What is Hybrid Photography?!

The question I get most often when I tell people that I am a “Hybrid Photographer” is, without a doubt, “What does that even mean?!”. I totally understand why it’s so confusing. I wanted to take a second and have a place where I can write out, as well as show, my couples and families what that means and how it impacts them and their final delivered photo galleries.

“Hybrid Photography” (most commonly) refers to when someone photographs using both digital and analog (film) mediums at the same time. Using the word “film” in this day and age oftentimes gets confused with video services, and that’s why I wanted to be clear in what I mean and am offering when I use the term film!

Here are just a few of the reasons why I choose to shoot film as a hybrid photographer:

Less Post-Processing

The absolute most time-consuming part of being a photographer is editing galleries. With film, I simply do not have to do as much editing on your whole gallery, which means quicker turn-around time for my couples & families to see their photos!! After a session or wedding, I head over to my favorite film processing lab. Wilson Camera is my FAVORITE local Arizona shop for this. The film processing lab handles the developing and digital scanning. After a couple of days, they send me the digital copies of the photos from the scans they took from the physical film roll, I then make sure they look good (adjust any lighting, cropping or distractions) and then am able to upload them into your gallery in basically no time!

Nostalgic Vibes

I LOVE the nostalgic, vintage vibe that film photos bring to an image. Something about the imperfect nature of a film photo really speaks to me, and I love the fun of it and how much variety it adds to a finished gallery.

High Quality Photos

On a single roll of film, I only have 36 opportunities to take a photo. Because of that, I am much more intentional about what I am taking a photo of, since I can’t just point and shoot my heart out like I can with my digital camera. Photos I shoot with my film camera I tend to set up, pose and take my time before pressing the shutter button and capturing that moment.

True-to-Life Color

With film, the color range you get straight out of camera is much more similar to what we experience when looking at something with our eyes than it is from a photo with a digital camera. I love that film photos are more life-like and really capture the natural beauty of a scene- ESPECIALLY on a wedding day when photographing the details of the design elements my couples work so hard to intentionally plan for.

Left- Digital | Right- Film

Hybrid photography is definitely always going to be a part of Nico Marie Photography, and I cannot WAIT to get some film photos of your wedding, engagement photos or family session in the near future!