Practicing Attention
An essay on observation as an act of connection.
There was a time when I thought shooting film was simply about the photographs.
The colours. The grain. The imperfections. The slower pace.
It took me years to realise that none of those things were the real reason I kept coming back.
Somewhere between loading a roll of film, taking a light reading and waiting for a moment to unfold, I found myself noticing things I'd previously walked past.
I thought I was learning a different way to make photographs.
I was actually learning a different way to see.
I was beginning to pay attention.
Not just to the obvious moments, but to everything surrounding them.
Drivers interacting before a group photo.
A mechanic in deep concentration.
A conversation taking place that nobody else noticed.
The way light slowly moves across pit lane long before a car leaves the garage.
The moments most people walk past because they're waiting for something bigger to happen.
Film taught me that photography isn't about reacting.
It's about observing.
Preparation became part of the photograph long before I ever pressed the shutter.
More often than not you'll find me standing in a motorsport paddock or pit lane, or way earlier than a scheduled kick-off at a stadium with a handheld light meter pointed towards an empty scene, long before anyone steps into it. The camera isn't even in my hands yet. I'm watching. Waiting. Trying to understand how the moment might unfold before it ever arrives.
When it finally does, pressing the shutter almost feels like the least important part.
It reminds me of a scene from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. A character in that film spends days waiting in the mountains for the appearance of an elusive snow leopard. When it finally arrives, he chooses not to take the photograph. He simply experiences the moment.
I remember watching that scene years ago and admiring it.
I understand it now.
Photography has given me some incredible opportunities, but perhaps the greatest gift hasn't been the images I've made.
It's the permission to slow down.
I wasn't introduced to photography through film. In fact, it arrived much later. By the time I loaded my first roll, I'd already spent a few years shooting digitally.
Like most photographers, I'd become accustomed to instant feedback. Shoot. Review. Adjust. Repeat. It was efficient, forgiving and endlessly capable.
Then a long-time friend, who would later become my business partner at Forever Film Co., convinced me to give film a proper chance. Not as an exercise in nostalgia. Not because it was fashionable. Simply to experience photography differently.
So being curious, I jumped right on down the rabbit hole. It took a little while to grasp moving to a completely analog workflow. Having owned a few classic cars in my lifetime however made me appreciate the simpler things about it, physical dials, almost no plastic, and the unmistakable and addictive sound of a mechanical shutter going "clunk".
One of my earliest experiences shooting motorsport on film remains one of my favourites.
I decided to take a Kodak Box Brownie into pit lane during a Formula 1 practice session to try something different. If you've never seen a box brownie camera, imagine the simplest camera possible. It's little more than a box. There are no exposure settings. No aperture ring. Just a shutter button that fires somewhere around 1/30th of a second.
You compose by looking down into a tiny waist-level finder where the world appears upside down and back to front. It feels wonderfully disconnected from the precision we're accustomed to today.
Obtaining pit lane access during a Formula 1 weekend isn't something that's guaranteed, consciously deciding to take a box brownie in pit lane and shoot a few rolls of film, because why not!
I wasn't chasing perfection. I was chasing possibility.
At one point during the practice session, I deliberately waited close to the garage exit of Daniel Ricciardo, as I wanted to try a panning shot as he exited his garage and zipped through pit lane in his Renault Formula 1 car, panning.. with a camera where the only control I had was how smoothly my body pivoted from left to right, following the car and pushing the very industrial shutter button at the right time, almost the very definition of madness.
To this day it's one of my favourite photographs I've ever made. Not because it's technically impressive. But because every time I look at it I'm reminded that great photographs don't always come from the most sophisticated equipment. Sometimes they come from curiosity, or from slowing down.
These days I make a conscious effort to carry at least one film camera to almost every motorsport event I cover. Sometimes it's alongside my digital equipment. Other times, particularly when I'm photographing purely for myself, I'll only pack analog gear.
On paper, it makes very little sense. There are faster cameras. Lighter cameras. Cameras that auto focus with eye tracking, meter perfectly and allow me to review every frame the instant it's has been made. Instead, I often find myself carrying my Mamiya RZ67 or Fuji GW690 through Formula 1 paddocks and pit lanes. They're heavy or bulky. Unapologetically so.
By the end of a long race weekend, every shoulder and muscle reminds me that they were there, every frame is earned.
Long before a driver appears, I'll already have a light reading from my handheld meter. I'll be standing in a place that feels promising, watching how people move through the space, trying to understand the rhythm of what's happening around me. Sometimes the moment never arrives. Sometimes it unfolds exactly as I'd imagined. Other times, someone steps into the frame for the briefest fraction of a second and instinct quietly takes over. The shutter only clicks once. Or perhaps twice. Then it's gone.
One thing I never expected from carrying film cameras was the number of conversations they would begin. It happens almost everywhere I take them. Someone notices the camera hanging from my shoulder. A mechanic. Another photographer. A team member walking through the paddock. Sometimes a curious marshal. Occasionally someone who hasn't shot film in decades. The conversation usually starts the same way."Is that a film camera?", It rarely ends there.
Before long we're talking about favourite cameras, film stocks we love shooting, the heartbreak of losing an entire roll, or the satisfaction of seeing freshly developed negatives with images successfully captured. For a few minutes the cameras almost become irrelevant. The conversation becomes about shared experience.
In an environment built around extraordinary technology, data and relentless performance, it's such a cool thing that a sixty-year-old camera can still stop two strangers long enough to connect. I've come to realise that some of my favourite photographs begin before I've even lifted the camera. Sometimes they begin with a conversation.
The process doesn't end when the roll is finished, it's where another kind of anticipation begins.
I enjoy developing my own black and white film at home. Not because it's the fastest option. Certainly not because it's the easiest. But there's something deeply satisfying about completing the entire journey yourself.
Loading the reel. Mixing the chemistry. Watching the timer. Washing the negatives. Hanging them to dry. Scanning them for digital use. It all takes time.
Even after years of shooting film, there's a feeling that never really disappears. It's a quiet mixture of excitement and anxiety every time a roll is developed.
Sometimes the results are disappointing. Entire rolls have disappeared because of my own mistakes.
Film has a remarkable ability to expose complacency. Oddly enough, I think that's why I love it.
Nothing is guaranteed.
Every frame asks for your full attention. It asks you to be present. It asks you to accept that some photographs simply won't exist. And somehow, that makes the ones that do matter even more.
Over time I realised something else had quietly changed.I wasn't only observing the world in front of me.I had started observing my place within it.
Photography has always been described as a way of documenting other people, other places or other moments.For me, it has gradually become something more personal. Every photograph is the meeting point between two experiences.
The person I'm photographing brings their own story, their own pursuit, their own world.
I bring my own curiosity, my own patience and my own interpretation of what I'm witnessing.
Somewhere in the middle, those two worlds briefly overlap.
That's the photograph.
It begins with observation. It grows through connection.
The shutter simply records the moment where those two things briefly become one.
Analog photography hasn't taught me to become technically more capable. It has taught me to become a better observer.
It has reminded me that photographs begin long before the shutter is pressed.
That preparation matters.
That patience matters.
That conversations matter.
That mistakes matter.
That sometimes the most meaningful thing you can do is simply stand still and pay attention.
In a world that celebrates speed, efficiency and immediate results, film continues to offer me something increasingly rare. Presence.
Not because the camera demands it.
Because the process does.
And perhaps that's why I'll continue carrying a light meter through Formula 1 paddocks and football stadiums.
Why I'll happily shoulder the weight of a Mamiya RZ67 for another event.
Why I'll continue developing black and white negatives long after midnight.
Not because I believe film is better.
But because I believe observation is. The photographs will always matter to me.
But the person I've become while making them matters even more.