I am not afraid of artificial intelligence. Nor do I believe photography needs

protecting from technology. Photography has always been shaped by technological

change, from glass plates to roll film, autofocus, digital sensors and computational

imaging. AI is simply another, albeit enormous, turn of that wheel.

Yet the easier it becomes to create an image, the more I find myself drawn back

towards something decidedly inconvenient: analogue film.

Perhaps that makes me old-fashioned. Worse, perhaps it places me among the

dreaded ranks of the photographic purist, polishing an old Leica while muttering darkly

about algorithms. But my attachment to film has little to do with believing that old

cameras are somehow superior. The camera itself matters less to me than what film

forces me to do.

It makes me look.

With film, light is not merely something I can correct afterwards. It is the raw

material of the photograph. I become more conscious of where it falls, where it

disappears and what exists between those two places. Darkness becomes as important

as illumination. Shadows are not necessarily defects waiting to be recovered.

Film stock adds another variable. Each emulsion has its own peculiar character,

sensitivity and response to the world. A slow film under hard sunlight behaves

differently from a faster stock wandering through fading evening light. Grain, contrast,

colour and exposure become participants in the photograph rather than imperfections

automatically waiting to be corrected.

There is something wonderfully literal about “pushing” film too. Today we push

sliders across screens and ask software to recover shadows, extend backgrounds,

remove distractions or even imagine what might exist beyond the original frame. With

film, pushing means deliberately asking a physical material to operate beyond the

conditions for which it was designed. The consequences are visible. Sometimes

beautiful. Sometimes disastrous.

And importantly, not entirely reversible.

That uncertainty matters to me.

Then comes development, when photography becomes almost alchemical. Light

that existed for a fraction of a second days or weeks earlier has altered a physical strip

of material. Chemistry reveals what was there, or what I hoped was there. Until that

moment there is anticipation, doubt and curiosity. The photograph exists, but I cannot

yet see it.

AI offers something almost opposite. Its possibilities are extraordinary. An image

can now be expanded, reconstructed, enhanced or created from language itself. I find

that fascinating rather than threatening. The boundaries of image-making are moving,

and pretending otherwise would be pointless.

But perhaps that is precisely why analogue photography has become more

valuable to me.

Film gives me boundaries.

Thirty-six exposures. A fixed sensitivity. Available light. Chemistry. Chance. My

own judgement. Once the shutter falls, the moment is gone.

Those limitations are not obstacles to creativity. They are part of it.

I don’t shoot film because I want photography to return to the past. I shoot it

because I don’t want to forget what photography taught me in the first place: to observe

patiently, make decisions, accept imperfections and understand light before trying to

manipulate it.

In an age when almost anything can be generated, corrected or imagined, there

remains something quietly profound about allowing light to touch a piece of film and

leaving behind physical evidence that, for one brief moment, I was there.