Digital photography vs film: how a visual artist makes digital prints with an analogue aesthetic at home

Professional photographers have always embraced the tools of the future while being inspired by – and nostalgic for – the past. London-based photographer and director Wanda Martin creates editorial and fashion work featuring a vintage look and subdued tones reminiscent of Romantic art.

"I started shooting at age 15 and using digital first gave me the freedom to experiment without the associated costs of developing film," explains Wanda. "I was attracted to an archaic look that's related to my two main inspirations: the mix of painterly beauty with rock and roll subculture."

Wanda's style is recognisable and unique. She shoots the majority of commercial work on her Canon EOS-1D X Mark II (now succeeded by the Canon EOS-1D X Mark III) and Canon EOS R5, which produce the excellent colour accuracy and quality she needs for high-end clients such as Dior and Louis Vuitton. "These cameras are also amazing in low-light conditions, which means I can shoot at up to ISO 6400 and get barely any noise," she adds.

Having grown up near her father's photography studio, Wanda also loves developing 35mm and medium format films when she has time. "There is something very magical about the process," she says. "You never know exactly what the result will look like."

Here, Wanda shares how her love of film continues to inspire her approach, and how Canon's professional printers have helped her to experiment in the same tactile way as the darkroom for exhibition-worthy prints.

There are plenty of parallels between traditional darkroom techniques and modern photo processing, including editing tools such as dodging, burning and adjusting the exposures in post-processing software. Wanda is well-versed in film, and she first learned about the darkroom process from her father.

"He showed me how to process black and white film and we made prints," she explains. "I went on to study fine art photography in Budapest, where we were processing negatives and making photograms." During her master's degree at the London College of Fashion, Wanda worked on an analogue documentary called Nights Out. "That was strictly shot on film, and I developed and scanned most of those myself in the university lab," she recalls.

Despite enjoying the experimental qualities of film, it's easier, quicker, and more practical for Wanda to use her digital EOS cameras on commercial shoots. "It's important for the client as well as for me to make sure we get the result they want to see," she says. "With digital, we can review and they can give instant feedback. Usually, the turnaround needs to be fast; I have to send previews of a selection for editing, sometimes on the day of the shoot."

During the film era, it was common for commercial photographers to choose a certain film stock because of the look it gave. With digital, tweaking the levels of exposure, noise, and colour balance of RAW files in software like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom* can achieve strikingly similar results.

Overall, Wanda's photo editing is modest. "After the shoot, I use Adobe Camera Raw* and Photoshop, but I try to edit as little as possible," she explains. "I don't like retouching the skin, or taking out certain elements unless the client specifically asks for it."

Wanda has been working as a professional photographer for nearly two decades, but her first solo exhibition came in 2021. It incorporated large-scale prints of her professional work as well as a more personal, conceptual project that was created during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.

"I created self-portraits referencing iconic paintings and heroines from the history of art, and I also started putting collages together using images and paint and fragments of text," explains Wanda. She printed these elements herself, using the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-300 and PIXMA TS5350 Series.

Although she is yet to try Canon's instant pocket-sized printers like the Canon Zoemini 2, Wanda believes this would be an interesting tool for her self-portrait projects because of the ability to add notes and doodles, and use the collage tools.

For larger prints, Wanda uses the imagePROGRAF PRO-300. It has an impressive array of 10 inks – nine coloured and one clear Chroma Optimizer – and she found that these produced vibrant and lifelike results. "The printer gives me stunning image quality, with a wide colour and tonal range," she says. "I love how accurately it replicates the tones I edit so carefully." Despite being capable of A3+ prints, it's compact enough to be used on a desktop.

The PIXMA TS5350 Series photo printer and scanner allowed Wanda to build her layered pieces with mixed media. "It was all about experimentation, trying out different settings, playing around with different sized images for the collages, and different papers," she says. She particularly enjoyed using the Canon Pro Luster LU-101 and Pro Premium Matte PM-101 papers.

Making darkroom prints is an incredibly tactile experience, and that's what Wanda wanted from this project. "I was interested in mixing different media, and the analogue feel to the images relates back again to my painterly inspiration and film experience," she says. "I wanted to make the viewers feel like they could peek into my inner thoughts."

Wanda's self-portraits had excellent clarity straight out of her Canon cameras, but she found a way to make them appear more gritty and filmic. "The Canon PIXMA TS5350 can produce great quality 10 x 15cm prints at up to 4800 x 1200 dpi. However, I sometimes used a lower quality setting deliberately to reduce the perfect sharpness of the files." This way, she was able to create a noisier, faded appearance resembling a traditional analogue darkroom print.

Canon's professional printers are compatible with papers from leading manufacturers such as Canson® Infinity papers and Hahnemühle, which opens up even more media options for photographers like Wanda. "Using Canon's free Professional Print & Layout software, I could easily soft proof my images for different papers and select the right profiles to get the exact results I wanted," she says.

In today's increasingly digital world, a continuing trend for the film aesthetic is emerging, as well as a hunger for physical prints. "This project has become an empowering form of self-reflection and art therapy," says Wanda. "As part of that art therapy, it was really important for me to work with my hands, using my printers at home." Canon has a rich heritage of photo printing, and its lineup will allow photographers to unleash their creativity long into the future.

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