Film is like language. You can study something your entire life and never quite get all of it. Nothing about film matters unless you use it. So talking about film and venturing down the rabbit hole of technicality doesn’t help anyone. To understand the nuance of film you must use it, again and again, year after year, and only then will you begin to comprehend the range of possibility.

Kodak P3200, or TMZ, is more complex than most offering a wide range of speed and look within one emulsion. This was my primary film for over a decade and I still feel like I left a lot on the table in terms of what this product was capable of. Time, temperature, developer, agitation, processing style were just a few of the items that could turn this film from friend to foe. For me, film is and was about simplicity and restriction. I miss the days of film because I miss what the rest of my life was like during the time of analog supremacy. No computer, no mobile phone.

This film scans and prints beautifully while in the darkroom is can present real problems. Learning TMZ is the antithesis of what we are told matters. Learning TMZ is about all the things we are told don’t matter. Learning it, for real, calls into question the most precious resource of our time. Time.