1. Because of the colors.
2. Because you could visit the past and re-open closed doors.
3. Because they’re a good investment – digital cameras have built-in-obsolescence but film cameras are built to last.
4. Because they’re perplexing.
5. Because what appears wrong can be right.
6. Because what appears right can be wrong.
7. Because film photography has a different flavor.
8. Because everyone else is using digital and I’m just being stubborn.
9. Because it’s another life.
10. Because of their rugged beauty.
Published by eddietay
I am a poet and an educator. I have come to realise in recent years that the act of writing poetry has trained my mind to be always on the prowl for everyday moments that might be suitable material for my writing.
Hence, I turn to photography in order to record some of these moments. I soon discover that the photographs I am taking, using film rangefinder cameras which are more discreet and hence suitable to the task at hand, are in the tradition of street photography.
In search of poetry, I have become a street photographer.
What can Hong Kong teach me about street photography, and what can street photography teach me about Hong Kong?
This blog seeks to address that question.
View all posts by eddietay
Hong Kong Lucida 
Totally agree! 🙂
Good points and nice images!
Thank you!
You’ve put it so simply and eloquently.
Watching the streets with the mind of the street photographer is a meditative state, you have to be in the present moment and you have to accept the scene as it is. You can become a part of it, or you can feel ‘yourself’ dissolve as you give your focus over to the world around you. With the simple goal of ‘capturing’ a fleeting moment, you become liberated to simple Be. 🙂
Reblogged this on Jade Photography and commented:
You’ve put it so simply and eloquently.
Watching the streets with the mind of the street photographer is a meditative state, you have to be in the present moment and you have to accept the scene as it is. You can become a part of it, or you can feel ‘yourself’ dissolve as you give your focus over to the world around you. With the simple goal of ‘capturing’ a fleeting moment, you become liberated to simple Be. 🙂
Oh yes, fellow practitioner! It’s about being in the zone.
Exactly, and what a glorious zone it is.
Yup! 🙂
I guess film is just too expensive for me. I saw a lot of posts on the net that say otherwise (digital is more expensive in a long run), but for a stingy person like me, having to buy and process film regularly felt like an expensive hobby :-(…
You mentioned a lot of great points. But, I’ll stick with digital for now :-).
Yup, film can be a hassle when you factor in processing and scanning…
totally agree. Long live film. To its spirit, mistakes and personality 🙂
Long live film and street photography!
Yes. Lucky it is so very affordable where you are. I buy my film on ebay from Hong Kong. Sadly stuck with the expensive processing in Aus 😦
I’ve got a solution – come to Hong Kong!
Haha would love too! Hopefully soon 🙂
I agree 100 percent. The only problem is devoleping film is a dying art. 😦
That’s absolutely true!
I miss Hong Kong by your pictures!
You’ll have to find your own “street”, wherever you are.
Having been, at different times, both a photo lab technician (B/W only, but in considerable depth, back in the early ’70s) and a portrait photographer (color only, for a directory company, a little later in the ’70s) not to mention college photographer in the late ’60s and freelance work of all sorts in the years since, it has been a real wrench to transition to complete digital, but I don’t think I’d go back. I do miss all the little tricks I could do in processing and in the printing process, but so much is possible in the computer. It’s just a completely different skill set.
Given that you’re viewing the images on a computer screen, film photography is in the end a hybrid process these days…
And for me, quality film cameras will never be obsolete the way that digital cameras will be… though I’m tempted by a few recent ones that seem to be made for the street.
Totally agree on the colors thing. I still shoot film to paint from; only snag is it costs so much to develop….
Yup – colors are ‘off’ yet somehow authentic. Thanks for stopping by!
I look at my SLR and I want to cry, but I think I’ll put it back in commission.
Yes – film cameras are fantastic!
Well spoken.. there are so many reasons we still love our film cameras and the work they produce/
Yes! It’s simply more satisfying.