What I do to be an eco-friendly wedding photographer
I was wondering what else is important to my couples, and I realised that I have not told you about what I do to be an eco-friendly wedding photographer.
I know that reducing the carbon footprint and have a sustainable wedding or handfasting is important to my couples. And I know that you expect me to do more than buy rainforest alliance certified coffee, recycle paper and reuse my water bottle. And I do!
Though, I admit, I do all of these things. Of course, I do!
I mean, these are just normal behaviours we all do. Right?
Having been part of the green movement almost all my life, considering the environmental impact has become second nature to me and I do a lot of different things, meaning this blog post could get reeeeaaally long.
So I have split this post into three, and will link each one to the next (and previous) as soon as I publish them. This is the first one. You can find the other parts here.
Before I go into the what I do, let me tell you why I became an eco-friendly wedding photographer.
Why I became and eco-friendly wedding photographer
I grew up on a defunct farm, with all animals being pets and fields full of crops to feed them.
We were surrounded by commercial farms, big and small. And if only one farm didn’t work environmentally responsibly, nature’s balance tipped, wildlife died and all the farms nearby suffered the effects.
Seeing this human impact on nature playing out right there in front of my eyes was a brutal way to learn that nature deserves our utmost respect and care.
I understood at a very young age that we all have to take responsibility for our actions and our impact on the environment.
This is why I do my best to be as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible, both, in my business and in my personal life.
Digital vs film photography and the environmental impact
The biggest impact of my business, of course, is how I produce my photos.
I photograph fully digital. And here is why:
The impact of film photography is quite obvious:
The film is plastic and can’t be recycled.
There is silver in the coating to make the film light sensitive.
Chemicals are needed to develop film.
And the process of developing film requires large amounts of clean water. Some of the silver from the film gets flushed off with the water.
There are strict guidelines of how to dispose of these chemicals, but traces of them and the silver have been found in the waste water near photo labs.
Unfortunately, sewage processing plants can’t filter either of these things out.
Is digital photography really eco-friendly?
So digital photography doesn’t require all that plastic and the chemicals, but does it mean it is totally green?
Digital cameras are small computers. They consist of more parts than film cameras.
Some of those parts are made from materials that are not the easiest to mine, meaning they carry their own environmental impact.
Luckily, more and more camera manufacturers are committing to using recycled materials rather than freshly mined materials in their cameras, which will help reduce the environmental impact of new digital cameras and the waste of old ones.
But digital cameras don’t last!
You might have heard the argument that the lifespan of a film camera is so much longer than that of a digital one. So much so that it offsets all the gains made in chemicals and water saved during film development. Is this actually true?
Yes and no!
A hobbyist photographer, who shoots 1000 or even 5 000 photos every year, will find that the software in their camera is obsolete long before any of the other parts fail. Meaning they will replace a fully functioning digital camera.
In a professional setting however, especially in event and wedding photography, this argument doesn’t stand.
Our digital cameras’ software doesn’t have time to become obsolete before we wear the camera out mechanically. And just to be clear, we wear out film cameras just as quickly. We just take so many photos!
I can easily take 50 000 photos in a year on each of my cameras. Imagine how many rolls of plastic film that would be, and what amount of chemicals and water would be needed to develop all those photos.
Scaling this up to the lifetime of a professionally used digital camera of roughly 5 years, that’s a lot of plastic, chemicals, and clean water.
So overall for a busy professional, digital photography is more eco-friendly than film. And that is why I shoot fully digital.
What else I am doing to to an eco-friendly wedding photographer
Switching from film to digital photography was the one big step I have taken to be more sustainable, but there are many more smaller things I can do (and do do) to reduce the environmental impact of my business.
I will talk about them in my next blog posts. Find them here!
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Bright blessings,
Handfasting And Pagan Wedding Photographer UK and EU
