Against the Grain

I’ve finally come up with a title for my blog. It’s a bit of a play on words, but then you’ll come to expect nothing less of me.


It’s not that I’m against grain at all. Quite the opposite. I love grain. It’s one of the things that sets digital photography apart from film photography. But, I do tend to be a bit of a rebel. And, every digital image I see or capture will be compared with film. Hence, against the grain. I’m looking at the pixels against the grain, to make sure they’re behaving themselves.

So, my goal, my passion, is to make digital photography look as much like film photography as possible. After all, digital video is captured at 24 fps to look more like film, isn’t it? And on a molecular level, it’s all about pixels, the “grain” of digital images.

Fortunately, digital noise, which kind of looks like grain, can be coaxed into looking more so with Photoshop. In fact, incredibly low resolution images can be softened and imbibed with grain that makes them, well, viewable. At least they don’t scream “LO-RES” anymore.

So, it’s going to take some time and lots of work to explore every aspect of film photography, and what it really takes to make a digital photograph.