About two years ago a family member whom used to be into photography in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s gave me his Nikon FM. Here is where my journey into film photography started.

He bought it brand new in the late 1970’s. He hands me an old dried up leather camera bag that contained three old 35mm film cameras and says “here your into photography you’ll get more use out of this than I will”. One of which was the Nikon FM. At that time I was happy to accept it out of curiosity. At that time I really had zero interest in shooting film and just stuck the bag under my desk all but forgetting about it.

So one day I came across a YouTube channel that focused mostly on Film Photography. I remember thinking wow the feel of these photos seem different, almost alive and had a really retro feel. So I start thinking to myself its time to get back to the basics, I mean go all they back to the beginning. So I remember as a kid I shot film, and you know I think I still have my old point and shoot cameras. So one day I laided out on my desk all my old cameras from the 1990’s and prior to, some digital, some film. I them remembered I had that old leather camera bag under my desk. So I dusted them all off went online and bought a few rolls of film and loaded the Nikon FM with my first roll of film in over twenty plus years.

We’ll the first roll took me like two months to go through, and boom…it happened. I realized that you only get a certain amount of shots and found myself slowing WAY down and no longer “Spraying and Praying”! Aside from the fact that the Nikon FM is as basic as it gets it has become an important learning tool for me, ultimately drastically improving my photography. I used to rely heavily on Photoshop to refine my images. I now find I almost do zero adjustments in photoshop because the Nikon FM has taught me to get the image right in camera, slow down, get the composition right, wait for that great light, dial in the settings to get exactly the look I’m going for…instead of just capturing a base image to work from and creating an image in Photoshop.

The Nikon FM has become my very most favorite camera. The best part was I got it for free…handed down by family. Thus reinventing the way I shot photography all together both on digital and film. It is my humble opinion that every photographer should be shooting both film and digital it will teach you to be an all around better photographer…

Here are some images I’ve captured on my journey with the Nikon FM.