The Resurgence of Analogue Photography: Film, Travel and Ireland

Article Summary

What this article covers: How analogue photography works, why film has returned in the digital age, how it compares to digital, and where travellers can shoot, develop, and see historic film photography across Ireland.

Who this is for: Travellers thinking about taking a film camera on their next trip, beginners weighing analogue against digital, and anyone curious about Ireland’s photographic heritage.

Key takeaway: Analogue photography rewards travellers who slow down. A 36-exposure roll makes you choose what matters, and Ireland’s archives show that a well-kept negative can outlast the camera that made it by more than a century.

Expert insight: “When you only have thirty-six frames, you start reading a place before you photograph it: where the light lands on a harbour wall, when the rain is about to lift. That habit of looking is why so many travellers are going back to film,” Ciaran Connolly, Founder of ConnollyCove

Quick facts:

• Analogue photography records light chemically on film or glass plates, which are then developed into negatives, slides or prints.
• The National Library of Ireland’s Lawrence Collection holds roughly 40,000 glass plate negatives made by a Dublin studio between 1865 and 1914, largely for the tourist market.
• Belfast Exposed was founded in 1983 by local photographers in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, and it offers a darkroom for hire.

The resurgence of analogue photography in the digital age has sent a new generation of travellers back to film cameras, light meters and the small thrill of collecting an envelope of prints. Film records light chemically, and its limits change how you look at a place: a fixed number of frames, no screen to check, and a wait before you see anything. Ireland makes an unusually good case for shooting this way. It has soft, overcast Atlantic light, a long photographic tradition, and national archives full of Victorian glass plates that still print cleanly today.

This guide from ConnollyCove, the Ireland-based travel and culture platform, explains how film works and how analogue compares to digital. It covers which formats and film types suit changeable weather, and how to carry film safely through airports. It also points you to the places in Dublin, Belfast and Cork where you can see historic photographs and develop your own. If your interest in film is part of a wider pull towards records, cassettes and other older technology, our look at why retro technology is making a comeback covers that broader trend.

What Is Analogue Photography and How Does It Work?

Analogue photography is the practice of capturing images on light-sensitive film or glass plates. When light passes through the lens, it alters silver halide crystals in the film’s emulsion and forms a hidden, or latent, image. Chemical development then makes that image visible and permanent.

The word “analogue” describes the recording itself. Film captures light as a continuous physical change in the emulsion. A digital sensor measures light and converts it into numbers, stored as pixels.

From Latent Image to Negative

Nothing on an exposed roll is visible until it is developed. The standard black-and-white workflow has four stages.

1. Developer turns the exposed crystals into metallic silver, which reveals the image.
2. Stop bath halts development at the right moment.
3. Fixer removes the unexposed crystals so the image no longer reacts to light.
4. Washing clears the remaining chemistry from the film.

To make a print, the negative is projected through an enlarger onto light-sensitive paper. The paper then goes through a similar chemical sequence. Colour film follows the same principle with different chemistry, which is why most people send colour rolls to a lab.

A Short History in Three Names

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce made the earliest surviving camera photograph in France in the 1820s. In England, William Henry Fox Talbot developed the negative-positive process at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. That process let one negative produce many prints, and it is the direct ancestor of the film negative. George Eastman’s first Kodak camera, sold in 1888, came pre-loaded with film. Owners posted the whole camera back for developing, and photography became something ordinary families could do. Several of England’s major art museums now hold early photographs alongside paintings, which is worth knowing if you are planning a gallery trip.

Irish has its own word for all this. A photograph is a grianghraf, joining grian (the sun) to graf, from the same Greek root as the English word. Photography itself is grianghrafadóireacht. Like many of the old sayings in our guide to Irish proverbs and seanfhocail, the word carries a small picture inside it: a photograph as something drawn by sunlight.

Why Is Film Photography Popular Again?

Film is popular again for two reasons. Its limits create a slower, more deliberate way of seeing. And a physical negative feels permanent in a way a phone gallery rarely does. The appeal is partly aesthetic, with film’s grain and colour, and partly practical, with a finished object you can hold.

Fewer Frames, More Attention

A 35mm roll gives you 24 or 36 exposures, and each one costs money to buy and develop. That constraint changes behaviour. You wait for someone to step into the light, walk ten metres for a better angle, or skip a shot you would have taken without thinking on a phone. Many photographers describe this as the main attraction: film makes you choose.

Grain adds to the appeal. Black-and-white film has a fine, irregular texture that many people find more natural than digital noise. Colour negative film handles bright highlights gently. Manufacturers have responded to renewed demand by reissuing discontinued emulsions and releasing new ones, and second-hand cameras from the 1970s and 1980s trade at prices that would have seemed unlikely fifteen years ago.

The Negative as an Archive

A properly stored negative needs no software, no charger, and no cloud account to be read. Ireland has two striking examples. The first is the collection of Father Francis Browne, the Jesuit photographer who sailed on the Titanic from Southampton to Queenstown in April 1912. After the sinking, his photographs appeared on newspaper front pages around the world. You can see his images of life on board in one of the galleries at Titanic Belfast.

The second is the Lawrence Collection in Dublin, covered in detail below. Both collections were made on glass plates or film long before digital storage existed. Both are still being printed, scanned, and studied today.

Analogue vs Digital Photography: How Do They Compare?

Analogue and digital photography record the same light in different ways. Film trades convenience for a slower process and a physical original, while digital trades that physical original for speed and flexibility. Neither is better in every situation, which is why many travellers now carry both.

Factor	Analogue (film)	Digital
Capture medium	Silver halide emulsion on film or plate	Electronic sensor recording pixels
Seeing your results	After developing, from hours to weeks later	Instantly on screen
Cost per frame	Every frame costs film plus processing	Close to nothing once you own the camera
Exposure tolerance	Colour negative film is forgiving of overexposure	Blown highlights are hard to recover
Changing sensitivity	Fixed ISO per roll	Change ISO frame by frame
Long-term storage	Physical negative, readable with light alone	Files need backups and format migration
Pace	Slow and deliberate	Fast, encourages many frames

The comparison shows why the two work well together. A common hybrid approach is to shoot film and then scan the negatives, either at a lab or at home with a flatbed or a digital camera and a light source. You keep the film’s look and the physical original while gaining files you can share and back up. Professional studios have used this approach for years. For a traveller, it means your negatives stay safe in a drawer while the scans go to family and friends.

Technical choices still matter on both systems. Aperture controls depth of field: f/1.4 blurs the background behind a portrait, while f/16 keeps a whole landscape sharp. Shutter speed controls motion: 1/1000 of a second freezes a wave hitting a pier, and 1/15 of a second turns a waterfall into a soft blur. On film, you cannot check the result, so understanding these settings before you travel pays off.

Film Formats and Film Types for Changeable Weather

For most travellers, a 35mm camera loaded with ISO 400 film is the most practical starting point. It is compact and forgiving, and fast enough for grey days. Medium and large formats give more detail but add weight and cost.

Formats Explained

35mm (also called 135) is the standard small format, with 24 or 36 frames per roll. It is the easiest film to buy and process worldwide.

120 medium format uses a wider roll without perforations. Depending on the camera, you get between 8 and 16 frames, and the larger negative holds far more detail for big prints.

Large format uses individual sheets, often 4×5 inches. It suits careful landscape and architecture work from a tripod, not quick street photography.

Choosing a Film Type

Film type	Chemistry	Typical ISO	Best travel use
Black-and-white negative	Traditional silver process	400	Overcast days, street scenes, stone buildings
Colour negative	C-41	200 to 400	Everyday travel, mixed light, portraits
Colour slide (reversal)	E-6	100	Bright, even light; strong colour
Tungsten-balanced colour	Usually C-41	800	City evenings under street lights

Slide film is the least forgiving of exposure mistakes, so save it for when you are confident with your meter. Colour negative film is the most tolerant choice for a first trip.

Shooting Under Irish Skies

Ireland’s light is soft, changeable and often overcast, and film handles it well once you choose the right sensitivity. ISO 400 film gives you workable shutter speeds under cloud, and winter daylight is short enough that slower film can struggle by mid-afternoon. Our guide to visiting Ireland in February covers what a winter trip looks like in practice.

Contrast filters need honest expectations. Yellow, orange and red filters darken blue sky on black-and-white film and make clouds stand out. Under complete, flat overcast, there is little blue to darken, so a filter does much less. Filters work best on broken-cloud days, which the west coast delivers often. The light along the Wild Atlantic Way can shift within minutes, so keep the camera ready when a squall clears.

Choosing and Checking a Second-Hand Film Camera

Most film cameras sold today are decades old, so check the mechanics before buying. A tested camera from a reputable seller costs more but saves wasted rolls.

The main types are single-lens reflex cameras (SLRs), rangefinders, and compacts. An SLR shows you the view through the lens and accepts interchangeable lenses. A rangefinder is quieter and smaller, with a separate viewfinder, and it suits street photography. A compact point-and-shoot is the lightest option for travel and handles focus and exposure for you.

Before you buy, run through these checks:

• Shutter: fire it at the slowest speed and listen. One second should sound clearly longer than half a second.
• Lens: shine a torch through it and look for fungus threads, haze or deep scratches.
• Aperture blades: they should be dry and snap closed. Oily blades stick.
• Battery compartment: look for green or white corrosion.
• Light seals: foam around the back door should be intact, not sticky or crumbling.
• Film advance: the lever or motor should move smoothly with no grinding.

Ireland’s Film Photography Heritage: Where to See It

Ireland’s photographic history gives travellers real places to visit. The three most rewarding are the National Library of Ireland’s photographic collections in Dublin, the Father Browne story in Cork and Belfast, and Belfast Exposed in the Cathedral Quarter.

The Lawrence Collection and the National Photographic Archive

The Lawrence Collection is the richest visual record of Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century. It comprises about 40,000 glass plate negatives made by the Lawrence studios of Dublin, largely for the tourist trade. Most of the outdoor images were taken by Robert French, the studio’s chief photographer. Many were sold locally as picture postcards between 1900 and 1914, which makes the collection an early chapter in Irish travel photography.

The collection nearly didn’t survive. When the studio on Sackville Street burned during the Easter Rising in 1916, most portrait negatives were lost. The topographical plates were stored in Rathmines and escaped, and the National Library acquired them in 1943. You can search the scanned images through the National Library of Ireland’s photographic collections.

Visitors can explore Irish photography in person at Meeting House Square in Dublin’s Temple Bar district, where the National Photographic Archive and Photo Museum Ireland are neighbours. Pair a visit with the other highlights in our guide to what to see in Dublin city. For contemporary Irish photographic art, our A to Z of Irish artists includes photographers whose work hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland.

Father Browne’s Titanic Photographs

Father Browne’s photographs are the most famous images of life aboard the Titanic, and they almost disappeared. Browne left the ship at Queenstown, now Cobh, before it crossed the Atlantic. Decades after his death, Fr Edward O’Donnell SJ found a tin trunk in the Jesuit archives holding around 42,000 negatives, the Titanic album among them. Cobh was the ship’s final port of call, and our guide to things to do in Cobh covers the town’s harbour, heritage centre and emigration history.

Belfast Exposed and the Cathedral Quarter

Belfast Exposed is Northern Ireland’s key gallery for contemporary photography, and it is one of the few places in Ireland where a visitor can hire a darkroom. It was founded to challenge how mass media represented the city during the Troubles. It is best known for community photography, and it holds an archive of around half a million images.

The gallery is in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, so a visit fits easily into a day in the city centre. If you plan to photograph the city’s murals and walls, read our guide to photographing the Belfast Peace Wall respectfully first. An exhibition and a darkroom session also make a good low-cost addition to our list of affordable date ideas in Belfast.

Shooting Film on Your Travels: Airports, Labs and Costs

Travelling with film takes a little planning in three areas: getting rolls through airport security, finding somewhere to develop them, and knowing what each frame really costs.

Carrying Film Through Airport Security

Keep all film, exposed and unexposed, in your hand luggage, and ask for a hand inspection at security. Checked-baggage scanners are more powerful than cabin scanners. Film manufacturers have warned that the CT scanners now used at many checkpoints can fog unprocessed film. Carry rolls in a clear bag, out of their boxes, so staff can check them quickly. Security teams are not always obliged to grant a hand search, so allow extra time. High-speed films of ISO 800 and above are the most vulnerable.

Developing on the Road: Labs, Home Tanks and Safe Disposal

You can still get film developed easily. Many cities have independent labs, and postal labs across the UK and Ireland will return scans by email and negatives by post. If you would rather wait until you get home, keep exposed rolls cool and dry and develop them within a few weeks.

Home development of black-and-white film needs no darkroom: a light-tight changing bag, a developing tank, a thermometer and three chemicals will do. Used fixer contains dissolved silver, so don’t pour it down the drain. Ask your local council or a photo lab how to dispose of it.

Working Out the Cost Per Frame

Film’s running cost is easy to calculate. Add the price of a roll to the price of developing and scanning it, then divide by the number of frames. For example, if a roll and its processing together cost £25, a 36-exposure roll works out at roughly 70p per frame. Prices vary by film type and lab, so check current rates before you set a travel budget.

Celtic Connections: Photographing Ireland’s Storied Places

Film suits Ireland’s mythological sites particularly well, because these places reward patience and changeable light. Our readers often combine a film camera with a heritage itinerary, and the Lawrence Collection makes a good starting point for a then-and-now project.

The National Library’s catalogue tags Lawrence images by county, including Cork, Kerry, Antrim and Down. Find a Lawrence view of a town on your route, stand where Robert French set up his camera, and rephotograph the scene on black-and-white film. The comparison shows what a century has changed and what it hasn’t. A drive around the Dingle Peninsula or a loop through the country’s best-known Irish landmarks gives plenty of candidates.

The same approach works at quieter sites. Lone hawthorns in fields, which our guide to Irish fairy trees explains, photograph well in soft light on monochrome film. Many coastal and bog landscapes are tied to stories in our guide to legendary creatures from Celtic mythology. For the written side of those stories, including the seanchaí tradition, see our piece on how Irish myth survived through literary texts.

“A Lawrence plate and a roll of film shot from the same spot a hundred years apart tell you more about a town than any guidebook paragraph. The shopfronts change, the chapel spire stays, and suddenly you can see how the place has lived,” Ciaran Connolly, Founder of ConnollyCove.

Explore More Irish Heritage

Analogue photography gives you a reason to slow down, and Ireland gives you a century of photographic history to measure your own frames against. Pack ISO 400 film, keep your rolls in your hand luggage, and build a day around the archives in Dublin, Cobh or Belfast. ConnollyCove covers Irish traditions, heritage sites and destinations to help travellers connect with the places behind the pictures. Continue with our guide to the country’s most scenic routes to drive in Ireland, explore early moving images at the cinema museums around the world, or watch our YouTube videos documenting Irish heritage first-hand.

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