Texture, Color, and Grain: What Film Brings to Collage
In our modern world, most people interact with digital imagery all day long—photos snapped on phones, shared instantly, endlessly scrolled. It’s fast, frictionless, and convenient. For a lot of people, it’s the only kind of photography they’ve ever known. But I’ve been working with analog photography since the late 1990s, and I’m still a film grain purist. I love the texture of film because it reminds me of nature, like stars scattered across a vast sky, or freckles dotting a beautiful face. It’s not computerized, robotic, or electronic. It’s organic, rich, and alive in a way that pixels just aren’t.
Because film photography feels almost archaic now, I want to explain what film grain actually is, and how it becomes a beautifully arranged pattern of specks layered over a photographic image. Color negative film is essentially a strip of plastic coated in light-sensitive chemicals called silver halides. When light hits that surface as we click the shutter, those tiny crystals react—shifting and settling according to the intensity of light reflecting off every surface of the scene. The result is grain: sand-like and soft. When I make reproduction printouts of my film photography, that grain is visible and almost tactile, creating an added layer of texture that unifies every image.
My favorite part of shooting with film is the unexpected surprises. Film is somewhat stable but can get cranky under certain conditions. It's a tool we use to control light, and in the end, light—made by nature—wins every time. Often, as a photographer, we have to humble ourselves to the process, and a good photographer is constantly allowing light to teach us its greater wisdom. When film gets too hot over a period of time, we can get color shifts once we develop our film. Sometimes, those shifts are unwanted and unfortunate.
Shooting with a Holga is always an adventure because this camera is built to encourage accidents with light. The camera is essentially a lightweight piece of garbage and you often need to use tape to keep the body closed. Even so, light inevitably enters through the imperfect cracks in the camera, creating all kinds of light streaks and bursts, often giving the images an ethereal, dreamlike quality. The film advancer is also quite low-tech, so you often get double-exposures—if you're lucky—adding beautiful layers of translucency.
In other instances, we can often control the way we manipulate film and light, using it to our creative advantage. In college, I created an entire series using a method called cross-processing. I shot transparency (slide) film and then developed it in negative film chemistry. This process creates intense color shifts and high contrast images.
After 20 years, I still create all my collages from photographs I've taken with my 35mm manual camera. The mystery and suspense that comes along with the analog photographic process gets me into a more intuitively creative state. It requires me to let go and open myself to things I might not have discovered with my conscious mind and controlled outlook. Analog photography requires both focus and play—which are the key elements to making any successful work of art.
In this world of super-saturated visual stimulation, it can be difficult for an artist to stand out as different, unique, or exceptional. And while there are so many amazing artists out there making beautiful work, I appreciate that my process gives me an extra dose of authenticity. Sourcing my material in this way also ensures my work is cohesive, recognizable, versatile, and interchangeable—perfect for interior designers and collectors looking to fill a space with work that plays well together. I'm Libby Saylor, a Philadelphia-based collage artist, and this analog process is at the core of everything in my shop.
