Why I still shoot film for editorial
It is slower, more expensive, and entirely worth it for the way it changes the room.
Film is a posture. The moment I close the back of the Hasselblad, three things change. The subject sits up. The art director stops talking. I stop reviewing.
That last one matters most. There is no chimping on a 503CW. You shoot, you wind, you shoot. The frame is gone before you have time to second-guess it.
Editorial subjects feel that. They know they are being photographed by someone who has chosen to be uncertain about the result. It changes the picture they give you.
I shoot two rolls of Portra 400 for every editorial sitting. Twenty-four frames of medium format. Twelve usable. Two heroes. Every hero I have ever published — every Vogue, every Vanity Fair, every Forbes cover — was on one of those two rolls.