Elopement film photography
On film
We shoot 35mm film alongside our digital coverage for every single elopement.
It’s a vibey, raw, imperfect way to help you return to how your wedding day felt.
why bother? what makes film special?
Film photos are romantic & cinematic, timeless & nostalgic.
It’s the way we’ve seen our parents & grandparents’ weddings, the way we learned about the history of the wild west, and maybe how you reflect on your own childhood.
We love the artistry and magic that comes from shooting elopements on film – it takes us back to our early days as photographers when every shot counted, and every frame could surprise you.
Film Photography FAQs
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Nope! We primarily shoot digitally – on top-of-the line Nikon mirrorless cameras. 90% of your final gallery will be crispy and technically perfect digital photos, with a selection of film photos as a nice added bonus to the day.
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In addition to her digital camera, Jess carries all of the above:
-Minolta SRT 101 – a vintage photojournalism cam from the '60s
-Nikon F4 – a workhorse pro SLR from the 90s
-Illford Spite – a "toy" camera meant for quick snapshots with direct flash
When it comes to film, we rotate between the gold standard for fine art portraiture – Portra 160 – and vibey film stocks like Kodak Ultramax and the Cinestills series.
Right now we're exclusively using color film stocks and converting some images to black & white in post processing. -
It all depends! Film is an unpredictable medium!
For full day weddings and elopements, we're shooting 2-3 rolls – while on shorter events we may shoot a few key shots or up to one full roll. -
You'll have them at the same time as your final gallery – in 4 weeks or less :)
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Sure! If this is something you're interested in, let us know! We have a few Fuji Instax cameras we'd be happy to bring along
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Yes! While most of the charm of film images comes straight out of camera, it is really important to us to show them a little love before your images get to you.
We work with the FINDlab to develop and scan our negatives, and their techs have a world class understanding of the medium. They get us perfect scans and then we go through our normal process of removing distracting elements, touching up blemishes, and balancing the colors in a way that feels authentic to the moment.
Perfectly imperfect
There’s so much more that goes into a great photo — a great moment — than absolute sharpness, perfect focus, or super accurate colors. Often these things are important, but not always.
It’s pretty freeing when you embrace imperfection, when you give up control over the final result. You can’t hold these shots too tightly and that’s kind of the beauty. They probably won’t be perfect and might not turn out at all — and that’s okay.
A wedding day dedicated to perfection would be really tiring anyhow.
The best of both worlds
Combining film and digital photo coverage, like having two photographers on your wedding day, lets you have the vibes of film without the risk of things getting a little too imperfect and losing super important images from a day you can’t do over.
Austin and I both shoot digital, and I mix in film coverage as the shots call out to me throughout the day.
our favorite, instantly iconic film shots
