Film Photography Interviews – Developing Stories Berlin

A man opens his arms beneath doves painted on the Berlin Wall.

Carlo Starita — Where a Gesture Meets the City

Carlo Starita follows a gesture at the East Side Gallery into Berlin’s trains and galleries, photographing encounters on film and developing his own negatives. Read more...

Red rock lit against a starry sky and dark trees.

Brian Smith — Returning to Photography with Old Cameras and Lenses

Brian Smith remembers photographing a familiar face in Madrid, learning to carry a second camera and finding his way back to film through The Noisy Shutter. Read more...

Sunlight falls across a walkway between graffiti-covered arches and glass windows.

Veronika Zaets — Looking for Berlin in Its Windows

Veronika Zaets photographs Berlin on film, finding reflections near Kino Babylon, studying light on her walks and making portraits of friends. Read more...

A crowd dancing outdoors beneath trees during a daytime DJ set, with visible motion blur.

Developing Stories: Hubert Espeisse — The Pictures He Once Called Mistakes

Hubert Espeisse on his mother’s Canon AF35M II, the pleasure of photographing friends and family, and the blurred frames that became his favourites. Read more...

First Winter, Berlin, Germany, 2024 — photograph by Shristi Dutta

Developing Stories: Shristi Dutta — Building a Personal Map of Berlin

Shristi Dutta on moving from India to Berlin, friendship at Schlachtensee, family photographs, analogue memory and her project In Between. Read more...

An orange car passes in front of a blue bus near Plaza de Mayo.

Developing Stories: Seniscero — Seeing Buenos Aires as a Visitor

Seniscero explores Buenos Aires with digital and film cameras, finding unfamiliar views in familiar streets and a different sense of time in Chacarita. Read more...

White-stone church with a green dome framed by trees

Developing Stories: Oleg Afanasyev — Making Time for the Camera Again

Oleg Afanasyev on returning to film photography after fifteen years, walking through Moscow and making space for a slower weekend. Read more...

Amut lake and surrounding forest in infrared trichrome.

Developing Stories: Vasily — Finding the Unexpected in Everyday Life

Vasily photographs everyday life, familiar streets and journeys with a camera close at hand. In this written interview, he reflects on infrared photography, reversal film and learning from unexpected results.How... Read more...

Total Solar Eclipse, lumen print, 2024 — Kate Young

Developing Stories: Kate Young — In the Eye of the Storm

Kate Young uses cyanotype, lumen printing and other slow photographic processes to let sunlight, water, plants and atmosphere participate in the image—and to create moments of calm inside an accelerating... Read more...

Photograph by Andrea Fanchin, Olympus OM-1 on Push 800

Developing Stories: Andrea Fanchin — From the Stomach and the Heart

Andrea Fanchin on inheriting his father’s Olympus OM-1, building an accidental archive of the 1980s, slowing down with medium format, searching for cinema in ECN-2 and following the photographic impulse... Read more...

A cat looking towards the camera with its tongue curled beside its nose, against a softly blurred street background.

Developing Stories: Orel Robert — Making Time to Notice

Orel Robert / ORX Visuals on learning through everyday observation, photographing with an iPhone and finding time for a creative practice alongside work. Read more...

A building surrounded by scaffolding beside a street, with turquoise and warm colour shifts.

Developing Stories: An Sen — A Memory Inside a Memory

An Sen on a birthday photograph, the freedom to make imperfect pictures, and keeping a visual diary across film, digital and a move from Vietnam to the United States. Read more...

A person holds a record with an eye on its label in front of their face, surrounded by music posters.

Developing Stories: Chihiro Sugita — The World Within Five Metres

Osaka-based photographer Chihiro Sugita on family albums, life close to home, a Hiroshima zine and why a photograph’s meaning can change without its value diminishing. Read more...

A long green-lit underground passage with columns receding towards the centre.

Developing Stories: Adrian / aka_papu — Learning to See a Roll Differently

Adrian / aka_papu on the engineer’s eye for urban geometry, the disappointment that can follow a new roll, and photographs that become favourites a few days later. Read more...

A close self-portrait with one pale eye, a hand and red-edged dark fabric against a dark background.

Developing Stories: Tanya Fishmann — What Remains After the Ritual

Tanya Fishmann on Phoenix, the difference between a ritual and its photographic traces, and why a self-portrait can reveal a meaning years after it was made. Read more...

Yellow trams stand side by side on tracks between city buildings.

Developing Stories: Rodrigo — The Longer You Wait, the More Precious It Becomes

Rodrigo on cats, cityscapes, the Olympus Trip 35, exploring Berlin through photowalks and why photographs become more valuable as memories move further away. Read more...

Colourful market umbrellas and stalls line a busy street beside a bus.

Developing Stories: Costanza Parigi — Colour Is an Interpretation

Costanza Parigi on colour as interpretation, forgetting what is on a roll, double exposure, visual anthropology and photographing the street life of Belém and Manaus. Read more...

An orange sunset glows behind dark silhouettes of pine trees.

Developing Stories — Selen: Learning to Notice What Is Already There

A written conversation with Berlin-based photographer Selen about everyday moments, trying film stocks and learning to notice without turning a hobby into pressure. Read more...

An orange lifebuoy and a rope floating on dark water beside a pier.

Developing Stories — Naima El Hawary: Seeing the Familiar Again

Naima El Hawary on returning to Germany, finding a photography community through PolaWalk and discovering what film can reveal in familiar places. Read more...

A person standing on a sunlit pavement in front of a building.

Developing Stories — anton sheyn: Finding Yourself in the Everyday

From a rediscovered Lubitel to everyday train journeys and self-portraits, anton sheyn is building a film photography diary of Berlin by following what catches his attention. Read more...

Black-and-white portrait of a woman with closed eyes and hair sweeping to one side.

Developing Stories: Luca Mazzara — Making Time Visible

Luca Mazzara on long-exposure portraits, building trust before a session, choosing the finished image and preserving the gestures of artisans through Guardians of Time. Read more...

A person sits in shadow beside a sunlit brick wall on a narrow street.

Developing Stories — Alejandra Quintana: The Photograph Stays, We Change

Alejandra Quintana on the people a project brings into your life, the pull of familiar places, and photographs whose meaning only becomes clear with time. Read more...

Tyjae skateboarding on a concrete ramp with the Golden Gate Bridge behind him.

Developing Stories — Ethan Allen: Geometry, Skateboarding and Room for Memory

Ethan Allen on how skateboarding shaped his architectural photography, ten years of Romance in Geometry, and making room for photographs that preserve everyday memories. Read more...

Photograph by Philipp Schaefer: 02s Kopie.JPG

Developing Stories: Philipp Schaefer — The Materialization of a Wink

Philipp Schaefer on faces, family, urban spaces and why film turns a fleeting moment into a physical negative. Read more...

Photograph by Tereza Vondrackova: IMG_1131.webp

Developing Stories: Tereza Vondrackova — Returning to the Present

Tereza Vondrackova returned to analogue photography around thirty and found a familiar way of making memories: one rooted in childhood cameras, neighbourhood life in Wedding, travel and the intimacy of... Read more...

Photograph by Grégoire Huret: GrégoireHuret_5_Paris_LeicaM6_KodakTriX.jpg

Developing Stories: Grégoire Huret — Many Hours of Walking

Grégoire Huret photographs Paris by walking: faces, clothes, gestures, fashion-week crowds and the strange accidents that make street photography feel like a record of its time. Read more...

Photograph by Bryan Garris: Early Morning at Castleberry Bridge (2024) - Bryan Garris.jpg

Developing Stories: Bryan Garris — Returning Until a Place Reveals Itself

Bryan Garris photographs landscapes by returning to them again and again, building memory through film, handmade prints and the conviction that meaningful places are often closer than we think. Read more...

Developing Stories: Eldin van Hengst — Creating from a Lighter Place

Eldin van Hengst, working as Diginaat, built a photographic language around vulnerability, imperfection and intense emotion. Now a happier chapter is asking him to discover what his art becomes when... Read more...

Photograph by Jung Ho Do: 10_Direction.jpg

Developing Stories: Jung Ho Do — A Discipline of Subtraction

Jung Ho Do photographs the streets of Old Québec by taking things away: waiting for light, reducing distraction, and looking for the instant when an ordinary scene becomes a story. Read more...

Developing Stories: Susan Eline — The Subject Doesn’t Change, the Lens Does

Susan Eline’s portrait practice grew from inherited cameras and Amsterdam’s music scene. Now she is using different photographic devices to explore identity, perception and the many versions of a person... Read more...

Developing Stories: Brandon Langiano — Relearning How to See

After years in Europe, Brandon Langiano’s return to Tasmania forced him to separate his photographic eye from the cities that had shaped it—and to begin again more slowly. Read more...

$“Autorefractor No. 1” — photograph by Anthony Porcaro$

Developing Stories: Anthony Porcaro — When Fiction Becomes Chemical Evidence

Anthony Porcaro builds fictional scenes and then subjects them to wet-plate collodion, using the physical evidence of chemistry to question what makes a photograph feel truthful. Read more...

Photograph by Alexandra Fuller: Great Good Fortune_D

Developing Stories: Alexandra Fuller — The Looking Is the Whole Point

For Alexandra Fuller, sustained attention is a form of care. Her photographs of landscape, animals, traces and openings grow from a life spent writing, filmmaking and learning how to stay... Read more...

Developing Stories: Miguel Inzunza — Slowing Down Enough to Notice

Miguel Inzunza reflects on analogue photography as a way to slow down, notice everyday life and turn ordinary moments into memory. Read more...

Developing Stories: Rori — What We Keep When Ordinary Life Becomes Memory

For Rori, photography is less about forcing a project than allowing everyday images to gather meaning over time—from family memories in Indonesia to a slower film practice in Japan. Read more...

Developing Stories: Nick Carver — Photographing What Everyone Else Drives Past

Nick Carver uses slow analogue processes to photograph overlooked buildings and ordinary urban scenes—the places most people pass without a second thought, often just before they disappear. Read more...

Photograph by Rocío Tenaglia: R1-01512-0036.jpeg

Developing Stories: Rocío Tenaglia — The Homes We Carry

Rocío Tenaglia photographs people, homes, plants and cities through intuition, using film as a way to hold together memory, movement, love and the changing meaning of home. Read more...

Photograph by Yuliya Panchenko: Episode 4

Developing Stories: Yuliya Panchenko — Rebuilding a Missing History

Yuliya Panchenko’s Forbidden Frames project uses 100 cameras across roughly a century of photographic history to ask what intimate photography might have looked like—and why so much of that history... Read more...

Photograph by Sebastián Neira González: 0011.jpg

Developing Stories: Sebastián Neira González — The City Is Alive and I’m Part of It

For Sebastián Neira González, analogue photography interrupts routine. From Santiago and Valparaíso to his first months in Berlin, the camera is a way to slow down, enter the street and... Read more...

Photograph by Manuel Guerzoni: L1006113.small.jpg

Developing Stories: Manuel Guerzoni — Precision as Respect

Manuel Guerzoni uses photography to quiet his own internal noise and turn his attention toward social fractures in the United States, treating technical precision as a form of respect for... Read more...

Wet-plate portrait by John Hoare: Sophie Rivers

Developing Stories: John Hoare — The Theatre of the Plate

John Hoare on wet-plate collodion, slow portraiture, chemistry, theatre and the pleasure of making one physical image at a time. Read more...

Photograph by Hazal Karadag: 2023 hamburg.JPG

Developing Stories: Hazal Karadag — Giving Ordinary Things More Importance

Hazal Karadag photographs colours, animals, people and small neighbourhood details on film, turning chance encounters into markers of places and periods she wants to remember. Read more...

Photograph by Adrian Lee: dried plants - ade lee 5x7 black glass ambrotype.jpg

Developing Stories: Adrian Lee — The Making Is as Important as the Result

Adrian Lee on wet-plate collodion as craft, history, chemistry, collaboration, failure and a way of making photographs from scratch. Read more...

Photograph by Felipe Tofani: FelipeTofani_2025_P-Berg.jpg

Developing Stories: Felipe Tofani — Finding Your Own Way Through Berlin

Felipe Tofani returned to film during the pandemic, drawn to its slowness, experimentation and ability to turn a developed roll into a trip back in time. Berlin became the city... Read more...

Photograph by Mike Weinberg: The Greatest_Brooklyn, NYC_2024_Portra 400

Developing Stories: Mike Weinberg — The Journey Is the Destination

Mike Weinberg on film photography as presence, meditation, patience and a way of getting lost in the world rather than in thought. Read more...

Photograph by Grant Bayley: 20251126-DSC_3081.jpg

Developing Stories: Grant Bayley — The iPhone Is Temporary

Grant Bayley on analogue photography, family archives, inherited cameras and why physical memories matter in a digital life. Read more...

Developing Stories: Camille — Letting Go of the Picture You Expected

Camille on an imperfect Hong Kong roll, photographing Berlin more closely and learning to value pictures that become better through surprise. Read more...

Photograph by Angela Donatelli Dugger: 1_Light_Drawing.jpg

Developing Stories: Angela Donatelli Dugger — When You Slow Down, You See Hope

Angela Donatelli Dugger on microscopy, nature, memory, liminal spaces, wet cyanotypes and the discoveries that happen when rules are treated as invitations to experiment. Read more...

Photograph by Alfred Aedo: DSC06423-29.jpg

Developing Stories: Alfred Aedo — What Is Outside the Frame

Alfred Aedo on photography as a mediator between inner life and the world, the influence of Chiloé, family, migration and the everyday relationships that exist outside the frame. Read more...

Photograph by Paul Pietrek: paulpietrek-5.jpg

Developing Stories: Paul Pietrek — Grain Over Pixels

Paul Pietrek’s analogue practice grew from a Canon AE-1, flea-market cameras and seven years of experimenting alongside his roommate Eric. Around Leopoldplatz, film is both a neighbourhood diary and a... Read more...