How to Catch Light in a Jar...
Film photography and its influence on my website designsI was lucky enough to get a camera for my ninth birthday.
It was a modest little 3.2-megapixel point-and-shoot — but it captured my imagination immediately.
I took pictures of absolutely everything.
One of my greatest creations was a stop-motion film I made by photographing my toys and clicking through the pictures as fast as possible.
Primitive, yes — but magical at the time.
Later in my teenage years, I got my first 35mm film camera.
And that’s when I really caught the bug.
The photos had an indescribable charm.
Where digital offered clinical precision, film had a soft, hazy quality that could make photos taken at a McDonald’s last week feel… nostalgic.
Let me prove it to you.
Paris, 2022 — some pictures taken on film:
(bike.)
(Bike?)
(BIKE!!)
You see that soft, haziness I was talking about?
But more than how the photos looked, it was the process that hooked me:
- Loading the film into the camera
- Winding it before each picture
- Feeling that mechanical *CLACK* of the shutter and mirror
- The limitation — 36 photos, max (shoot wisely!)
- The anticipation of waiting for the lab to return your images
Most of all, I loved the fact that the photos were never once converted into a 0 or a 1. (A controversial opinion for a computer scientist, I know.)
Each photo was the organic result of a unique chemical reaction triggered by the light at one precise moment — as if I’d caught the light straight out of the air and sealed it in a jar forever.
Now, isn’t that just poetic?
The keen-eyed among you may have noticed I’m describing all of this in the past tense.
That’s because in recent years, the cost of shooting film has sky-rocketed. And while I’ve been studying, it’s an expense I just haven’t been able to justify.
But its influence still lives on in my work…
How Film Photography Inspires My Web Design
In the past few years, analog formats like film and vinyl have made a huge comeback.
There’s a nostalgic charm to them — a warmth, a tactility — and it’s something I love trying to evoke in the websites I build.
I want websites to feel organic.
To look so tangible and analog, you could almost reach out and touch them.
Everything in the physical world has:
- Texture
- Depth (a sense of perspective)
- A complex relationship with light
These are the qualities I try to mimic in my design — through subtle shadows, textured backgrounds, natural motion, and generous use of space — all to make the digital feel a bit more human.
Of course, this doesn’t apply to every site I make.
For example, the design of this website was inspired by the aesthetic of early 2000s blogs and forums — lo-fi, personal, nostalgic in its own right.
But the point in all this rambling is…
Whether I’m behind a camera or behind a code editor, my goal is often the same:
To make you feel something.
No matter the project, I believe the best work always evokes a feeling.
Even if it’s just the curiosity to learn more…
Until next time,
Vince