♪♪
-In a world that is increasingly digital,
the disconnect of bits and bytes
flying through space to bring us sounds and images.
People want something real,
something they can hold in their hands.
-Kentmere 400 black and white filming.
-And for Joe Tobiason, and this is about as real
as it gets.
-I just always enjoyed film.
And after college was moving to Peru
to work for a nonprofit.
So I bought a Minolta SRT 101 film camera for $25
on eBay just proceeded to try to shoot
as much as I could while I lived there.
-The rest is history. Roll after roll,
He fell in love with photography [lens snap]
and has kept that going through his adult life
from making film photos for clients on backcountry
elopements and weddings,
to pictures of his kids as they grow up.
Today, he's out with his son, Nico. -Queen?
You see a queen? Where's the queen?
Where?
Oh, the crane. Yes, you're totally right.
-Working on an ongoing project exploring
Seattle's relationship with the ocean and water.
-I like film for a lot of reasons.
I love the color of it.
I think that color film has just a beautiful
way of looking that it's a little bit softer.
It's the dynamic range.
To be able to hold a scene really well is nice.
But I think what I like
most about the process is that I am in control
of so many steps of it. From like rolling the film
to putting in the camera to shooting the pictures,
to then developing it myself, just getting myself
and then getting it ready
for delivery in whatever form it is.
Like I get to touch every single level
across the whole process and that feels very personal.
And each one of those steps.
-He's one of a growing number of people
that has made the old new again,
trading digital cameras for film celluloid
that has to be developed to see each picture
forgoing the instant feedback of modern cameras,
whether it's the control or that intentional slowdown.
The process is part of the appeal. -Film is not dead. ♪♪
People have rediscovered film.
People are shooting film.
People want to make images from film.
-Mary Fleenor has noticed
the surge of interest these past few years.
She founded Panda Lab with Dana Drake in Seattle in 1983
and has been operating here in the shadow
of the Space Needle since 1985.
-Both Dana and I were photographers.
We both had small children at the time we started,
and the idea was that we would have more control
over our lives while still leaving time for our families.
Those families have grown up,
but we still have the love of the business.
-A business that has seen so much life
pass through its doors.
The recent moments and frames
are draped all around
the shop and prints from some of the most famous images
they've handled.
Hang on the wall of the darkroom.
-Look who we’ve got. We’ve got Bill Gates in the early hours,
and then next to them is Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
We got a lot of the presidents on this wall
from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton.
There's Marilyn
Monroe, there’s Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix.
It's been an interesting journey for us
from being a little black and white lab
with just this one space to where we are now.
-Certainly some things have changed over the years.
Now, most folks want digital
scans of their negatives instead of the contact sheets.
But the memories, the memories stay the same.
As Mary transitions
the business more to her daughter, Jessica.
-Like literally my whole life,
my mom has worked in a darkroom in some capacity, so
she would hand murals to film to shoot as a kid.
I have pictures of me with a camera as a kid,
last pictures of me as a kid because
I grew up with a photographer for a mother.
-The pictures have always been about family.
-I want to show you something.
This is part of the love.
This is my mother.
-And some just mean more.
-In 1939.
This is the original. In the photos that you take,
And shape, make a history of your surroundings,
your life, your passions, your loves.
And it shares that in some way with other people.
When people bring their copy work in,
they're preserving their own family treasures
that I really love.
-And those are being captured every day.
-How is this boat from Vail, Colorado,
-By photographers like Joe.
-That doesn't make any sense. -Sharing time with their kids.
-Do you see a yellow boat?
Do you see which one has yellow in it?
-Making memories down.
-Good job.
Hey. Good job, bud.
-And photographs.
-So when I had kids,
I wanted cameras that I could take pictures of the moment
[camera lens clicks] and be done with it.
It helps us all to just to be a little bit
more present and stuff. And it totally is just.
It's nostalgia and like, it's what I like.
I look at the photos of them from their childhood.
It feels like a bit of my own childhood
and I know it's cheesy, but it also makes me happy. [laughs]
-Family memories preserved for generations to come.
-But it's also kind of,
makes it more fun to look back at it like, Yeah,
we took that photo together, bud. What do you see, dude?
¿Que cosa es?
Mira, que veo una cosa muy grande.
¿No? ♪♪
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