Photographing on Film and Why I Always Include It

There is something deeply mine in the way I photograph on film. It’s not just an aesthetic I chose. It’s a return to my roots. I studied photography and learned analog film from the very first day. I spent endless hours in the college darkroom, and even more hours in the makeshift darkroom in my parents’ attic, where I developed rolls, watched images appear in silence, and understood that photographing is writing with light and patience. Film was my first visual language. So it’s only natural that it’s still part of how I tell stories today.

Over the last 15 years photographing weddings in Portugal and Italy, I realised that film continues to be a place where I find truth. Photographing weddings on film isn’t about slowness or forced nostalgia. I shoot with a point-and-shoot. It’s simple, direct and spontaneous. But even so, film asks something of me. It asks for presence. For intention. It invites me to observe instead of shooting without thinking. It makes me trust the moment and embrace the unexpected, which aligns perfectly with my documentary approach with an editorial feel.

At a wedding, where everything happens in a whirlwind, film becomes a beautiful contrast. Every click has a purpose. Every frame is a conscious gesture, even when it’s fast. And that changes the final narrative. Film doesn’t chase technical perfection. It chases emotion. Texture. Tones that feel like memory. Imperfections that tell real stories. That soft, honest light only analog film knows how to translate.

I include film in all my wedding packages because it’s part of my DNA as a wedding photographer in Portugal. It’s not a decorative extra or a passing trend. It’s a natural extension of my eye. Film allows me to deliver something that withstands time and digital trends. Something my couples experience as intimate, organic and real. A parallel layer of storytelling that complements my documentary work with an editorial sensibility.

Film brings me closer to what matters. It helps me see with more intention, feel with more depth, and deliver photographs that don’t just show what the day looked like, but how it felt. How it moved. How it breathed. I believe the couples who choose to work with me are looking for that. Photographs that are more than beautiful. They are honest. Documentary photography with an editorial soul. Images that, twenty years from now, still carry warmth, texture and heart.

Including film is my way of honouring life as it happens. Of embracing the unexpected. Of creating memories that aren’t just records, but heirlooms.

Would you like film photography at your wedding? Ask me for a quote here.