It's raining in the city. I'm in a corner of a Lower East Side cafe with a cold brew, and outside the streets shimmer with bodega neon and hurried umbrellas. In a quiet moment like this I think about how I shoot, not just what.
Why shoot film
To some people it's an absurd question. Digital has gigabytes of memory, fast autofocus and an LCD screen with instant feedback. So why slow down, limit yourself and take on the cost and time of analog? There isn't one neat answer. It is a collection of sensations that digital, for all its convenience, doesn't give me.
My Hasselblad has a certain weight and mechanical precision, like holding a piece of history. The shutter doesn't whisper. It goes thwack, and you feel it in your hands. Each frame on a roll feels earned. It makes you think before you press, which is easy to lose when you have thousands of digital do-overs. I'm not anti-digital. My studio workflow is hybrid, and I use digital for speed and post-production flexibility when I need it. But for portraits that need room to breathe and fashion editorials that need a timeless look, film is still my first choice.
The process, from exposure to darkroom
The process is part of the appeal. It starts with choosing a film stock: Portra for its creamy skin tones, Fuji Pro 400H for its greens, or a contrasty black and white like Ilford HP5 for a gritty street scene in Bushwick. Then you load the film, thread it onto the take-up spool and close the camera back with a click. It is a small ceremony that gets the mind ready.
After the shoot there is no quick look at the back of the camera. The images stay unseen in the light-tight canister. I send rolls to my lab in Long Island City. For personal projects I sometimes develop them myself in a small darkroom setup, with the smell of fixer, the red safelight and the image slowly appearing on paper. The wait lets the first excitement settle, so seeing the negatives later means more.
Working inside limits
Digital tends to chase perfect exposure, focus and clarity, and I get those in commercial work. Film accepts imperfection. The grain, the color shifts of each stock and the occasional light leak that turns an ordinary shot into something odd are character, not flaws. They give an image a warmth that is hard to fake digitally without heavy post-processing.
The limits of film are real: a set number of frames per roll, no changing ISO mid-roll, and a fixed color temperature for each stock. You have to think more, plan more and trust your instincts. It trains your eye and your understanding of light instead of letting technology fix mistakes. The forced slowness often leads to stronger images, because you focus on composition, light and subject. That goes for a rising star in our studio in NoHo and for a fashion shoot on the cobblestones of the Meatpacking District.
A slower pace with the model
Film lets us step off the conveyor belt of instant digital. It changes how I work with the person in front of me. When a model knows there are only 12 or 36 frames on the roll and each click is a choice, the dynamic shifts. We both focus on the shot, not just a shot.
The slower rhythm leaves room for real moments. There is less pressure to perform for the camera, and more space for the unguarded expressions between poses. I work this way with Dante's Models talent on portfolio updates and on a personal project documenting the changing faces of Chinatown.
Prints and portfolios
A digital file lives as pixels on a screen. A film negative is a physical record of light and time. Holding a strip of developed negatives is a strong experience. When they become a print, either a traditional darkroom print or a high-quality scan with an archival inkjet print, you have an object you can hold and touch.
For models building portfolios, a selection of well-printed film images says a lot about a photographer's care for quality. We often encourage our models to put film in their portfolios, because it gives them an edge in a competitive industry.
Why it matters to us
Shooting film in a digital world isn't nostalgia, and it isn't refusing progress. It is a reminder of why I picked up a camera in the first place: to capture beauty and tell stories. It also shapes how I approach commercial work and the agency at Dante's Models. Quality over quantity, intention over speed. Whether it is a film portrait in the alleys of Dumbo or a black-and-white editorial in the brownstones of the Upper West Side, film adds something.
If you see me with a medium format camera over my shoulder, probably somewhere between Union Square and the West Village, I'm chasing the unseen.
If you want a film shoot for a portfolio update or a fashion editorial, book a photoshoot with us at Dante's Models at dantet9.com. Our free resources and tools are at dantet9.com/tools.
