne.

Sometimes on Friday I dream of being

a cocaine addict, only to realize that it’s

Saturday morning and I’m too broke

to even afford prescription meds.

You can debate how good or bad that poem is, but what you can’t debate is that I was being vulnerable in a completely different way than I should have been. I was being risqué just to be risqué. I grew up pretty conservatively in the South and drugs were never something I would have dreamed of doing. So instead of being truly vulnerable and talking about my struggle with appearances or commitment, I daydreamed scenarios that were completely nonsensical. Needless to say, it didn’t really connect with anyone.

Atavar writes that you have to “work with small parts of your personality” to be creative and stay sane. I think this is what David Bowie did when he changed looks, costumes, names and hairstyles all the time. He was slowly letting us into his world just enough every time, so we could handle it.

I used to think that art was all about abandonment, but now I realize that only leads to losing yourself. A creative life is a life that shines a light onto things, however small that may be, so that others can enjoy the same view as you. That doesn’t take abandonment, just courage.

Last Sunday we spent the entire day taking my in-laws on a scavenger hunt through San Antonio. From eating at the spot where they got engaged to watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" at the children's theater that my wife performed at when she was little, it was a walk down memory lane. There were no tacky Christmas ties or small kitchen utensils that would probably go unused, just a family spending the day reminding themselves of some of the great times they've had together. It was beautiful.

Co.Exist writer Jay Cassano took a look at this idea of experiences over things in his article "The Science Of Why You Should Spend Your Money On Experiences, Not Things," published earlier in 2015. For the article, Cassano interviewed Dr. Thomas Gilovich, a psychology professor at Cornell University who has spent the better part of two decades looking at the connection between money and happiness. The interesting thing that I picked up on is that money can actually make you happy, but the feeling that it leaves us with is usually short-lived. "We buy things to make us happy, and we succeed," said Gilovich. "But only for a while. New things are exciting to us at first, but then we adapt to them."

I really like to play video games. It's relaxing to me, although my wife may not agree, and I usually spend a short time after work playing to help wind down from the office and switch into home mode. The problem is that there's always a new game that comes along and offers a new experience, and usually comes with a $60-70 price tag. I kid myself into thinking it's an immersive experience and helps with my hand-eye coordination but in reality I'm just sitting on my couch while my wife colors next to me with only a few words said between us. That's not experience, just distraction.

Me in Paris at one of my favorite spots, Fontaine Saint-Michel, on our honeymoon in 2015.

I'll also be the first to admit that I'm really bad about spending money on things instead of experiences. I love to travel and will jump at the chance to go anywhere new, but find that if I just saved some of my money for such things instead of buying the latest Star Wars game, which was a bit of a let down anyways, it'd be a hell of a lot easier to afford some great weekend trips.

"Our experiences are a bigger part of ourselves than our material goods," says Gilovich. "You can really like your material stuff. You can even think that part of your identity is connected to those things, but nonetheless they remain separate from you. In contrast, your experiences really are part of you. We are the sum total of our experiences."

My MacBook Pro can't recreate the experience of sitting along the Seine on a cold day and feeling the river lap against the concrete of Pont Neuf. That's poetry, words and wind mixing together to create a timeless experience that imprints itself onto your consciousness. You don't normally hear much poetry written about gaining the high score on Halo or Black Ops 3. I'm sure it exists, it's just probably not very inspiring.

"Turns out people don't like hearing about other people's possessions very much," Cornell doctoral candidate Amit Kumar said while speaking to The Atlantic in 2014, "but they do like hearing about that time you saw Vampire Weekend."

Changing attitudes on experiences

At the end of Cassano's article, Gilovich talks about how we as a society should put more emphasis on experiences, noting that currently it's much easier to just purchase things. "By shifting the investments that societies make and the policies they pursue, they can steer large populations to the kinds of experiential pursuits that promote greater happiness," write Gilovich and coauthor, Kumar, in their recent article in the academic journal Experimental Social Psychology.

This is an approach that I'm all for. Gilovich even goes as far as positing that our priorities are skewed and that we should be making it easier to have these experiences, including more paid leave from work and better recreational spaces to have them in. What good is a public park if it's not kept up or safe? We owe it to ourselves to care about the places we live so we can experience beautiful things in them.

So as 2016 looms large and heavy upon us, I'm committing to spend less money on stuff that usually breaks and lets you down and more on living life with my family and friends. Besides, you have more to write about that way.

P.S. I'm not against video games at all, I just personally need to play them less and spend more time being creative for my own personal sanity.