15. Film Images in a Digital Age

Photographer: Riccis Valladares

Digital, digital, digital—for the past decade or two, it’s been just about every other word spoken or written about photography. Yet Riccis Valladares is quick to point out that the world isn’t digital. To him, what makes a person or moment special is more evocatively revealed in analog subtleties than digital perfection.

That Film “Feel”

Many photographers have observed that digital lacks some intangible quality—some call it warmth, some call it a “film feel”—and countless postproduction strategies have been devised to compensate. Riccis once used these same tools himself. Eventually, though, it seemed more than a little silly to spend his time sitting at a computer turning digital images into meticulous simulations of film images. Why not just shoot film?

The Transition Back to Film

The opportunity to do just that emerged when fellow photographer recommended Richard Photo Lab, a high-end professional lab in Los Angeles. Although he was initially a little nervous about working with a lab on the opposite side of the continent, the company’s strong referrals from photographers throughout the country made him decide to take the leap back into film.

Benefits Across the Board

As it turns out, not only did things go well with the lab, things started to go better in just about every other aspect of his business. No longer does he spend several hours after each wedding uploading, backing up, editing, and doing postproduction on his images. Instead, he packages his film and ships it to the lab. Two weeks later, he receives a DVD of high-resolution scans and a collection of proof prints. He then selects the images to use in his online proofing for the clients and uploads them. Using this method, Riccis, who travels to many of his weddings, says he usually has his proofs up even sooner than he did when shooting digital.