Why Film Photos Make Travel Feel Different

It’s been a month since I returned from my solo trip to Switzerland. I shared some notes about it and published a couple of photos from the mountains (digital), but now I finally got my film scans back! In total, I shot like 7 rolls of film, and not all of them turned out the way I wanted, but still a lot look amazing.

It felt strange, because the trip already happened. I was there. I saw the mountains, walked through the villages, stood beside the lakes, took the photos, came home, unpacked my bag, and returned to normal life.

But film has this odd way of delaying the experience. You do not get the image immediately. You do not check it, correct it, delete it, retake it, and move on. You press the shutter, and then you have to trust that something stayed (or hope).

The photo only exists as a memory.

And then, days or weeks later, it comes back to you. Close enough to make you feel something again.

Digital photos are instant.

That is useful, obviously. I love being able to see whether I got the shot. I love the control of it. The sharpness. The convenience. The feeling that I can keep adjusting until the image matches what I had in my head.

But film does something else. Not everyone understands this feeling. Especially if you’re not a photographer.

You are not standing there in Switzerland trying to perfect every little thing. You are not checking the screen after every shot. You are not deciding immediately whether the moment was worth keeping. You just take the photo. Then you move on.

That feels small, but it changes the way you move through a place. In Switzerland, especially, that matters. The mountains already make you feel like you should slow down. Everything is too large to fully take in at once. The light shifts constantly. A cloud moves, a peak disappears, a lake changes color, and suddenly the same place feels different.

When I opened the scans, I noticed that some of the photos were not technically perfect. A few were softer than I would normally like. Some had strange light. Some felt slightly imperfect in a way I probably would have corrected if I had taken them digitally. And some had just terribly failed.

But it’s okay. Because memory is not sharp either. When I think back on a trip, I do not remember everything in clean resolution. I remember small parts. Like a puzzle.

The way the morning light hit the side of a mountain - that’s so good to watch. I could sit there all day.

Or the sounds when you walk through these mountain towns: cow bells, water streams, hikers moving their boots: heaven. The strange mix of peace and sadness you get when you are somewhere beautiful and already aware that you will have to leave.

I only had 6 days.

That sounds like enough when you are planning the trip. Six days in Switzerland. Six days in the mountains. Six days away from the normal rhythm of life.

But once you are there, it starts to feel very short.

Not because you need to do more. But because you just want to stay with that feeling a little longer.

I still love digital photography.

I love the precision of it. I love editing. I love knowing when I got the shot. I love being able to come home with hundreds of images and build a visual story from them.

I love having the opportunity to shoot endlessly.

Because film is really expensive.

But shooting analogue is just a different vibe. When I look at these photos now, I do not just think: this is Gimmelwald, this is Lauterbrunnen, this is Mürren, this is Montreux. I can feel that moment again.

You take a photo, and the feeling gets embedded in that photo because it’s so precious.