Your analog life

Above all, life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference. -Robert Frank

Digital cameras and mobile devices capture shot metadata in the form of EXIF annotations for each shot. For the photo enthusiast or professional, this information is useful for identifying technical data about each shot. Of course, many people never look at it, since they shoot on auto anyhow.

Shooting film is different—you want to know the shutter speed, the aperture, what lens you used, what the meter read. You want to learn about what works and why. And then there is more than just technical data. Maybe you want to make a sketch showing how high the sun was when you took the shot, how you felt, or what you wanted from it. Of course, you want to know where the shot was taken, and when. Each photograph has a story.

One might use a voice note or memo app on a mobile phone. But this is at odds with part of what makes shooting with film special: the feel of it, the sense of self-sufficiency and independence you get from being offline. For some of us, the pleasure of using a special pen, the feel of it on paper. Easy access to your notes. The signs of wear and the little happy accidents that give a thing its history.

This is exactly what the Film Exposure Log and Film Exposure Card aims to provide: A place for you to keep the story of each shot and each roll safe, a part of the lived experience of your own story. Most certainly, not a matter of indifference.