Film vs. digital: The rediscovered art of sequential storytelling

Finding connections: one frame, two stories

The film versus digital debate has been exhaustively covered from almost every angle: dynamic range, resolution, cost, nostalgia, and the unmistakable aesthetic qualities of analog. These discussions have their place, but I think they miss a more subtle dimension of what makes film photography uniquely powerful. In certain contexts!

I'm not here to rehash the well-worn arguments about film's "soul" or digital's convenience. Instead, I want to focus on something specific: how certain film formats fundamentally change the photographic thought process and enable narrative possibilities that digital largely abandoned.

The half-frame renaissance

When Olympus introduced the Pen half-frames in the early 1960’s, they weren't just creating an economical way to get twice as many shots per roll. They were introducing a format that naturally paired images together, encouraging photographers to think in terms of relationships, sequences, and visual conversations.

This format isn't merely a historical …