Film Is Magic for Milestone Photos

There are moments in life that feel as though they’re suspended in air. Graduation day is one of them.

I visited Harvard on graduation week for my1 sister’s graduation. She had asked me to take her graduation photos. But I had an idea. What if I spent the whole day capturing grads on film, and film alone? 6 slots. 30 minutes each. One roll of film each. The idea worked. All 6 slots booked out.

I arrived not with endless lenses and gear bags, but with something quieter: a film camera loaded with a single roll for each group. Thirty-six frames. Not unlimited choice, but intentional choice.

That’s the thing about film: It forces intention. You take a breath. You look at the light. You anticipate the next few seconds: when will someone laugh, when will someone blink. Film slows you down, and in doing so, it reveals what’s truly present.

These graduates, full of ambition, relief, nerves, hope, welcomed the constraint. There was something freeing in it. You could see them relax into themselves, not perform for a machine that could take hundreds of images without breathing.

With film, you earn every shutter click. You watch the light change and you follow it. You listen, not with your ears but with your eyes.

We ran across campus, making use of every second, every shot, we had. There was laughter, the kind that lifts a moment out of the ordinary.

What is special about film is not simply how it looks (however, there is a magic to its color and its softness). What elevates it is how film is a promise. Between camera, photographer, and subject. That this frame matters.

When the images returned, (& very quickly they did thanks to 24 Hour Film Lab out of Austin, TX) they felt exactly as the day had felt: full of warmth, of breath, of story, and deeply human.

And that is why I always use film. Because some milestones deserve to be rendered with intention, held with reverence, and honored in the slow, deliberate language of light.