Film photography and mediated representation

In theory, digital images should be better than film photos. In photography, the light hits the film and causes a chemical reaction, which produces a physical artefact on film emulsion: the image is then reproduced by passing light through the negative to form a print via another chemical process. Finally, you see the image by light reflected off the print. On the other hand, in digital photography, light hits a sensor, is converted to electrons and represented as a file; when you want to see it, that process is reversed, with the file interpreted to reproduce an array of pixels on a screen, which directly emit light into your eyes.

So digital is more direct, less mediated, more “pure” in a way. Whereas with film, you’re seeing a representation in light, of a representation via light, of a representation in light - 3 removes. And, as in this case, if the film is scanned in, there is one more remove.

But I still prefer film. It is entirely possible this is a historical thing: I grew up with film, and it seems “normal” to me (in the same way old movies running film at 24fps seem natural while 4K resolution running at 60fps seems unreal). But I think it might be more than that. Something about the process in film, the very fact that the process is mediated several times over. The mediation is where something gets added to the image that makes it more than just a recording of the light at an instant in time - otherwise photography would be nothing more than what CCTV cameras do.