The Analog film photography exhibition
"Light Telling the story: Distance and relationship"
Project
“Light Telling the Story” asks students to see in detail photography’s most foundational concept: light, and how its intensity or absence, its shapes and patterns, create human narrative and perspective in relationship and distance.
“Relationship/Distance” is a project that explores the photographer’s relationship to a subject through physical distance, that is, being close or far, and its effects on the feeling of connection both inside and outside of the image. Film, being a medium that inclines towards process, echoes the importance of physical presence and connection. This concept of Relationship/Distance exists in an infinite variation that tells a story about what we see, and how we feel and interact with the world. The students who participated in this month-and-a-half-long workshop were asked to explore this concept and present these works to the public.
Teaching Reflection
For students who were only experienced in digital photography, it was a step-by-step process to learn about film: loading, mixing chemicals, processing, scanning, and also waiting in anticipation to see their images. The students were given an array of basic cameras ranging from fully manual to fully auto, and six rolls of film for the 6-week course. They learned a mixture of theory in documentary practices, and also the practical hands-on experience of this very tactile and time-consuming medium. Many students found it difficult to shoot fully manual because of their habits with digital cameras, having numerous mistakes with underexposure, overexposure, and film processing but nevertheless found a new love and joy in the analog process, and the beauty of “accidents” in art. This medium, which forced them to slow down, made them understand more deeply the light coming through their lens and the moment in which they decided to click the shutter, being forced by the limitations of the 36 frames per roll to be more exact and decisive in their image making.
Bringing Back the Magic of Film Analog
The film lab's mission is to reignite the spirit of film photography in the Khmer photography community and to inspire a new generation of photographers to slow down, connect, and create with intention.
Through this program, young photographers will rediscover the beauty of analog, from the click of the shutter to the quiet magic of the darkroom. They’ll learn how to capture the soul of a moment on film, develop their own negatives by hand, scan their creations, and print using an enlarger, like the masters of the past.
This is more than photography; it’s about rediscovering patience, craft, and the joy of watching an image come to life under red light: where every frame tells a story, and every print carries the artist's soul.
The Exhibition
The Analog film photography exhibition "Light Telling the story: Distance and relationship" will be held from October 20th to November 10, 2025 with an official opening scheduled on Monday, October 20th from 6PM at the Studio Images - House of Photography. Through analog film photography, they explore how light reveals feelings, distance, and connections between people.
Free entry!
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